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Alton Glenn Miller (March 1, 1904 — presumably December 15, 1944), was an American jazz musician and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1942, leading one of the best known "Big Bands." During World War II, while traveling to entertain U.S. troops in France, his plane disappeared in bad weather. His body was never found.
Miller's signature recordings — including, among others, "In the Mood", "Tuxedo Junction", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", "Moonlight Serenade", "Sun Valley Jump", "String of Pearls", "Little Brown Jug", "Pennsylvania 6-5000" (named for the phone number of New York's Hotel Pennsylvania, whose ballroom was Miller's primary venue) — are still familiar refrains, even to generations born decades after Miller disappeared.
Glenn Miller was born in Clarinda, Iowa on March 1, 1904. Later, his family moved to North Platte, Nebraska during his childhood, and he started his musical career when his father brought home a mandolin. As soon as possible, he traded the instrument for an old trombone, which he practised diligently.
In 1923, Miller entered the University of Colorado where he joined Sigma Nu Fraternity, but spent most of his time away from school, attending auditions and playing any gigs he could get, most notably with Boyd Senter's band in Denver. He dropped out of school after failing three out of five classes one semester, and decided to concentrate on making a career as a professional musician. He later studied the Schillinger technique with Joseph Schillinger, who is credited with helping Miller create the "Miller sound" and under whose tutelage he himself composed what became his signature theme, "Moonlight Serenade."
In the mid-1930s Miller also worked as a trombonist and arranger in the Dorsey Brothers ill-fated co-led orchestra. "Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey were constantly squabbling, and the subject was always music." In 1935 he assembled an American orchestra for British bandleader Ray Noble, developing the arrangement of lead clarinet over four saxophones that eventually became the sonic keynote of his own big band. Members of the Noble band included future bandleader Claude Thornhill, Bud Freeman and Charlie Spivak.
Glenn Miller compiled several musical arrangements before forming his first band in 1937. The band failed to distinguish itself from the many others of the era and eventually broke up. Benny Goodman said in 1976, "In late 1937, before his band became popular, we were both playing in Dallas. Glenn was pretty dejected and came to see me. He asked, 'What do you do? How do you make it?' I said, 'I don't know, Glenn. You just stay with it.'"
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