Charlie Spivak's band was owned by Glenn Miller?

Bandleader Charlie Spivak is remembered for playing a brilliant open horn, which press agents called the sweetest trumpet" in the world.

In reading about Charlie and his start as a bandleader, after a number of years as a sideman in Ben Pollock's band with Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman, plus Ray Nobles's band (created by Glenn Miller) and others, we are once again confronted with the question of "Who actually owned many of the Big Bands?"

Tommy Dorsey, for example, "loaned" Glenn Miller the funds to start his second band. The story goes that when Glenn went to pay Dorsey back....Tommy said "pay me back!...I bought a piece of your band!" Glenn politely said "no way."

Now we find Glenn in a reverse role with Charle Spivak. Glenn was one of Charlie Spivak's close friends, whom he could turn to for advice on being a bandleader. When Spivak organized his own group in late 1939, Glenn Miller not only helped select the band members, but also financed the band according to one of Spivak's singers, Gary Stevens.(died age 93 on 12/8/2009) .

Did Miller now own a piece of the Spivak band? Anyone have more info?

Shop for big band music: Memory Lane Shop

40th All Star Jazz concert in Madison New Jersey

NEW JERSEY JAZZ SOCIETY PRESENTS 40TH ANNIVERSARY ALL-STAR CONCERT DREW UNIVERSITY ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 27

Morristown, NJ – The New Jersey Jazz Society will celebrate its 40th Anniversary with an All-Star Jam and Reception at the Dorothy Young Center for the Arts at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey on Sunday, January 27 at 3:00 p.m. The concert was rescheduled due to Hurricane Sandy. The all-star celebration will feature 24 of the finest jazz musicians and singers on the scene today, all of whom have an association with the Jazz Society. Four groups of five to seven artists each will perform. The leaders of each ensemble will include cornetist Warren Vaché, trumpeter/vocalist Bria Skonberg, saxophonist Bob Ackerman and trombonist Emily Asher. The musicians slated to perform include vocalists Roseanna Vitro (2012 Grammy nominee), Nancy Nelson, Marlene VerPlanck and Pam Purvis; pianists Rio Clemente, Norman Simmons, and Tomoko Ohno; drummers Winard Harper, Sherrie Maricleand Jackie Williams, horn players Randy Reinhart, Peter Anderson, Will Anderson, Tom Artin, Dan Levinson; guitarist James Chirillo and bassists Nicki Parrott and Jon Burr. A wine and cheese reception will immediately follow in the rotunda and wings of the arts center where a collection of memorabilia from the 40-year history will be displayed and where the artists will join with the attendees while emerging jazz stars pianist Billy Test and guitarist Adam Lomeo entertain. Tickets are on sale through the NJJS website at www.njjs.org or by calling 908-273-7827. Tickets in advance are $30.00 for NJJS members and $35.00 for nonmembers. At the door, prices will be $5 more. Drew University is conveniently located on Route 124 in Madison and parking is free. Led by its first president Jack Stine of Pluckemin, the New Jersey Jazz Society was formed by a group of 18 jazz enthusiasts, who were regulars at the weekly jazz gigs at the Hillside Lounge in Chester. The mission of the Jazz Society is to promote and preserve the great American musical art form known as jazz through live performances and educational outreach initiatives and scholarships. The NJJS runs several major annual events, monthly performance socials at Shanghai Jazz in Madison and co-sponsors numerous other events throughout the year. It boasts nearly 900 members, publishes an award-winning magazine, conducts in-school jazz education programs, administers the American Jazz Hall of Fame and funds jazz studies scholarships at New Jersey colleges. The NJJS is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization and contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Benny Goodman tribute at New Jersey Jazz Fest

Swing jazz is headed for Hackettstown, New Jersey's Centenary Stage in the form of a Benny Goodman Tribute from the Stan Rubin Orchestra.

Stan Rubin will  make his way to the Centenary Stage to lead the Benny Goodman Tribute on Saturday, January 12 at 8 P.M.,  when the Stan Rubin Orchestra arrives with  its 15 piece big band to launch the January Jazz Fest in Hackettstown.

Bandleader, conductor, and clarinetist,  the legendary Benny Goodman is  synonymous with swing and big band jazz orchestra. With a career spanning over 50 years, Goodman worked with such legendary jazz performers such as Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Mildred Bailey, Bessie Smith and countless others. His following of fans and music enthusiasts has kept Benny Goodman’s name and legend an ever-present staple in jazz and swing music.

Celebrating the life and music of Benny Goodman is the acclaimed Stan Rubin Orchestra featuring bandleader, Herb Gardner. Stan Rubin, widely known as the foremost preserver of the swing style, enjoys his strong roots in the state of New Jersey, from his early days at Blair Academy in Blairstown, to his graduation from Princeton University, where the jazz band he started when he didn’t make the basketball team was eventually invited to perform for Grace Kelly’s wedding to the Prince of Moraco, which changed everything for Rubin.

