The big bands are back
in a new and exciting way
[ l. to r. ] Tommy Dorsey; Lucky Millinder; Horace Henderson; Georgie Auld;
Red Norvo; Al Cooper; Lawrence Welk; Claude Hopkins
Research Topics
IN THEIR OWN WORDS:
REMARKS ABOUT EACH OTHER
compiled by Music Librarian Christopher Popa
LOUIS ARMSTRONG
“ . . . Louis Armstrong was the epitome of jazz and always will be . . . ”
- Duke Ellington
“ . . . Louis Armstrong was an actor. I played drums with him when I was sixteen, and I watched his every move. It was like going to heaven . . . ”
- Lionel Hampton
“ . . . one day my brother brought home a record of Louis Armstrong. And that changed my whole life around. And I said: ‘That’s it! I got to play trumpet.’ . . . I wonder if Louis ever knew how great he was. I just don’t know. But he was humble. He was just beautiful . . . ”
- Lee Castle
“ . . . I dug his singing; it always got to me. I have often wondered how one man could have so many talents and still have his feet on the ground . . . ”
- Cab Calloway
“ . . . I heard Louis Armstrong for the first time at the Lafayette Theatre in 1931, and it made a big impression on me . . . ”
- Roy Eldridge
“ . . . People often ask me whether Louis Armstrong had any influence on my playing style. We all know that Louis Armstrong is the father of the jazz trumpet, and there is a definite connection between Louis and myself, but in between there is Roy Eldridge . . . ”
- Dizzy Gillespie
" . . . I worshipped him . . . he was a saint . . . "
- Bobby Hackett
“ . . . All I can say is that Louis alone has been my inspiration, and whatever ‘style’ I play you can give Armstrong the credit . . . ”
- Bunny Berigan
GEORGIE AULD
“ . . . Now, Georgie used to do a lot of things that went against my grain, musically. They weren’t what I felt music should sound like, and yet I was aware he knew precisely what he was doing . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
CHARLIE BARNET
“ . . . Charlie Barnet and ourselves were the only predominantly white bands that could play the black theaters in Harlem and Baltimore and Washington. They ostracized all the rest, but we were OK because we were basically jazz bands . . . ”
- Woody Herman
“ . . . Whatever stories you’ve heard about Charlie are probably true . . . ”
- Billy May
BLUE BARRON
“ . . . People liked Whiteman and us and later on Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller and the Dorseys. These have been the real contributors. But confusion has arisen between them and their imitators-in our case, between us and Sammy Kaye and Blue Barron and Jan Garber. They weren’t creators; they were just bastardizing our music . . . ”
- Guy Lombardo
COUNT BASIE
“ . . . There were six of us who made that era-Dorsey, Goodman, me, Miller, Lunceford, and Basie . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
“ . . . I loved Basie like I loved my own father . . . He was an original, more so than any other musician I’ve ever known. I had more pleasure playing in his band than even in my own . . . ”
- Buddy Rich
“ . . . The old Count Basie Band was probably one of the greatest dance bands ever organized. I love Count . . . ”
- Bob Crosby
“ . . .If you ever feel down, just latch onto the Count. He’ll make you feel good in a hurry . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
LOUIE BELLSON
“ . . . he has the soul of a saint. There is nothing too good for someone he likes, and I don’t know anybody he doesn’t like, or anybody who doesn’t like him . . . Supporting or solo, he is the epitome of perfection, a brilliant performer . . . ”
- Duke Ellington
BUNNY BERIGAN
“ . . . First, I’ll name my boy Bunny Berigan. Now there’s a boy whom I’ve always admired for his tone, soul, technique, his sense of ‘phrasing’ and all. To me Bunny can’t do no wrong in music . . . ”
- Louis Armstrong
" . . . His records don't show the enthusiasm of the band. It was a funloving band, with music second . . . Bunny was one of the great drinkers of our time . . . "
- Buddy Rich
WILL BRADLEY
“ . . . the best of them all . . . ”
- Glenn Miller
“ . . . Will always had high musical standards . . . ”
- Ray McKinley
BILLY BUTTERFIELD
