Glen Miller...
 

This stuff is good, I feel like I should be sitting beside a P51 in a leather jacket as I listen to it.:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJE-onnw2gM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK-lBi5r6Jk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W5eiyLrHXY&feature=related

The Big Band Swing sound!
I understand he was difficult to work for, as any perfectionist would be. Perished in a freak accident. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Miller

I've been listening to his sound since my High School days...great music for pumping your BP up!

The movie with Jimmy Stewart in the title role is a good story. I really don't know how historically accurate it is, but it provides a setting for quite a bit of his music. There is a scene where GM is performing in England as a V1 attack begins, and GM, and the band just ignore it and keep on playing. Great stuff!

The music of that era really holds up well over time. Will the popular music of recent years do the same? I have my doubts.

At my mother's retirement community, they brought in a musician who does a big band routine, all by himself. He has a portable sound system that has swing tunes and such from back in the day. Then he plays the trumpet part himself. He is quite good and he gets these people engaged. He had them tapping their toes and dancing in their seats. That really is great music.

I like a lot of the bands from that era.

Try the Dorsey brothers, Benny Goodman, and Harry James.
These are guys who could PLAY real instruments and not just program computers.

Of them all Glenn Miller had a very distinctive sound. His music was much more orchestral and not a jazzy as say Goodman, not that he couldn't swing with the best of them ;)

I was fortunate enough to hear the Glenn Miller Orchestra a few times when they still had original members in it. Of course GM was gone long before I was born...

I was born in '64, but I was raised on Glen Miller, the Andrews Sisters, and Spike Jones.:D
An era of music that I am never tired of.

What? No Boots Randolph?;)

Amen to Big Band Music!
 

Even though I'm too young to have lived in the Big Band Era, my Dad had it going all the time and to this day it's my favorite. It's also one of the quickest ways to elicit compliance from the kids when on a trip. Just tune the XM to the 40's station and they'll do anything to get it changed! :D It's the auditory equivalent of a tazer to them.
Several of the orchestras still tour and play the original arrangements. I've been able to see the Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw groups in the last several years. It's great to hear pure music with no electronics and in most cases, no amplification.

The most fun is playing that music. I used to rock the Alto Sax in High School and college. :D Major fan of this music here!

There's alway Brian Setzer. :)

In the mood was my grandfather's favorite song, iirc. He played in big bands during WWII and much later in life with the Shriners. I think he enjoyed listening to Pete Fountain more, since he was a fellow reed man. It rubbed off on me big time. Hard to believe he'll be gone 10 years this January. :eek: I still borrow some of his records from storage to play on my old hi fi in the basement.

Of course, you're forgetting the most iconic Glenn Miller recording of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n92ATE3IgIs

My personal favorites are the later studio recordings of Sinatra with the Count Basie orchestra, and just about anything Bobby Darrin did.

There was also another great often forgotten jazz artist that few know about.

Ultimate Jazz Musician

I love Big band music. Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller the Andrew Sisters.

several kept on playing
 

In late 60's through the 80's many of the big band guys evolved into a rock / more modern version of the big bands. I saw Buddy Rich and Maynard Ferguson many times around that time period. Those guys had real talent. As money got tight they started using recent grads from the music schools to fill in, but the arrangements still sounded pretty good.