Big Band Magazine - Magazine - Page 5
The solution was to mount two complete drum sets for McKinley and backup
drummer Frank Ippolito on jeeps, along with room for two string bass players. A jeep
band appearance on the New Haven Green was memorialized in a "March Of Time"
newsreel, with the marching band performing "Blues in the Night March."
On July 28, 1943, the marching band with the jeeps, and later the radio production
orchestra on stage, appeared at the Yale Bowl (football stadium). The event, including
Hollywood celebrities, military and political dignitaries, was one of numerous rallies
held to promote the construction of a new Essex-class aircraft carrier for the Navy,
the USS Shangri-La. The guests included actress Carole Landis, one of the co-stars of
Miller's 1942 20th Century Fox film "Orchestra Wives." To the surprise and delight of
the crowd, the marching band entered the Yale Bowl with their jeeps and circled the
field performing their entertaining scores. Following their performance, the radio
orchestra played a half-hour concert amidst fundraising speeches.
National attention focused on the marching band when a satirical article titled
"Sousa With A Floy Flow" appeared in Time magazine:
"Old-time, long-haired U. S. Army bandmasters had the horrors last week … Army
Air Forces Band from the Technical School at Yale University … had suddenly and
disconcertingly got rhythm. When it swung down the line, blaring such hallowed
items as John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" in jive tempo, sober listeners
began to wonder what Army brass-band music was coming to … the man behind
the military rug cutting was Capt. Glenn Miller, late recruit from the swank hotel
ballrooms and broadcasting studios. Embarking on an earnest crusade to put swing
on the parade ground, Capt. Miller … militarized items like "St. Louis Blues" … and
touched up some of the late, great Sousa's scores with hot licks and modern dance
hall harmonics. Far from apologetic, he says, "there hasn't been a successful Army
band in the country, and if someone doesn't get after band music and streamline it,
Army music will be extinct in another couple of years. We've got to keep pace with
the soldiers. They want up-to-date music. There's no doubt about it, anybody can
improve on Sousa." Fearful Capt. Miller's crusade would leave the Army swinging its
hips instead of its feet; old-guard Army musicians creaked with suppressed fury. One
old Sousaphile, bandmaster Ewin Franco Goldman, most famous of present-day
concert bandleaders, rose to denounce the outrage. He said, "Personally, I think it is a
disgrace. There isn't any excuse for it. Perhaps they think they can add more dash
and appeal. But no one can improve on a Sousa March … my God!"
The Time article and predictable fallout would soon land Capt. Miller into hot water
with none other than Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall.
To be continued …