Rubin  has invested $300,000 of his own money into a library of swing, a collection of the arrangements played by the likes of Goodman, the Dorsey Brothers, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Harry James and a half-dozen others who swung America from the 1930s into the early 50s.
"The beauty of big-band swing is that it combines musical structure with improvisation, the hallmark of jazz, but swing doesn't abandon the melody like some modern jazz”– Stan Rubin
Bandleader Herb Gardner has performed with a renown roster of jazz luminaries, including Wynton Marsalis, Doc Cheatham, Max Kaminsky, Gene Krupa, Roy Eldridge and more.  He  toured with popular jazz performers Wild Bill Davison, Kenny Davern and Dick Wellstood.    While serving as co-leader of Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, Gardner played at George Bush’s inauguration and Bill Clinton’s victory party.

Tickets for the Benny Goodman Tribute with Stan Rubin Orchestra are about $ 27.50 in advance, with discounts for seniors and students.   A January Jazz Fest “Flex Pass”, offered at $66,  is available for all three concerts, which includes The Kathy Kosins Trio tribute “To the Ladies of Cool” on January 19, and  The Hot Club of Detroit on Jan 26.

Tickets are available through the Centenary Stage Company box office at 715 Grand Avenue, open 1-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and two hours prior to each performance. Tickets may also be purchased online at www.centenarystageco.org or by calling the box office at 908-979-0900. The venue is about one hour west of Manhattan via U.S. 80.

The Singin' Rage is gone

The Singin' Rage Miss Patti Page has died. Clara Ann Fowler (November 8, 1927 - January 1, 2013), known by her professional name Patti Page, was one of the best-known female artists in traditional pop music. She was the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, and sold over 100 million records.
Page signed with Mercury Records in 1947, and became their first successful female artist, starting with 1948's "Confess".

In 1950, she had her first million-selling single "With My Eyes Wide Open, I'm Dreaming", and would eventually have 14 additional million-selling singles between 1950 and 1965.
Page's signature song, "Tennessee Waltz", recorded in 1950, was one of the biggest-selling singles of the 20th century, and is also one of the two official state songs of Tennessee. "Tennessee Waltz" spent 13 weeks atop the Billboard magazine's Best-Sellers List in 1950. Page had three additional No. 1 hit singles between 1950 and 1953, with "All My Love (Bolero)", "I Went to Your Wedding", and "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window".

Unlike most pop music singers, Page blended the styles of country music into many of her most popular songs. By doing this, many of Page's singles also made the Billboard Country Chart. Towards the 1970s, Page shifted her career towards country music, and she began charting on the country charts, up until 1982. Page is one of the few vocalists who have made the country charts in five separate decades.
When rock and roll music became popular during the second half of the 1950s, traditional pop music was becoming less popular.

Page was one of the few traditional pop music singers who was able to sustain her success, continuing to have major hits into the mid-1960s with "Old Cape Cod", "Allegheny Moon", "A Poor Man's Roses (Or a Rich Man's Gold)", and "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte".

In 1997, Patti Page was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame. She will be posthumously honored with the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2013. Source:Wiki

Health problems caused Page to write a sad-but-resolute letter to her fans late last year; "Although I feel I still have the voice God gave me, physical impairments are preventing me from using that voice as I had for so many years," Page wrote. "It is only He who knows what the future holds."
Page died on New Year's Day in Encinitas, Calif., according to publicist Schatzi Hageman.

Artie Shaw was famous for his many wives!

One of the top ten bands of the Big Band Era was clearly led by Artie Shaw. Artie, of course, is remembered for his fabulous music...."Stardust" and Begin The Beguine" are two of the greatest big band recordings of all time. At a recent lecture I gave on the Big Band Era, many in the audience were also very impressed with an important side of Artie's personal life, the fact that he was married eight times and the fame of his brides.

They included actresses Lana Turner (wife No. 3, 1940), Ava Gardner (No. 5, 1945), Evelyn Keyes (No. 8, 1957) and novelist Kathleen Winsor, author of the 1944 best-seller “Forever Amber” (No. 6, 1946).

Lana Turner and Artie Shaw

Here's the complete list (from Wiki); A self-proclaimed "very difficult man," Shaw was married eight times: Jane Cairns (1932–33; annulled); Margaret Allen (1934–37; divorced); actress Lana Turner (1940; annulled); Betty Kern (1942–43; divorced), the daughter of songwriter Jerome Kern; actress Ava Gardner (1945–46; divorced); Forever Amber author Kathleen Winsor (1946–48; annulled); actress Doris Dowling (1952–56; divorced); and actress Evelyn Keyes(1957–85; divorced).

He had one son, Steven Kern, with Betty Kern, and another son, Jonathan Shaw (a well-known tattoo artist who founded Fun City Tattoo), with Doris Dowling.The marriage to Keyes, best known for playing the middle of the three O’Hara sisters in “Gone With the Wind,” lasted the longest, until 1985, but they led separate lives for much of that time. “I like her very much and she likes me, but we’ve found it about impossible to live together,” he said in a 1973 interview.

Ava and Lana

Both Lana Turner and Ava Gardner later described Shaw as being extremely emotionally abusive. His controlling nature and incessant verbal abuse in fact drove Turner to have a nervous breakdown, soon after which she divorced him.

Note: With that many ex-wives, collecting alimony in most cases, it is not surprising that his theme song was "Nightmare!" When asked why he married so many times....his answer..."Because they asked me!"