“ . . . Billy was one of the great talents, he was a tremendous player. Unfortunately, the audience doesn’t mostly recognize that, so he became one of the great trumpet players unsung . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
BOBBY BYRNE
“ . . . He really wasn’t what you would call a true jazz musician. His idea of the greatest hot trombone player in the world was Peewee Hunt . . . ”
- Ray McKinley
CAB CALLOWAY
“ . . . I don’t know how he did it, but that man [Calloway] could sing for three and a half hours. Mostly we were backing his vocals . . . we’d only do two instrumentals a night . . . ”
- Panama Francis
“ . . . There was not much solo work for anybody besides Cab. After all he was the star . . . ”
- Dizzy Gillespie
LEE CASTLE
“ . . . Lee was sort of a hypochondriac. He always was. He used to wear a sweater underneath his shirt and stuff. He’s a sweet guy, but he was always nervous and worried about catching a cold and this and that . . . ”
- Buddy Morrow
AL COOPER
“ . . . For a smaller band, the Savoy Sultans had a great swing thing going . . . “
- Count Basie
BOB CROSBY
“ . . . Bob himself sang agreeably and he always had excellent soloists on hand to interpret the music properly . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . I always liked the Bob Crosby Band-the old Dixieland band. I loved that band . . . Bob was a fair singer, you know . . . In all fairness, Bob was a great front man. A wonderful storyteller. But his strength didn’t lie in the singing department . . . ”
- Buddy Morrow
“ . . . Poor Bob is gone now so I shouldn’t be saying anything detrimental . . . ”
- Van Alexander
AL DONAHUE
“ . . . Al Donahue was very nice . . . ”
- Ray Anthony
THE DORSEY BROTHERS
“ . . . It was a very sad day for the big band business when those two left the scene. I felt the loss of these dear friends very much, especially since they died within a year of one another
. . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . That was some band. That was probably one of the greatest bands ever assembled. I mean it . . . They fought over music, that was all. Nothing else, over music . . . ”
- Lee Castle
JIMMY DORSEY
“ . . . Jimmy’s a hell of a jazz player . . . ”
- Lee Castle
“ . . . We spent many pleasant times together and I was proud to be his friend . . .”
- Charlie Barnet
TOMMY DORSEY
“ . . . Tommy’s was the most versatile of all the bands . . . ”
- Paul Weston
“ . . . Tommy was the toughest man; he would frighten anybody . . . he made a better musician out of me, and a better player . . . You don’t say no to TD! He’d fire you right then and there!
. . . ”
- Lee Castle
“ . . . not particularly pleasant . . . He inhibited a lot of people . . . ”
- Bob Crosby
“ . . . He was tough. He was a bully . . . He never said, ‘Hey, that sounded good’ and he never said, ‘Hey, that sounded bad.’ He just expected you to play your best . . . ”
- Buddy Morrow
“ . . . I had the highest respect for Tommy’s musicianship. He was the greatest trombone player, bar none, that ever lived. But I’m not talking about Tommy as a jazz player. He would have given anything to play jazz. But he was not a jazz player. He was strictly thirty-two bars of melody, and that he played better than anybody in the world, before or since . . . ”
- Buddy Rich
" . . . He could look out at an audience and know immediately what to play for it-tempo, material, mood . . . "
- Louie Bellson
“ . . . Tommy was a fine musician and he insisted on perfection in that band. And they gave him that. Very close to it. (The only thing is, he got into singers. When you get into singers, you’re in the entertainment business.) . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
BILLY ECKSTINE
“ . . . He was a master of the true, nightlife meaning of Hip, the original, traditional meaning. At once the coolest and the hippest . . . A remarkable artist, the sonorous B . . . ”
- Duke Ellington
ROY ELDRIDGE
“ . . . There is no question that he was my musical father: Roy Eldridge influenced me more than any single trumpet player on the scene . . . ”
- Dizzy Gillespie
“ . . . He has power and a pair of chops that’s out of this man’s world. And there’s no use wondering how high Roy can go on his trumpet because he can go higher than that! . . . ”
