"Our next destination was Stage Door Canteen where we stopped for a snack before the Capt. Miller show. I was very much amused to find that a place with such a big reputation was so small. However, the entertainment was very good.
"Over at the NBC studios we had some unexpected music before the show began. Tall, broad shouldered, handsome, quiet Captain Miller introduced to us a visitor, Chief Petty Officer 'Tex' Beneke…. [The actual broadcast] really sounded good. And how Glenn Miller can direct that band and read from a script at the same time is something of a mystery."
-- Letter from my father, Asbury Park, N.J., to my aunt, Bloomington, Kans., Saturday, March 18, 1944. This letter is about my father’s first trip to New York, when he was stationed at Asbury Park, New Jersey. Glenn Miller’s big band rose to prominence in 1939 with songs such as 'Moonlight Serenade,’ ‘Little Brown Jug,’ 'Pennsylvania 6-5000,' and 'Tuxedo Junction.' His wildly popular civilian band gave its last concert in September, 1942, and Glenn Miller joined the military to lead what he called “a modernized military band.” As Captain Glenn Miller, he led a band in a weekly radio broadcast called "I Sustain the Wings," which my father saw that day. In the summer of 1944, Miller went to England and led the Army Air Force Band in some 800 performances. His plane disappeared over the English Channel on December 15, 1944, and no trace was recovered. Miller was forty years old at the time. I remember my dad occasionally playing Glenn Miller records around the house, although his great love was the music of Duke Ellington. (source: “Glenn Miller,” Wikipedia.org; "Miller, Glenn." World War II and the Postwar Years in America: A Historical and Cultural Encyclopedia. William H. Young and Nancy K. Young. Vol. 2. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010. 479-481. Web. 9 Mar. 2012.)
No comments:
Post a Comment