How Did Charlie Barnet: One Of The First To Transform His Band?

Charlie Barnet – was one of the first to integrate his band.
Glenn Miller – successful band leader. Signature music: "In the Mood." Played trombone in the Dorsey brothers. Played in Ben Pollack's band.
Bud Powell – piano, instrumental in the development of bebop.
Kenny Clarke – House drummer at Minton's playhouse.
Jay McShann – pianist and band leader; his band features the likes of Ben Webster and Charlie Parker.
Swing Street – reference to 52nd street which hosted major jazz clubs during the swing and the bebop era.
Minton's Playhouse – a Harlem jazz club that saw the emergence of bebop and hosted artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Christian. the house band included Thelonious Monk on piano, Joe Guy on trumpet, Nick Fenton on bass, and Kenny Clarke on drums.
Billy Strayhorn – famous for his collaboration with Duke Ellington.
Billy Berg's – jazz club in Hollywood.
Lionel Hampton – one of the first to use the vibraphone in jazz. Part of Benny Goodman's quartet, along with Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson and Goodman. This group was
one of the first racially integrated group to perform. Many renowned artists passed through his group: Dizzie Gillespie, Clifford Brown, Wes Montgomery, Quincy Jones, etc.
Earl Hines –

The band to follow Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club was Cab Calloway's band. Though classically trained singer in the opera, he always aspired to be in show business. He went to Chicago where he joined the Alabamians, who later changed their name to the Missourians when they moved to New York. Calloway was not a jazz singer but a showman who surrounded himself with jazz musicians. By the late 1930's Cab Calloway was the most successful African American band leader in the country.
Milt Hinton, Chu Berry, Dizzy Gillespie – all played at Cab Calloway's band. Chu Berry was next in line after Coleman Hawkins. When Lester Young was fired from the Fletcher Henderson Band, Berry was the guy to replace him.
Jimmy Lunsford's band was a black band that prided itself in playing dance music with percussion. Sy Oliver, the arranger, was the most famous one to come out of that band.
Benny Goodman established himself in New York as a studio musician. He made various records with Red Nichols. When he made records with Billie Holiday, he encountered John Hammond. Hammond invited Goodman to his house to play chamber music, where Benny fell in love with Hammond's sister and married her.
During the depression, Fletcher Henderson sold many of his arrangements to John Hammond, which became the basis for Goodman's band musical library.
He later hired Fletcher Henderson to write him some more arrangements. Because Goodman's band was the hottest band it aired on the last minutes of a radio show. They went on a national tour and outside New York they found that white people didn't like their music that was too hard-swinging. In order to play something the people could dance to, they played stock arrangements. By the time they came to Los Angeles they were ready to disband and return home. They played at the Palomar Ballroom, ready to play their stock arrangements, when Gene Krupa suggested playing something they would enjoy, and they played "King Porter Stomp". The show that aired in New York at 11:30, was listened to in Los Angeles much earlier, and the kids loved it. This coincides with the end of
probation.
"Sing Sing Sing" was originally written by Louis Prima, a very light skinned Black musician, which enabled him to perform where other black musicians were not allowed.
Jim Mundy – Goodman commissioned him to write an arrangement to "Sing Sing Sing." The band realized Fletcher Henderson had a similar arrangement called "Christopher Columbus." In the end, Benny Goodman's version is a mix of the two.
In 1938, Hammond had the idea of putting a jazz concert on a classical stage. These concerts were historically significant because of the first time jazz music was present in a distinguished art form.
Benny Goodman was the first white band leader to hire black musicians. He hired Teddy Wilson to play with his trio, after the two met while recording with Billie Holiday.
When the band was in Los Angeles Goodman encountered Lionel Hampton, and the band became a quartet. The quarter then becomes a quintet when Hammond introduces Goodman to Charlie Christian. Goodman immediately took offense to Charlie Christian and did not want to play with him. Hammond ambushed Goodman to listen to Christian, who established guitar as a solo instrument.
Lionel Hampton later struck out with his own band.
Roy Eldridge, the next in trumpet lineage after Louis Armstrong, was the most influential trumpet player during the swing area, inspiring Dizzy Gillespie. He was also the featured trumpet player in Gene Krupa's band. His nickname was Little Jazz.
Artie Shaw – another famous clarinet player during the swing area. He had a self-identity problem and many times retired and left to Mexico. Shaw moved from playing sax to clarinet, which why his clarinet playing sounds like a sax.
Red Norvo played the xylophone. He met his wife Mildred Bailey, when he played for Paul Whiteman's band. Bailey is one of the handful singers in the swing era that could be called a jazz singer. They were nicknamed the swing couple.
"Stardust" by Hobie Carmichael is the second most recorded piece after "St. Louis Blues."
Artie Shaw's most famous recorded improvisation is featured in "Stardust": it is an example of how some of his music was more dance than jazz.
Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey came from Pennsylvania but are considered Chicago style. The Dorsey Brothers band was their first together. They were always in conflict.
After an argument Tommy walked off the band to form his band. They reunited in the late 1940's, and in the 1950's they had their own TV show (where Elvis made his TV debut).
Tommy Dorsey played trumpet but eventually he settled for trombone. His theme song was "I'm Getting Sentimental over You," which is why he was called "The Sentimental Gentleman." His trombone playing was seamless, silky and smooth. Tommy Dorsey also introduced Frank Sinatra to the world.
Bunny Berigan played with Benny Goodman as well as with Tommy Dorsey. He later had his own band but he was a heavy drinker and was not good at enforcing discipline. After Berigan left Dorsey's band, Tommy had his musicians play Bunny's part in unison as tribute to him.
Jimmy Dorsey's band was more Chicago style than Tommy's band. He played both alto sax and vaudeville sax and astonished everyone. His sax playing influenced many, including Charlie Parker.
Into the 1940's the music stars of the America were the band leaders. The singer got second billing. The first guy to strike out on his own was Bing Crosby when he left Paul Whiteman's band.
The most popular swing band was Glenn Miller's band. Miller played trombone and wrote arrangements for the Ben Pollack band. He also played with Red Nichols. His music didn't swing too hard, he just added a little syncopation to familiar tunes. Even though it was the most successful it didn't swing the hardest. Tex Beneke took over Miller's band when Miller's plane disappeared over the English Channel Miller tried to create a unique sound to his saxophone section by placing clarinet as the lead voice: clarinet lead.
"In the Mood" was Glenn Miller's signature tune. It is the number 1 selling instrumental recording written by Joe Garland. Al Clink used to say it would have been better if Glenn Miller had lived and his music die.
Important band leader in the swing era was Charlie Barnett, an illegitimate son of wealthy parents. His band was more like a rich man's toy. Like Duke Ellington, he allowed his musicians a lot of freedom. His signature music was "Cherokee".