- Louis Armstrong
DUKE ELLINGTON
“ . . . I had the greatest admiration for him. He had made it big the hard way. He had the top band in the country without any doubt. There was no competition to Duke Ellington . . . ”
- Cab Calloway
“ . . . It’s hard to top what a Basie does or an Ellington does at his peak . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
“ . . . I loved the voicings of the Duke Ellington band . . . ”
- Woody Herman
" . . . The challenge in an Ellington tune is to see what you can do to embellish it. But to tamper with the harmony is like altering a great architect's work . . . "
- Bobby Hackett
“ . . . I wish I could think like that, think that beautiful, be that imaginative, like Edward. I just don’t have that type of a mind. Edward, he thinks beautiful . . . ”
- Count Basie
“ . . . Ellington was a charming man, an extrovert, a performer . . . ”
- Sy Oliver
“ . . . I came to think of Dke as my second father. He paid the same attention to everyone, whether he was a newspaper boy or Toscanini . . . Ellington's arrangements never had drum parts. But not once did he say, 'This is how Sonny Greer did it.' He said, 'Do it your own way.' He made you create . . . ”
- Louie Bellson
“ . . . I can remember seeing the Ellington band. One guy would come on the stand, five minutes later another guy would come up, and I’d say, ‘How can they run a band like that?’ Halfway through the set the saxophone player might be sleeping. And the audience is watching all this. I could never handle such a lack of discipline . . . ”
- Ray Anthony
ZIGGY ELMAN
“ . . . He was excellent . . . A terrific trumpeter in those days . . . he was sweet, worked like hell. He had a great sense of humor and was very understanding, and you had to like the guy . . . ”
- Benny Goodman
“ . . . a great trumpet player . . . ”
- Buddy Rich
MAYNARD FERGUSON
“ . . . He is a spectacular trumpet player with an extreme range and a flair for showmanship. It is my opinion that Maynard will do anything to further his position . . . He has perpetrated a lot of ‘crossover’ music, which has won him his only general public acceptance . . . another example of what I call plastic music, and it is usually loaded with young musicians of the Kenton type fresh out of music school . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
DIZZY GILLESPIE
“ . . . I always liked the bop, and I am proud to say that the fabulous, flamboyant John Birks Gillespie worked in our band once, for four weeks. Diz played with us at the Capitol Theatre in 1944 . . . ”
- Duke Ellington
“ . . . I gave Dizzy every goddamned thing we had in the band: the music, the stands-everything. I said, ‘I don’t ever want to see this shit again.’ That was the nucleus of my good friend Dizzy’s band . . . ”
- Billy Eckstine
BENNY GOODMAN
“ . . . Benny and I came to New York together. We roomed together when we were with Ben Pollack. He was a swell gent then and he still is one today. You’ve really got to know Benny to appreciate his many wonderful qualities . . . ”
- Glenn Miller
“ . . . I learned a lot from all the bandleaders I worked for. I owe a lot to Benny Goodman . . . Benny gave me my foundation, my framework . . . ”
- Louie Bellson
“ . . . Benny was my role model. A lot of things I do in the band business today are things I learned from him . . . ”
- Lionel Hampton
“ . . . I was a very big admirer of Benny Goodman . . . Benny always kept the beat going . . . ”
- Les Brown
“ . . . Benny used to warm up some very good players for me . . . ”
- Woody Herman
“ . . . Frankly, I think Benny should be congratulated for his courage in adding negro musicians to his orchestra . . . ”
- Jimmy Dorsey
“ . . . Benny Goodman never seemed to me to have any sense of humor. He was unconsciously funny, due to the fog that seemed to surround him at all times . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . Benny Goodman kept playing ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ until the day he died. I couldn’t do that
. . . ”
- Artie Shaw
GLEN GRAY (CASA LOMA)
