Who plays Glenn Miller's 'In The Mood'?

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remysun
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#121 Post by remysun » Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:57 pm

So what could Glenn Miller have done, had he survived? Could his understanding of pop music have kept the Big Band genre rolling through the rock and roll era?

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trev
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#122 Post by trev » Sun Nov 04, 2007 9:44 pm

No. There were many other factors. You sure ask some random questions.

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remysun
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#123 Post by remysun » Mon Nov 05, 2007 3:14 am

trev wrote:No. There were many other factors. You sure ask some random questions.
It leads into it. We drifted into talking about "Sing, Sing, Sing", and "Take the A-Train", I thought it'd be good to bring it back to Glenn Miller.

I think a lot about what ifs and other possibilities. It generates a lot of cool ideas.

lindyhop4life
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#124 Post by lindyhop4life » Fri Dec 14, 2007 10:08 pm

straycat wrote:Well - speaking only for myself, I don't like it either (though 'hate' is a bit strong) - it's just not a track that inspires me.

I think - I've just heard it far too much - rarely on the dancefloor, but off it, more times than I can possibly count - from my perspective, it's the definitive overplayed swing track. If I were to hear it today for the first time, my feelings about it might be completely different - but it's impossible to know for sure...
Ah, but has anyone heard the Oscar Aleman version of it? Great stuff!...and very different to boot!

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remysun
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#125 Post by remysun » Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:31 pm

In terms of different, the one I want to find a 12" "Sing, Sing, Sing" remix by something like Cantina Band, if I remember right.

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kitkat
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#126 Post by kitkat » Tue Dec 18, 2007 10:42 am

lindyhop4life wrote:Ah, but has anyone heard the Oscar Aleman version of it? Great stuff!...and very different to boot!
I've spun it twice and gotten people dancing both times. Not a full floor, but not empty, either. And I like it, too.

julius
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#127 Post by julius » Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:36 pm

Miller's Army Air Force recording of In the Mood has (in my opinion) better soloing than the original 78 with Tex Beneke on sax. The AAF version seems a little less square to me.

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#128 Post by Campus Five » Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:48 pm

The AAF Caribbean Clipper seems to have more punch too.
"I don''t dig that two beat jive the New Orleans cats play.
My boys and I have four heavy beats to the bar and no cheating!
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Haydn
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#129 Post by Haydn » Sun Aug 10, 2008 4:55 am

The original Glenn Miller version of In The Mood was played at a dance I went to last night, and got one of the best reactions I've ever experienced at a dance. This was NOT primarily a Lindy Hop night; there were about 200 people in the room, a combination of partner dancers and party groups. The DJ played In The Mood between the band sets, and there was an instant collective rush to the dance floor. One of the 'party groups' formed their own jam circle and people took turns to dance in the middle with people clapping and cheering on the outside. I enjoyed dancing to it with my partner (who said "oo - I like this one" when it started), and at the same time I was aware of the amazing vibe in the room as the music got going.

I still don't like In The Mood, and I know it probably wouldn't get the same reaction from a crowd of experienced lindy hoppers. But I was amazed by the energy that it produced in the room last night, and it's exciting seeing people having fun dancing to old music :)

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Platypus
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#130 Post by Platypus » Sun Aug 10, 2008 5:08 am

Still one of the top requests of new attendees. Just had it requested twice in the past month.

Haydn
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#131 Post by Haydn » Sun Aug 10, 2008 5:23 am

straycat wrote:Well - on the last night of Herrang this year, I ended up dancing to a version I'd not come across before - pretty fast, lots of fun, but with more false endings that all the others put together - in that respect, it was about as evil as a track can get.

The DJ (Ron Leslie) told me it was by Gene Krupa, but I can't seem to find hide nor hair of any versions by him. Ring any bells with anyone?
Just coming back to this, I think it's from a CD called The Radio Years, 1940 by Gene Krupa And His Orchestra.

The track listing on allmusic is wrong, In The Mood is Track 17. See the listing on Amazon for the correct track listing and some reviews
Last edited by Haydn on Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

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#132 Post by dogpossum » Sun Aug 10, 2008 9:28 pm

Haydn wrote:
straycat wrote:Well - on the last night of Herrang this year, I ended up dancing to a version I'd not come across before - pretty fast, lots of fun, but with more false endings that all the others put together - in that respect, it was about as evil as a track can get.

The DJ (Ron Leslie) told me it was by Gene Krupa, but I can't seem to find hide nor hair of any versions by him. Ring any bells with anyone?
Just coming back to this, I think it's from a CD called The Radio Years, 1940 by Gene Krupa And His Orchestra.

The track listing on allmusic is wrong, In The Mood is Track 17. See the listing on Amazon for the correct track listing and some reviews
Goodness, that's a sweet song!

