1930 – 1940s Swing Era

By the 1940s Swing was the thing!

By the 1940s Swing was the thing! Big band leaders Benny Goodman and fellow-clarinettist Artie Shaw had been joined by fellow virtuosi (and superstars of their day); trumpeter Harry James, battling brothers Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey (who led their own bands on trombone and alto-saxophone respectively) and trombonist Glenn Miller. Miller’s classic hits like ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo’ ‘Pennsylvania 65000’ and ‘In The Mood’ put him in the lead for pop hits before his untimely death in a still-unexplained wartime air-crash in 1944; his musical legacy continues to be celebrated today. All the big-band leaders made guest appearances in Hollywood musicals of the period and Goodman, the Dorseys and Miller would all be the subjects of (highly romanticised) biopic movies between 1947-56.(Of ‘The Benny Goodman Story,1956, brother Harry Goodman said: ‘the only thing they got right was the number on the mailbox!’). But behind (and beyond) all of these leaders lay the first inspiration of jazz’s greatest orchestra leader and composer Edward Kennedy ‘Duke’ Ellington (1899-1974). From his first band in 1923 Ellington would lead the field for orchestral creativity in his star-studded orchestra of premier soloists. And with his musical partner, Billy Strayhorn (in our photograph) Duke would compose an unequalled catalogue of jazz compositions and songs including ‘Mood Indigo’ ‘Take the A Train’ ‘I let a Song go out of my Heart’ and ‘In my Solitude’.

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