“ . . . The Casa Loma band was the first band to break through. They didn’t hide behind the palms, and the musicians themselves made the band . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
“ . . . I think Benny Goodman and Casa Loma have mighty fine bands . . . ”
- Louis Armstrong
“ . . . primarily an effect band, not a jazz band. It was Glen’s great ability to play for an audience that made it what it was . . . ”
- Larry Clinton
“ . . . I never felt it was a swinging band . . Although its execution was always clean, the band sounded too mechanical . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
JERRY GRAY
“ . . . Jerry wrote a lot of wonderful things . . . ”
- Billy May
MAL HALLETT
“ . . . Mal Hallet’s band cut everybody who played opposite his band at Nottings on the Charles River . . . ” [ sic ]
- Duke Ellington
LIONEL HAMPTON
“ . . . He was just as excited and exuberant about playing music then as he is now . . . ”
- Benny Goodman
COLEMAN HAWKINS
“ . . . Coleman Hawkins was one of the real masters of the tenor saxophone. Everybody who wanted to blow the instrument in his day wanted to blow like Coleman Hawkins . . . ”
- Duke Ellington
“ . . . when I heard Hawkins play, I just naturally switched to the tenor . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . Coleman Hawkins was a great favorite of mine, too . . . ”
- Lionel Hampton
" . . . Coleman was a first-class act all the way down the line . . . he was like a genius on his horn . . . "
- Roy Eldridge
TED HEATH
“ . . . I had many offers including one from a band which I didn’t warm up for, Ted Heath . . . ”
- Maynard Ferguson
HORACE HEIDT
“ . . . it may have sounded awful, but it was a great band. It did so many things. Heidt had a good feeling for playing for dancers. He was kind of clumsy-looking all right . . . ”
- Alvino Rey
" . . . It was a musical circus, and I just kept laughing . . . "
- Bobby Hackett
FLETCHER HENDERSON
“ . . . You know what? . . . my big ambition was to sound like Fletcher. He had such a wonderful band. But his was basically an ensemble group, and in our band, the solos-you know all the various stars we have had-always dominated everything . . . ”
- Duke Ellington
“ . . . My goodness, that was the band everybody was hoping to play with! It was the acid test. If you could make it with Fletcher, you could make it with anybody . . . ”
- Benny Carter
“ . . . they played more different kinds of music, things I could really get with . . . ”
- Roy Eldridge
“ . . . A marvelous arranger, especially if he felt like arranging a certain tune. He didn’t like to arrange pop tunes so much, but he managed to make just about every arrangement into a little gem . . . ”
- Benny Goodman
“ . . . One of the nicest men I ever met was Fletcher Henderson. He was never upset by anything that happened . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . Fletcher had the best musicians. But Louis was the first one to give backgrounds to soloists . . . ”
- Lionel Hampton
HORACE HENDERSON
“ . . . Horace Henderson, who was Fletcher’s younger brother, wasn’t as well known but was equally talented . . . ”
- Benny Carter
WOODY HERMAN
“ . . . I was always a little suspicious of Woody Herman’s sincerity. He began with an out-and-out Dixieland band, turned toward Ellington, and then went into bebop. As this is written, he is guilty of adopting some crossover tactics that involve rock ‘n’ roll. Nevertheless, whatever way the wind was blowing him, he always presented an excellent band . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
EARL HINES
“ . . . it was there in the Hines band in 1943 that the whole bebop movement took shape. In 1943 the Hines band was doing things that were ahead of their time. I don’t think people realize the contribution Earl Hines made, not just to piano-playing, but to music in general . . . ”
- Dizzy Gillespie
“ . . . Earl Hines is right when he says the people in the bands were the ‘first freedom riders.’ The black experience in music was a matter of heartaches, going hungry and even being beaten . . . ”
- Lionel Hampton
“ . . . We’ve been friends all through the years, and I like Earl. Some people think he is arrogant, but he really isn’t . . .”
