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IN THIS ISSUE: & An interview with GLENN MILLER ARRANGER NORMAN LEYDEN, Part 2 it Reviews of BOOKS AND BIG RECORDS to consider BAND it A new BAND SLOGAN BIG BAND TRIVIA QUIZ JUMP ★ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR about NEWSLETTER CLANCY LOWERED THE BOOM, ONE O'CLOCK JUM P, CHEROKEE and others BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER FIRST-CLASS MAIL Box 52252 U.S. POSTAGE PAID Atlanta, G A 30355 Atlanta, GA Permit No. 2022 BIG BAND JUMP N EWSLETTER VOLUME 96 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2005 INTERVIEW WITH GLENN MILLER ARRANGER NORMAN LEYDEN, PART 2 __________ THE BACKGROUND This is a continuation of the Norman Leyden interview as conducted by BIG BAND JUMP producer Dave Riggs. In the last issue composer/arranger/conductor Leyden told how he came to work for the Military Miller Band, the move to England to directly entertain the troops, the living conditions and the highlights of his experience there. We learned of the use of his arrangement of LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY for Glenn & Dinah in England singer Bing Crosby’s guest appearance with the orches tra and his work with vocalist Johnny Desmond. He going over my score. It was written especially for her explained how there were sub-groups which performed because she would have different keys. We did a lot of separately, enabling the Miller organization to average arrangements for visiting guests on the program, En three concerts a day in addition to radio broadcasts. glish mostly. But Dinah was one of them and Bing was another. Norman Leyden is considered one of the foremost authorities on Big Bands and the swing era, with over BBJ: Glenn Miller was always described as a very 300 of his Big Band arrangements in his library as well stem taskmaster and business man, well suited as 1,200 symphonic arrangements and a number of to military discipline. Did you ever see another side of Broadway show choral charts. From 1946 to 1949 he him? was chief arranger for the Tex Beneke orchestra. He has been a professional musician for nearly 70 years. NL: I did in a way, but I never spent much time socially. Some of the fellows did because they THE SCENE knew him before and were more on the inner circle. All I know is that if you did your j ob and tended to business, The interview was conducted by phone from Norman why Glenn was on your side and he would treat you Leyden ’ s home in Portland, Oregon, where he holds the very decently. After all, he made my career on a post of Laureate Associate Conductor of the Oregon minimum of contact. I never cease to wonder how Symphony. He retired in May o f2004 after 34 years at those breaks happened to come my way the way they the helm of the Oregon Symphony’s Pop series and 29 did, particularly early on when he put me in that job as seasons as Associate Conductor. One of his arrange conductor on the “Winged Victory” show, and then the ments with the Miller Military Orchestra was for guest way it worked out that allowed me to write for his band vocalist Dinah Shore, which led to the first question. when I wasn't a member of it. I feel like my lucky star was shining there. Maybe he figured that in some way BBJ: Which Dinah Shore song did you arrange? I would amount to something sometime and he was sort of helping me on my way. I’m very grateful for it and NL: That’s my arrangement of “All I Do Is Dream I do know that, at least in my case, he was a very Of You” and in the picture of Dinah and Glenn he’s congenial and helpful father figure, I guess. V O LU M E 96 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2005 BBJ: There's a story that Jerry Gray wrote the ar rangement for “The Trolley Song” in a bath tub. Did you have any similar experiences? NL: No, but I can see why somebody might. That used to be the thrill of the week. The Red Cross was one of the few places that had a lot of hot water. It became kind of a special mission to get to the Red Cross and get in a hot tub. That would be a big deal so we all took advantage of the connections with the Red Cross people to get those hot baths whenever we wanted them. I’m not gonna question that story of Jerry writing while sitting in a tub. Quite possible. BBJ: Do you have any favorite arrangement that the other arrangers did for the band—Jerry Gray or Mel Powell? NL: I had great respect for Jerry's versatility and Arranger Leyden in the '40s ability to take something like “Holiday for notes.” All the rest of my career, I've been trying to Strings” and turn it into a real experience. write good arrangements with fewer notes. That was BBJ: What about Mel Powell's work with the band? the best advice I ever got. BBJ: When Glenn turned up missing in December NL: Mel wrote things every now and then—and 1944, how did you and the other band members they were always interesting, like “Pearls on find out about it? What was your reaction? Velvet” and “Bubble Bath” and other things. But he didn't have any particular assignment. When he got NL: The band itself left the next day and arrived in moved to do something, he'd do it. He was a wonderful Paris and Glenn was not there to meet them. So player in the Teddy Wilson tradition. I always won they found out right away. Those of us in England dered why he went into contemporary avant garde didn’t know for maybe a week that anything was composition later on. But he was one of a kind and he wrong. Finally Lt. Haynes talked to somebody and marched to a different drummer sometimes. said, “By the way, Glenn is missing.” We didn’t hear about it right off the bat; disbelief at the beginning, but BBJ: What's your favorite Glenn Miller anecdote or in a short time it became despair. memory from the time you were with the band? BBJ: Everyone wonders what direction he would NL: I remember one time I brought in an arrange have taken musically if he had survived. What ment in England------some up tempo tune------ are your thoughts on that? ”1 Want to Be Happy” or something like that. I thought I’d done a great job on it. The band rehearsed it and it NL: Well, two days before he left he called me into sounded fine to me, but it didn’t make much of an his office at Bedford and in the course of impression on the band------ or Glenn. He took me conversation said, “I’d like you to come to work for me aside later on and said, “Norm, that was a nice try, but after the war.” I was in seventh heaven that I’d made it remember it ain’t what you write, it’s what you don't clear to the top. I said, “You bet! I'll be there.” And that write.” That became my motto for arranging from then was the last I ever saw of him. I kind of feel that he on. I changed it around to “When in doubt, leave it would have picked up where he was there. I don't know out.” And I always tell people: “Don't write so many whether he would have done the touring------whether 2 V O L U M E 96 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2005 he would have gone back on the road to play for I have a book that shows the dancing. I think he would have gone into radio produc start of this thing. It’scalled tion, more like Fred Waring did. Whether he could “This was Your Hit Parade” have sustained his kind of music into the rock period, and the book is nothing but we’ll never know, of course, for it’s hard to make a a compilation of all the conjecture in that respect. The mega-trends would Lucky Strike “Hit Parade” probably have been too strong for even Glenn to programs from 1935 to survive this long anyway. 1960, the tunes that they played every week. It’s BBJ: Could you give me your ideas on the future of interesting to see the char popular music? acter of the music from the beginning, when this pro NL: Have you got another hour? In the long haul, gram went on the air—Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, I’m pessimistic. I just came from Clarinda, Richard Rodgers------and all the rest of them------ Iowa where the Glenn Miller flame is burning brightly. Jerome Kern------were all on the “Hit Parade.” As the But it’s burning brightly for a lot of people my age. I years went by, into the war years, they're still big and don’t see the younger generation rallying around in any good songs------ Johnny Mercer and all those guys------ significant numbers. Here and there there’s a little during World War Two. After that you begin to see the glimmer of hope, but the big bands------those that are quality of the music gradually—oh-so-subtlety------ still around------are not reaching the audience they week by week------ change.