THE GREAT ESCAPE!* ♪ *“Anything that is good jazz is a great escape. When you’re involved in playing or listening to great jazz, no one can get to you.” -Woody Herman Issue No 23 March/April 2011. Presented by: www.dixieswing.com What Took "In The Mood" So Long? BY Browser Joe Carlton The song "In The Mood" is the most requested am not familiar with the Hayes band and certainly not song that the Glenn Miller Orchestra plays. It's almost knowingly heard his rendition). always been that way. According to the John Flower Somewhere along this time, Artie Shaw took this book "Moonlight Serenade", Glenn didn't record it until song under his wing but when he played it, it was about July 28, 1939. It certainly was one of his hits that vaulted 8 minutes in length, played slowly and in a ponderous the Glenn Miller Orchestra to No. 1 on most people's manner. Not a hit by any standard. When Artie walked charts. But, this song had been around for quite a while off the bandstand during one of the times he was miffed in one form or another. with the music scene, Glenn Miller was able to employ Previously, Glenn had had an orchestra which Artie's brilliant arranger Jerry Gray. It then became broke up after playing its final date on January 2, 1938 in Jerry's task to write a proper arrangement, which he did Bridgeport, Connecticut. Glenn was disappointed but and the rest is history. "In The Mood" was reborn. still was determined to write some new arrangements Whew!! and find the right personnel for his next band. When this new band was formed, Glenn kept only four hold-overs Trivia Question : What famous big band era sideman from his previous organization. They were Hal McIntyre, had the nickname of “Pepperhead? Answer in Chummy MacGregor, Rowland Bundock and Bob Price. Greasy Sack News page 6. `However, he hired a young saxophone player from the Ben Young band by the name of Gordon "Tex" Beneke. Now at this time, Glenn was paying his The Cubs Dixieland sidemen $50.00 per week. In Tex's conversations with Glenn, it is said that Tex understood he was going to Band has been playing to play lead sax and thought he should be paid more than packed houses at the ‘friendly the regular salary. So, he bargained with Glenn and confines’ of Wrigley Field for over settled for $52.50 per week!!! But was the addition of a quarter of a century, the major Tex the spark that helped bring this new band into league’s longest-running baseball band. Our foot-tapping national prominence? aggregation consists of trumpet, Anyhow, the Miller band had been playing "ITM" trombone (or tenor sax), clarinet, banjo, and tuba. We have for most of 1939 and I doubt that most people did not appeared on TV hundreds of times over the years on many recognize it from what they might have heard in the past. local and nationally broadcast programs. The Don Redman Orchestra had recorded "Hot and Now Chicago’s most listened to Jazz band can light-up Anxious" in 1929 with the main melody similar to "ITM". your next happening! The band performs at any kind of Another interesting thing about the Redman recording is function, limited only by your imagination, including picnics, that it starts out with the main melody of "Swinging The Bar-B-Qs, pool parties, Mardi Gras, conventions and Blues" which later became a Count Basie hit. wedding receptions. We have even performed at five The zany one-armed trumpet player Wingy funerals. We appear in Cubs uniform unless otherwise Manone and his orchestra (called Barbeque Joe and His specified. Hot Dogs) covered Redman's recording but changed the name to "Tar Paper Stomp" in 1930. Fletcher Book the band for your next event! Bring the Henderson used Don Redman's arrangement of "Hot excitement of Wrigley Field musically to your event. and Anzious" with his recording of this song in 1931. I don't know who actually started playing the riff NEWS: Ted reports that the Cubs band is now in great which runs through the song, but arranger Joe Garland demand for wedding receptions. Just think the bride can got ahold of it and finally the name "In The Mood" came now throw out her bouquet and the first pitch at the same Into being. Edgar Hayes and his orchestra then time! recorded this song under the name we know it by, on To book the Cubs band contact Ted at [email protected] or call 847-255-6448 for details. February 17, 1938 which was 16 months before the Miller recording. (I 2 They Were Selling Memories By