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#133 Post by dogpossum » Mon Aug 11, 2008 4:44 am

I'm not sure anyone's already posted this (I only had a quick squiz at the 9 pages in this thread) but Gunther Schuller had something to say about In the Mood. He writes that Hot and Anxious was arranged by Horace Henderson for Don Redman (and his orchestra) in 1932. He also writes that In the Mood (and forgive me if someone else has posted this - just figured I'd add it before I forgot about it)....
...has an interesting history. A riff tune, built on blues changes, it was composed by the black reed instrumentalist and arranger Joe Garland. But as is so often the case in riff pieces, it was based on a motif that had kicked around a long time and was simply assembled, notated, and put by Garland in a specific copyrightable form. It appears that the trumpeter Wingy Manone first used the basic In the Mood lick from 1930 on a Chicago-style recording called Tar Paper Stomp. He recorded it again, rechristened as Jumpy Nerves, in 1939, just four months before Miller's In the Mood recording. But by that time Joe Garland had picked the riff up and had used it in his 1935 composition and arrangement of There's Rhythm in Harlem for the Mills Blue Rhythm Band. But long before that (March 1931) Horace Henderson had incorporated the riff as the second strain in his Hot and Anxious, recorded by both his brother Fletcher's band and Don Redman's.

Joe Garland took his 1935 arrangement with him when he left the Blue Rhythm Band along with Edgar Hayes, and recorded it as In the Mood for Hayes in early 1938. Next he offered it to Artie Shaw, who played but never recorded it, on the one hand thinking the simplistic riff a little beneath his own musical ambitions and on the other hand finding Garland's arrangement too long to fit on a ten-inch disc.

When Garland offered In the Mood to Miller, who was undoubtedly looking for strong new numbers for his Glen Island Casino booking, Miller grabbed the piece. With the precise skills of a first-rate surgeon Miller trimmed Garland's arrangement down to essentials, retaining the two initial strains, building in two solo sections (a saxophone exchange between Beneke and Klink, and a Hurley 16-bar trumpet solo over an Aflat pedal point) to the famous fade-away ending with its riff repeated three times at ever softer dynamic levels, then suddenly roaring in ff a fourth time for the final climax. At this point a trumpet-trio coda was added, climbing from the low register to a high Aflat-chord... [and here Schuller continues with an in-depth analysis of the score]

As the example show[ed], this is a harmonically relatively complex passage, of the kind of modernity that Miller had by now ruled out. But here, after the somewhat static preceding material - the circular riff (heard already six times before the final coda), the trumpet solo pedal point - the zigzagging chromaticism of the trumpet trio, rising inexorably to the final climax, was an uncannily perfect touch. For their time these eight bars were not all that easy to play and to hear - and it took the trumpet section quite a while to play them really well. (On the recording they are somewhat ragged.)

Part of the excitement of the whole coda derives from the exquisite sense of suspended animation created in the diminishing riff repetitions by the surprising elongation - it is surprising even after the 1000th listening - of the low unison Aflat pedal-note in the trombones, thereby yielding an unexpected 14-bar phrase length, rather than the traditional twelve.

No official word has ever been offered as to how the arranger's credits are to read. Two things are clear, however, from the aural evidence itself: 1) that Miller oversaw the concept of the piece, and 2) that at least four hands contributed to the final result. Miller's pianist, Chummy MacGregor, seems to have laid claim to the final trumpet coda. My guess is that Eddie Durham did the actual transferring of Garland's original arrangement, as pruned by Miller, and that Durham is also responsible for the trombone pedals towards the end. He was a trombonist, of course, and had used similar effects for years with the Lunceford band.

It is ironic but in the nature of the popular music business, that Miller became a millionaire on In the Mood alone, unlike his three arranger helpmates - Garland, Durham, and MacGregor - who did not share in the financial rewards. Durham reputedly received all of five dollars for his contribution.

Glenn Miller is reputed to have flatly asked John Hammond, after the latter had written a scathing review of Miller, why he judged him as a musician; "All I'm interested in is making money." That unbelievable admission - surely taken out of context - may be an exaggeration.
(The Swing Era, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1989: 674-676).


Personally, I haven't ever DJed In The Mood, and really don't see it happening any time soon. I don't much like dancing to it, either, but that could just be a matter of over-kill... and the fact that Jive Bunny played such a pivotal role in my adolescence (though I have to thank it for getting me interested in jazz... via Glenn Miller and my father's record-of-the-week collection).
I am very tempted, though, to try all those different songs featuring that riff. I have a version of that Wingy Manone Jump Nerves (1939 - from the Mosaic Chu Berry collection) that I quite like. It's pretty mellow, but I kind of like it. I really like the MBRB one too.... and if I can find that Krupa one... !!


... oh man, this is some nerdy shit. Quick, someone turn on the telly.

Haydn
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#134 Post by Haydn » Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:10 am

dogpossum wrote:I am very tempted, though, to try all those different songs featuring that riff. I have a version of that Wingy Manone Jump Nerves (1939 - from the Mosaic Chu Berry collection) that I quite like. It's pretty mellow, but I kind of like it. I really like the MBRB one too.... and if I can find that Krupa one... !!
Yeah, The Wingy Manone song is nice and mellow and seems to go down quite well. In contrast, "There's Rhythm In Harlem" by The Mills Blue Rhythm Band has great energy, but the few times I've heard it DJ'd, the reaction has been pretty low-key and disappointing.

Versions that have had a good crowd reaction when I've heard them are:

Hot And Anxious by Don Redman

In The Mood by:

Edgar Hayes
Glenn Miller (original hit version)
Artie Shaw
Gene Krupa *

* The Krupa version is great, but, as Andy (straycat) said, the ending goes on for ever and is 'challenging' to dance to.

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fredo
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#135 Post by fredo » Mon Aug 11, 2008 7:32 am

other in the moods that I play/hear played:

Oscar Aleman
Teddy Wilson

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