Page 184 - Cousins - Celebrities, Saints & Sinners

In 1937, Miller compiled several arrangements and formed his first band. After failing to distinguish itself from
the many bands of the time, it broke up after its last show at the Ritz Ballroom in Bridgeport, Connecticut on
January 2, 1938.

Discouraged, Miller returned to New York. He realized that he needed to develop a unique sound, and decided
to make the clarinet play a melodic line with a tenor saxophone holding the same note, while three other
saxophones harmonized within a single octave. George T. Simon discovered a saxophonist named Wilbur
Schwartz for Glenn Miller. Miller hired Schwartz, but instead had him play lead clarinet. According to Simon,
"Willie's tone and way of playing provided a fullness and richness so distinctive that none of the later Miller
imitators could ever accurately reproduce the Miller sound." With this new sound combination, Glenn Miller
found a way to differentiate his band's style from the many bands that existed in the late thirties.

Miller and his band appeared in two Twentieth Century Fox films. In 1941's Sun Valley Serenade, they were
major members of the cast, which also featured comedian Milton Berle, and Dorothy Dandridge with
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the Nicholas Brothers in the show-stopping song and dance number, Chattanooga Choo Choo. The Miller band
returned to Hollywood to film 1942's Orchestra Wives, featuring Jackie Gleason playing a part as the group's
bassist, Ben Beck. Miller had an ailment that made laughter extremely painful. Since Gleason was a comedian,
Miller had a difficult time watching him more than once, because Miller would start laughing.
In 1942, at the peak of his civilian career, Miller decided to join the war effort, forsaking an income of $15,000
to $20,000 per week in civilian life, including a home in Tenafly, New Jersey. At 38, Miller wrote to Army
Brigadier General Charles Young. He persuaded the United States Army to accept him so he could, in his own
words, "be placed in charge of a modernized Army band". After he was accepted into the Army, Miller's civilian
band played its last concert in Passaic, New Jersey, on September 27, 1942, with the last song played by the
Miller civilian band being "Jukebox Saturday Night"—featuring an appearance by Harry James on trumpet. His
patriotic intention of entertaining the Allied Forces with the fusion of virtuosity and dance rhythms in his music
earned him the rank of captain and he was soon promoted to major by August 1944.

Miller initially formed a large marching band that was to be the core of a network of service orchestras. His
attempts at modernizing military music were met with some resistance from tradition-minded career officers,
but Miller's fame and support from other senior leaders allowed him to continue. For example, Miller's
arrangement of "St. Louis Blues March", combined blues and jazz with the traditional military march. Miller's
weekly radio broadcast "I Sustain the Wings", for which he co-wrote the eponymous theme song, moved from
New Haven to New York City and was very popular. This led to permission for Miller to form his 50-piece Army
Air Force Band and take it to England in the summer of 1944, where he gave 800 performances. While in
England, now Major Miller recorded a series of records at EMI owned Abbey Road Studios. The recordings the
AAF band made in 1944 at Abbey Road were propaganda broadcasts for the Office of War Information. Many
songs are sung in German by Johnny Desmond and Glenn Miller speaks in German about the war effort. Miller
once stating on radio:
“America means freedom and there's no expression of freedom quite so sincere as music”.

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In summarizing Miller's military career, General Jimmy Doolittle (10 cousin, 3 times removed) said, "next to a
letter from home, that organization was the greatest morale builder in the European Theater of Operations."
While he was traveling to entertain U.S. troops in France during World War II, Miller's aircraft disappeared in
bad weather over the English Channel.
References:
1. Relative Finder, associated with FamilySearch, and the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS)
2. Wikipedia.org
3. LDS Family Tree attached

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