Browser Bob Knack Two sales held in February in Chicago, one an colors, check marks, letter codes. How did he keep auction and the other a liquidation sale, showed us once track?” again “how time passes.” “A friend of mine struck up a conversation with The family of the late Chicago Jazz DJ, Dick the woman sitting next to her – who happened to be Buckley, put his personal record collection of 8000 LPs Buckley’s daughter.” One man named Fred, who said he and 500 CDs up for auction. Meanwhile, nearby at The was a friend of Buckley’s, bought 11 lots. And people Ambassador East Hotel in the Gold Coast, 1301 North were re-sorting the boxes, making up their own lots, State Parkway, which is undergoing a complete which shocked the (Hindman Galleries) staff. She renovation, a liquidation sale was held of mementos advised checking the lot a few minutes before it came up from their famous restaurant The Pump Room. Movie for sale”. “In all”, concluded McCurnin, “it was a pretty buffs will remember the hotel's lobby was featured in eventful night”. Dick Buckley died last July at age 85. Alfred Hitchcock's flick "North by Northwest." The liquidation sale of mementos from the Pump After 50 plus years in radio, the last 31 on public Room began Friday, February 18 and was slated to last radio station WBEZ, Buckley, the highly-respected and 12 days, but everything was gone by the following beloved jazz radio host made his last broadcast on Tuesday. I walked over from my office in The Loop on Sunday, July 27, 2008. Many of us would plan our opening day during my lunch hour (13 blocks each way!) Sundays around his program. I would tune every radio in and found a line stretching down the block. So, I never our split ranch home to his show so that wherever I was did get my chance to check out those relics from a in the house, I wouldn’t miss a note of his great Jazz. bygone era such as artwork, lamps, glassware and bar While the Bears were playing football, we’d watch the stools. Who knows, maybe Marilyn Monroe herself sat game with the sound off and Buckley’s show on in the on one of those stools! background. If there happened to be a meeting of our The Pump Room opened in 1938. It was a Browsers that night, invariably, someone would shout, hangout for many Hollywood celebrities such as Zsa Zsa “Hey, did you hear what Buckley played today? Gabor, Phil Harris and Alice Faye, Sammy Davis Jr, ” Eddie Cantor and Judy Garland who would head over while waiting to change trains on their way between New York and Los Angeles. In those days it might be a ten hour layover. Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet diverted them to Booth One, where Kup held court almost nightly, gathering items for his famous gossip column, and with a telephone plugged in at his table. Bogie and Bacall stopped by to chat up Kup on their way to Hollywood the day after their marriage in 1945. According to a Time Magazine article in 1948, Kup, who at one time could make or break a career with a few lines in his column, Famous Booth One, late 1940s. left to right: Frank Sinatra, Janice even went so far as to have his dining room at home Paige, Kup, Jane Russell, and Peter Lawford. Is the waiter pouring made up to replicate the Pump Room. Kup died in 2003. the water in Lawford’s lap?! Photo credit unknown Frank Sinatra was a Pump Room regular even Buckley's family consigned Leslie Hindman though, as the story goes, he once hurled a plate of food Auctioneers, who generally deal in fine arts and rare at Arturo Petterino the long time maître d of the place.' books, to auction off the Buckley treasures. Browsers Frankie had his own private booth, which was sold at the Paul and Evelyn McCurnin attended the sale and had a sale. The original Booth One was donated to The great time. “They had 93 lots set up,” says Evelyn, “large Chicago History Museum around 1980. 13X13 boxes full of LP’s, CD’s, books and tapes. One WBEZ discontinued their policy of playing Jazz box went for $950, but most were in the $350-$500 after they “retired’ Buckley and there is no definitive word range. As people bid, I regretted not making careful on what will happen to the Pump Room space after the notes of the contents – what was in that box that went remodeling. Time passes. for $950?” Don’t forget…we have added audio clips to Ted’s website. Go “By the time the auction was over, the box was to www.dixieswing.com and click on the “radio shows” icon.