- Claude Hopkins
CLAUDE HOPKINS
“ . . . he had a pleasing, unpretentious band . . .”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . We used to go to the Savoy Ballroom mainly to dance and listen to all the wonderful black bands that were there. There was Chick Webb, Erskine Hawkins, Claude Hopkins, and all the guys of that ilk. We just loved to dance and listen to them . . . ”
- Van Alexander
HARRY JAMES
“ . . . Harry was another giant and he had a great band . . . ”
- Louie Bellson
“ . . . He played anything, lead or jazz, you name it. He was always a very flexible trumpet player . . . ”
- Benny Goodman
“. . . Harry became my all time favorite because he could do everything. He could play fast, slow, blues and great jazz as well. What he did was put emotion into it . . . ”
- Ray Anthony
“ . . . That white boy-he plays like a jig! . . . ”
- Louis Armstrong
“ . . . Harry James and all them, we was good friends, too . . . ”
- Erskine Hawkins
“ . . . if you think of a trumpet, you got to think of Louis Armstrong and not Harry James. Harry James and I used to hide behind poles to hear Louis . . . ”
- Lee Castle
“ . . . Harry James as an outstanding trumpet player, although he chose to confined most of his playing to a very commercial area . . . Harry was a gambler, and over the years he paid dearly for his involvement with horse racing, gambling casinos, and golf . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . a gifted American musician who, after trading his genuine musical talent for a tawdry parade of hollow perks, finds he has made a bad bargain. The marvel is that in spite of it all Harry James was able to live as long as he did . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
JACK JENNEY
“ . . . Jack Jenney was probably the most underrated trombone player that ever lived . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
HAL KEMP
“ . . . You know whose music I really used to love? Hal Kemp’s . . . ”
- Guy Lombardo
STAN KENTON
“ . . . Stan Kenton’s band was never a favorite of mine, its music, in my estimation, being pretentious and unswinging. The ballads, for example, were usually played with a ponderous feeling at a deadly slow tempo that destroyed any beauty, tone color, or fluidity . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . Stan and I were friends socially . . . ”
- Woody Herman
GENE KRUPA
“ . . . Gene had showmanship and a great technique and musical taste, too. He was an excellent mjusician; he studied hard, and he had a great feeling for jazz. He wasa real classy fellow . . . ”
- Benny Goodman
" . . . Gene Krupa was so full of life. And he sure loved to swing . . . "
- Roy Eldridge
" . . . People had never before seen and heard a drummer play the way Gene did. He was the miracle drummer boy when I joined Benny Goodman. A professional who always did his job, Gene made people believe in what he did . . . "
- Lionel Hampton
" . . . He had a special quality as a person and as a performer. My wife Pearl put her finger right on it. She said: 'If you assembled all the great drummers on a stage, you would inevitably turn to him. He was like a magnet.' . . . "
- Louie Bellson
" . . . Gene Krupa did for drummers what Walter Hagan did for professional golfers-took them out of a backup role and made them far more important than they might have been . . . "
- Ray McKinley
" . . . Things wouldn't be the way they are if he hadn't been around . . . "
- Buddy Rich
GUY LOMBARDO
“ . . . As a matter of fact, Guy Lombardo was my favorite band . . . ”
- Sammy Kaye
“ . . . Guy Lombardo used to brag about the fact that they never changed their music since 1929. But I always thought that was a very strange thing, because it would be like Henry Ford saying, ‘We’ll never change from that black Tin Lizzie.’ . . . How can a man brag about standing still all his life? . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
JIMMIE LUNCEFORD
“ . . . take Jimmie Lunceford-that’s not a name that comes up that often. But that was a great band, too . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
“ . . . One of the most spectacular bands to see and hear was Jimmie Lunceford. The arrangements were well-played and the showmanship angle was always stressed . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . Well, I think Jimmie Lunceford had one of the greatest swing bands that ever was. They’d start to rock, and they’d just rock all night long . . . ”