BEBOP
Bebop is no longer dancing music but music that needs to be listened to. The first natural bebop big band was Earl Hines' band. In his early career Hines performed on the piano alongside Louis Armstrong in Chicago.
Earl "Fatha" Hines in the early 1940's had a big band that was invaded by young beboppers. He stole Charlie Parker from Jay McShann's band. His band never recorded because during that time the American Recording Industry was on strike.
In the meantime both Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were working up the same style on opposite sides of the country (Bird in New York and Diz in Kansas City.)
Monroe's Uptown House was another place where bebop emerged. The people who didn't like modern jazz were nicknamed "Moldy Figs". The one responsible for bringing bebop from late night clubs in Harlem to 52nd St, was Coleman Hawkins. He never changed his own style, but he surrounded himself with young musicians who used his fame to book gigs on 52nd street. In the Onyx, Dizzy Gillespie kicked off a new tune with a scat "oo bop, be bop". A music reviewer in the audience related the scat to the new style of music. The drummer at Minton's was Kenny Clarke developed a new style of playing. He explained the development in that musicians were paying so fast that he only played during their pause. This was also true for the piano player at Minton's. Thelonious Monk , like Count Basie, realized he does not need to play the rhythm, but simply jab a chord once in a while, or even just play notes to outline the harmony. In the bebop rhythm section the sole responsibility of time lies in the hands of the bass player.
The musicians' union strike prevented people from listening to bebop on the radio, which shocked them when they heard it for the first time. One of the first bebop records that people were aware of was Charlie Parker's Ko-Ko.
In Earl Hines bebop band there was a young singer named Sarah Vaughn and another singer named Billy Eckstine (often referred to as the black Frank Sinatra). Hines' band broke up in 1952. Around that time Eckstine had a huge hit "Jelly Jelly". Based on that success, many of former Hines' musicians were now part of Eckstine's band.
When Billy Eckstine's band was on tour, their trumpet player became ill and they found a young musician to replace him – Miles Davis. Davis later left to New York, spent a couple of weeks in Julliard, and was soon adopted by Charlie Parker.
Thelonious Monk grew up in Harlem around jazz musicians. He was famous for never saying anything. Two things that he did say and famous for were: "It's more important what you leave out than what you play"; "Wrong's right!" (whenever somebody requested a tune, Monk would play the chords and if someone jumped and said that the tune was wrong, Monk would reply "Wrong's right!")
Monk's playing is often described as angular and disjointed. He also con