Serenading Swing

String of Songs: Bosque Arts Center Troubadour Series presents iconic 1940s sound made for dancing with the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra in the Frazier Performance Hall

CLIFTON – Bandleader Glenn Miller, a highly successful bandleader, arranger, composer and trombonist was most popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s. More than any musical ensemble, Miller and his Big Band Orchestra Miller inspired the World War II generation and boosted morale with many, many number one hit chart songs. There isn’t a WWII movie without soldiers grabbing a girl and dancing to the iconic swing music Miller made mainstream.

Keeping the band leader’s legacy alive, the Bosque Arts Center Troubadour Series for the second time presented the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra Feb. 17, filling the Bosque Arts Center’s Frazier Performance Hall completely with fans of music of a bygone era.

Under the musical direction of saxophonist Erik Stabnau, and accompanied by female vocalist Jenny Swoish, there were some familiar and some new faces in the orchestra, performing an outstanding, tight and entertaining set, weaving up tempo songs with beautiful ballads, lyrical love songs and even a waltz. The Moonlight Serenaders took to the stage twice, using their voices as instruments with sweet harmonies.

A western New York native, Stabnau learned to play the saxophone, flute, and clarinet in a variety of disciplines before developing an interest in the large ensembles of Ellington, Basie, Dorsey, Miller and others. He was thrilled with the opportunity to join the Glenn Miller Orchestra in June 2017 on tenor saxophone, playing the music and solos that Tex Beneke first made famous in the 1930s and 40s.

As a member of the band, Stabnau has performed across the 48 states and abroad in Canada and Japan and now is honored to step in front of the orchestra as its music director. Stabnau gave some background information and history for most songs, adding to the evening’s interest and appreciation.

The excellent orchestra which has been touring for nearly 80 years now – touring around the world as well as across the United States, 48 weeks out of the year – ensures Miller’s continuing popularity and success. This second show in Bosque County had all the most popular songs like “In The Mood,” “Chatanooga Choo-Choo” “String of Pearls” and “Tuxedo Junction,” but also brought a complete new set list of Valentine-inspired songs.

Swoish made the song “The More I See You,” a ballad, in a slower tempo, and the big band sound engulfed the Frazier Performance Hall. It conjured up black and white images of a gal under a lamppost, lighting a cigarette, lost in her thoughts after dancing the night away with her beau. Most people would know the swinging Chris Montes 1966 version, but it was originally written in 1945 by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon.

And while Etta James made “At Last” an oh-so-soulful hit in 1960, the Glenn Miller Orchestra originally played the song in the 1942 movie “Orchestra Wives” as a slow fox trot. In both versions, it remains a romantic evergreen, ever popular at weddings and anniversaries.

As always, the band opened and closed the concert with their theme song “Moonlight Serenade.” That theme song originated from when Miller had a commercial prime-time CBS radio program for sponsor Liggett & Meyers Tobacco Company and Chesterfield Cigarettes that was known as the Chesterfield "Moonlight Serenade." And as a tribute and a thank you for their service to the Military Veterans in the Hall and all veterans across the nation, the band played the upbeat “American Patrol.”

For many in the audience, the music offered a happy, nostalgic stroll down memory lane, whether it was memories of parents dancing to the tunes or a father’s band days.

It wasn’t until her father was at the end of his life, sharing stories with his brother, that Pam Hardcastle found out he had a band, and played during his time in the military, overseas in Okinawa, Japan. She recalls him saying the band loved playing the Officer’s Mess, because that meant they would be treated to a steak dinner. The concert brought him back to her in the best possible way with sweet memories and music.

“I love the spectrum of musical genres, from gospel to classical, and especially acapella,” 93-year-old Cleon Flanagan said. “Clifton is a unique little city that offers all these different types of music.”

With a sharecropper father, Nestor of the Bosque County Chorale Cleon Flanagan grew up with country music and gospel songs in East Texas. But when studying to become a Methodist minister at Texas Wesleyan College in Fort Worth, he was encouraged to take a few years of music. It was then that he was exposed to jazz and swing. Of the evening’s swing music and croony ballads, Flanagan said “I do love hearing the music of days gone by.”

One would expect most of the audience to be older, but here and there younger guests were bopping their heads and tapping their toes. The Davis family from Itasca saw the Glenn Miller Orchestra and knew they wanted to enjoy another show. Dad Harley is a long time musician playing big band, Texas dance and swing music. Needless to say, besides the nostalgia, he enjoys the jazz and swing rhythms.

To many listeners, jazz and swing were the same, but most early fans found swing easier on the ear and more suitable for dancing because of the rhythm.

The 1954 movie “The Glenn Miller Story” with James Stewart playing trombonist, bandleader Miller is one of Harley Davis’ favorite films. The partially fictionalized story, with the musical score and dancing, it has also kept Miller’s musical legacy and memory alive. Both of Davis’ sons – 23-year-old Nolan and 19-year-old Joseph – played in band during high school. Studying music in college, Joseph is required to attend 10 different types of concerts per semester. Not a musician, mother and wife Sherry is along for the musical evening, and thoroughly enjoying it.

The swing era – also frequently referred to as the big band era – was the period between 1933 and 1947 when swing music was the most popular music in the United States. If rhythm defined the swing bands, its foundation lay in the rhythm section: piano, guitar, bass, and drums. But what would the beat be without the horn, trombone clarinets and sax section?

It is said that Miller could never remember precisely the moment he decided to emphasize his new reed section sound. But it was during this disheartening interim, that he realized the unique sound – produced by the clarinet holding the melodic line while the tenor sax plays the same note, and supported harmonically by three other saxophones – just might be the individual and easily recognizable style that would set his band apart from all the rest.

Though this was its most popular period, the music had actually been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington. It was Benny Goodman's performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935 that popularizing the genre to rest of the country. Goodman and Miller became the ultimate “Kings of Swing.”

In 1942, Miller enlisted in the U.S. Army and was assigned to lead the Army Air Force Band at Yale which was a Cadet training area at the time. Miller proceeded to collect as many first-rate musicians as possible; some were from his group, many came from other bands. The outfit, officially known as the 418th Army Air Forces Band, was activated on March 20, 1943, with permanent station at Yale. The band managed to combine traditional military duties–playing at retreat parades and at review formations on the Yale Green–with performing at dances, open houses, parties, and luncheons, and on radio, in a series designed to boost Air Force recruitment.

In the Fall of 1944, the band was scheduled to be sent on a six-week tour of Europe and would be stationed in Paris during that time. Miller decided to go ahead, in order to make the proper arrangements for the group’s arrival. But on that fateful Dec. 15, Miller boarded a transport plane to Paris, never to arrive. It is assumed the low-flying plane – either to avoid bad weather or enemy aircraft – crashed in the British Channel.

Another great big band of the era Les Brown and His Band of Renown had a song called "Sentimental Journey.” The song's release in March 1944 coincided with the end of the WWII in Europe and became the unofficial homecoming theme for many veterans. The Big Band’s music and Doris Day’s voice made it a classic. Its lyrics “Gonna take a sentimental journey. Gonna set my heart at ease. Gonna take a sentimental journey, to renew old memories,” perfectly captured the feel of the musical evening presented by the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

The stellar fashion in which they carry on Millers legacy, stringing the hits and lesser known songs together, is taking the audience on a sentimental journey to that bygone era with so many musical and dear memories.