- Count Basie
“ . . . The most exciting time for me was when I was with the Jimmie Lunceford Band . . . He was a man of great dignity. Very intellectual . . . ”
- Sy Oliver
“ . . . I was a big Lunceford fan . . . ”
- Buddy Rich
“ . . . For a while we copied a lot of the Jimmie Lunceford stuff. In essence, we were a conglomeration of anything we thought was good . . . ”
- Les Brown
RAY McKINLEY
" . . . One thing you ll probably don't know; he's nuts about fried ham and bananas . . . "
- Gene Krupa
JAY McSHANN
" . . . McShann opened up with Swingin’ the Blues, and at three o’clock that morning they were still swinging! They swung us right out of the place and made us feel like a bunch of Boy Scouts that night! Yes, they really shot us down . . . ”
- Panama Francis
GLENN MILLER
“ . . . There was a time in New York when I spent most of my life in the outer office trying to get in the inner office, just to get a single date anywhere. And the guy who was almost always sitting next to me was Glenn Miller. Glenn had been through the mill a couple of times already
. . . ”
- Woody Herman
“ . . . He was great as a businessman as well as a fine lead section trombonist . . . ”
- Tex Beneke
" . . . He was a brillant man, an honorable man. He was a great leader, with a fantastic sense of programming . . . And he was a genius for editing arrangements . . . "
- Bobby Hackett
“ . . . The commercial dance band that had a slight jazz influence, such as Glenn Miller, was a wonderful, nostalgic thing. I certainly grew up enjoying it . . . ”
- Maynard Ferguson
“ . . . Not only did they play great music, but they had a great showband, with all kinds of sliding trombones and trumpets with the hats going all which ways . . . ”
- Ray Anthony
“ . . . I remember Glenn Miller once saying to me, ‘The easiest business to make a million dollars in is the music business.’ And I said, ‘How do you figure that?’ He said, ‘Well, never distort a good melody and you’ve got it made.’ And he was right . . . I guess I didn’t like Glenn too much . . . or I didn’t like his ways, or whatever . . . ”
- Lee Castle
“ . . . He was success oriented. He found a good thing and decided to make as much money as he could . . . ”
- Billy May
“ . . . Frankly, my own opinion of the Glenn Miller clarinet lead is that it was so saccharine sweet it could give you diabetes. However, it certainly was commercially feasible and it made for instant recognition . . . I preferred Benny Goodman’s swing style . . . ”
- Les Brown
“ . . . the recipient of an enormous amount of mass publicity-the fact that he died in the mysterious circumstances that he died in, and all that. But musically, his was essentially ground-out music-ground-out like so many sausages . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
“ . . . while his music was highly stylized and predictable, he was never guilty of anything unmusical . . . Glenn was a gentleman and a fine musician . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
LUCKY MILLINDER
“ . . . He couldn’t read a note, but if you gave him a bunch of guys who could read, in one week’s time he’d have them sounding like a band that had been organized for a year. He could remember everything in an arrangement after it was run down once. He was a genius that way
. . . ”
- Panama Francis
RED NICHOLS
“ . . . I heard Red Nichols and liked what he played, not because it was clean, but because it was different . . . ”
- Roy Eldridge
RED NORVO
“ . . . a wonderful band . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
BEN POLLACK
" . . . He always seemed to be doing something wrong. Instead of just letting things come his way in their natural order, he'd always be reaching for something that was inaccessible. He had the wrong managers. They were always telling him how great he was, encouraging him to make decisions which were just wrong. Mistakes. Like singing. Or ending his records in that silly, whiny little voice, saying, 'May it please you-Ben Pollack.' . . . "
-Benny Goodman
LOUIS PRIMA
“ . . . I found Louis Prima in a little broken-down club . . . And I brought him to New York . . . Well, as you know, Prima finally got to play at the Famous Door and he and his gang started swing on Fifty-second Street and I guess you could say I was responsible for it . . . ”
- Guy Lombardo
“ . . . I don’t know Prima . . . but his voice on phonograph records tells you that he’s a mighty sweet boy . . . ”
- Louis Armstrong
BOYD RAEBURN
“ . . . Though not a great instrumentalist, he had a great band. He might have made a bigger mark than he did, but he came along a little late in the parade . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
DON REDMAN
“ . . . one of the first to impress me in the field of jazz arranging was Don Redman . . . ”
- Benny Carter
BUDDY RICH
“ . . . He had enormous youth, enormous energy, enormous vitality in his playing and a beat that couldn’t be topped . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
" . . . I think he was far and away the greatest drummer who ever lived. His technique was unbelievable; he swung; he could execute anything he had in mind. He just had it all . . . "
- Ray McKinley
" . . . I don't know if he learned anything from me, but I certainly learned a lot from him . . . "
- Gene Krupa
“ . . . his band has primarily served to show off his fine talents . . . its soloists, while effective, have no identity. Perhaps they have just paled in the shadow of the overpowering leader . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . He has a lot of swing tunes in the book. And when they turn around and play them, then he has a great swing band . . . ”
- Count Basie
SAUTER-FINEGAN
“ . . . they made some unbelievably good records . . . ”
- Billy May
“ . . . a remarkable band . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . Eddie was and still is a great arranger. I was really taken with his sort of style and the different kind of a sound that he gave to the band . . . ”
- Benny Goodman
JAN SAVITT
“ . . . Jan Savitt had a workmanlike band whose value was somewhat obscured by the fact that he employed shuffle rhythm on most of his arrangements. If you got past that, you heard some pretty good playing . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
ARTIE SHAW
“ . . . Brilliant musician. Beautiful guy . . . ”
- Lee Castle
“ . . . Artie knew talent and knew how to develop it . . . ”
- Buddy Morrow
" . . . Artie Shaw was a hell of a clarinet player. My time was always more legato than his, but his sound was more open. It carried a lot farther . . . He had a quite different tone, you know, and idea, different from what other people had, but he was quite effective. And he really knew how to pick songs, musicians, things like that, very well. He had a hell of a band, but I don't think there was ever this competition that everybody talks about . . . "
-Benny Goodman
“ . . . some of the things he did with added strings were very rewarding . . . ”
- Charlie Barnet
“ . . . I was happier musically with Artie . . . But I was happier personally with Glenn . . . ”
- Jerry Gray
JACK TEAGARDEN
“ . . . Teagarden just threw me for a loop . . . He sounded so good . . . ”
- Lee Castle
" . . . Jack wasn't an easy guy to know. He drank quite a bit. I, being a nice Jewish boy, didn't drink that much . . . But he was an absolutely fantastic trombone player, and I loved to listen to him take solos . . . "
- Benny Goodman
CLAUDE THORNHILL
“ . . . I wonder if the world will ever know how much it had in this beautiful man . . . this beautiful man. He never wanted anything from anybody. If he called you, he just called to talk-or else he might want to give you something. You know, there aren’t many of his kind left. . . . He was a beautiful man . . . ”
- Duke Ellington
FATS WALLER
" . . . Fats was a bundle of joy. Wherever he was, everfybody was happy. He'd walk into a room and shout, 'The joint is officially jumping!' and that was the truth . . . "
-- Bobby Hackett
" . . . Fats was always a boisterous man. It was no put-on . . . "
- Red Norvo
CHICK WEBB
“ . . . Chick Webb used to cut everybody who went to the Savoy Ballroom, because he knew what to play and when to play it for the jitterbugs . . . ”
- Duke Ellington
“ . . . That man was dynamic; he could reach the most amazing heights. When he really let go, you had a feeling that the entire atmosphere in the place was being charged. When he felt like it, he could cut down any of us. . . ”
- Gene Krupa
" . . . Chick Webb was the best drum soloist I ever heard . . . "
- Roy Eldridge
" . . . He represented true hipness. His playing was original, different, completely his own . . . "
- Buddy Rich
" . . . He was a powerhouse, an elemental force . . . The big thing I remember about Chick was the sense of controlled abandon that permeated his playing . . . "
- Artie Shaw
" . . . The whole band was him, really. Being a sickly little fellow, I don't know where he got the energey. But he played boldly. All his strength was in his music . . . "
- Andy Kirk
“ . . . I always admired Chick Webb, and he was my idol. I listened to his records and he was about the only person who really impressed me then. I tried to learn different things others were doing, but I wanted to play drums like him . . . ”
- Panama Francis
“ . . . The records keep Chick's enormous talent a secret. They only suggest what he could do. I saw and heard him night after night and it was never less than exhilarating. He felt such happiness when he played and transmitted a spark to the players. The man was inspiring . . . ”
- Van Alexander
" . . . Chick was the greatest of all drummers-a musician who had what only God can give. He was built for the drums. You follow me? The way his body conformed to the drums-it was God's work, God's gift. Chick may not have had all the breaks in life. But the Lord has a way of evening things up . . . "
- Illinois Jacquet
LAWRENCE WELK
“ . . . Let’s face it. Welk has the most successful band in America. Maybe it’s because the music is in keeping with the times. People don’t have to think about it. No effort. It’s automatic. They don’t even have to listen to it. It can be great music for talking to, or great music for watching a ball game to . . . ”
- Woody Herman
“ . . . Look at the money Lawrence Welk has made. Look at the quiet, comfortable life he’s had because he made all this dough doing only one thing . . . ”
- Artie Shaw
“ . . . What does the public say? Lawrence Welk going off TV has caused an uproar. Now that’s being factual. But TV has been very foolish toward good music . . . ”
- Guy Lombardo
PAUL WHITEMAN
“ . . . We rode in on Paul Whiteman’s coattails . . . ”
- Guy Lombardo
sources:
Whitney Balliett. American Musicians II: Seventy-one Portraits in Jazz (New York City: Oxford Univerfsity Press, 1996).
Charlie Barnet with Stanley Dance. Those Swinging Years: The Autobiography of Charlie Barnet (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1984).
Count Basie as told to Albert Murray. Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie (New York City: Random House, 1985).
William D. Clancy with Audree Coke Kenton. Woody Herman: Chronicles of the Herds (New York City: Schirmer Books, 1995).
Stanley Dance. The World of Swing (New York City: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974).
Chip Deffaa. In the Mainstream: 18 Portraits in Jazz (Metuchen, NJ: The Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, 1992)
---. Swing Legacy (Metuchen, NJ: The Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, 1989).
Down Beat 60 Years of Jazz (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1995).
Duke Ellington. Music is my Mistress (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1973).
Fred Hall. Dialogues in Swing: Intimate Conversations with the Stars of the Big Band Era (Ventura, CA: Pathfinder Publishing, 1989).
Burt Korall. Drummin' Men: The Heartbeat of Jazz: The Swing Years (New York City: Schirmer Books, 1990).
Peter J. Levinson. Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James (New York City: Oxford University Press, 1999).
George T. Simon. The Big Bands, 4th Edition (New York City: Schirmer Books, 1981).
Joe Smith. Off the Record: An Oral History of Popular Music (New York City: Warner Books, 1988).
Richard M. Sudhalter. Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz: 1915 - 1945 (New York City: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Sheila Tracy. Bands, Booze and Broads (Edinburgh, Scotland: Mainstream Publishing, 1995).
Dempsey J. Travis. An Autobiography of Black Jazz (Chicago, IL: Urban Research Institute, Inc., 1983).
return to Big Band Library homepage
