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Kathleen Lane, sometimes billed as Kitty Lane was an American Big Band singer in the 1930s and 1940s.
Kathleen was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in December, 1916. She attended John Harris High School where she was captain of her high school basketball team. "Kitty" was best described as 5 feet of dynamite. Growing up in Harrisburg, she was a swimmer, a diver, played tennis and golf better than most boys, and loved riding horses. Most of all she loved to sing. She said that was the only thing she ever wanted was a career as a jazz singer. As a young child, she sang on the local radio.
After auditioning with allegedly over 100 'girl singers,' she won the praise of Glenn Miller and joined his first band in May of June 1937, as Miller's first female vocalist. She recorded five songs with Miller in November and December; "Sweet Stranger" made Metronome's Best Records list and editor George T. Simon became one of her staunchest supporters.
In May 1937 and before joining Miller's band, she had recorded a number of songs with Charlie Barnet including "Love is a Merry-go-Round," "In Your Own Little Way" and "He Walked Right In."
Miller's group folded due to financial issues and in January 1938, she signed with Isham Jones but did not record with his band. In late October or early November of that year, she joined Bunny Berigan (with husband Jerry Johnson as band manager) and recorded two sides, "I Cried for You" (which reached No. 13 on the record charts) and "'Deed I Do".
A few months later, Lane was appearing with Bob Chester and during the summer of 1939 she recorded seven sides, among them a standout version of "Just For A Thrill". On September 21, 1939, she appeared on Chester's short-lived 25-minute radio show on CBS; the program was archived (along with the rest of Washington, D. C. station WJSV's complete broadcast day) and is still circulated by Old Time Radio collectors and on the internet. She stayed with Chester until October, when Dolores O'Neill became the band's featured attraction.
In early November, Metronome announced that Lane had joined Red Norvo's band, but her stay was brief: in a matter of weeks she was appearing at the Strand Theater in New York with the Bob Crosby Orchestra, possibly as a last-minute substitute for Doris Day. In October 1940, Lane was Bunny Berigan's guest vocalist at the World's Fair in Flushing, New York, singing "Rumboogie" and "A Million Dreams Ago". The following month she auditioned for NBC's "Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street" but Dolores O'Neill got the job. In December, Lane was back at the Strand, this time with Woody Herman. Like the Crosby and Norvo gigs, the Strand date with Herman seems to have been a temporary arrangement: Lane did not record with Herman's Herd and apparently retired from the music business in 1941.
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James Francis Dorsey was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, composer and big band leader. He recorded and composed the jazz and pop standards "I'm Glad There Is You " and "It's The Dreamer In Me". His other major recordings were "Tailspin", "John Silver", "So Many Times", "Amapola", "Brazil ", "Pennies from Heaven" with Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, and Frances Langford, "Grand Central Getaway", and "So Rare". He played clarinet on the seminal jazz standards "Singin' the Blues" in 1927 and the original 1930 recording of "Georgia on My Mind", which were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Mildred Bailey was a Native American jazz singer during the 1930s, known as "The Queen of Swing", "The Rockin' Chair Lady", and "Mrs. Swing". She recorded the songs "For Sentimental Reasons", "It's So Peaceful in the Country", "Doin' The Uptown Lowdown", "Trust in Me", "Where Are You?", "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart", "Small Fry", "Please Be Kind", "Darn That Dream", "Rockin' Chair", "Blame It on My Last Affair", and "Says My Heart". She had three records that reached number one on the popular charts.
Circle Records is a jazz record label founded in 1946 by Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis.
Edward William May Jr. was an American composer, arranger and trumpeter. He composed film and television music for The Green Hornet (1966), The Mod Squad (1968), Batman, and Naked City (1960). He collaborated on films such as Pennies from Heaven (1981), and orchestrated Cocoon, and Cocoon: The Return, among others.
Roland Bernard "Bunny" Berigan was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader who rose to fame during the swing era. His career and influence were shortened by alcoholism, and ended with his early demise at the age of 33 from cirrhosis. Although he composed some jazz instrumentals such as "Chicken and Waffles" and "Blues", Berigan was best known for his virtuoso jazz trumpeting. His 1937 classic recording "I Can't Get Started" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1975.
The swing era was the period (1933–1947) when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States, especially for teenagers. Though this was its most popular period, the music had actually been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Bennie Moten, Cab Calloway, Earl Hines, and Fletcher Henderson, and white bands from the 1920s led by the likes of Jean Goldkette, Russ Morgan and Isham Jones. An early milestone in the era was from "the King of Swing" Benny Goodman's performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935, bringing the music to the rest of the country. The 1930s also became the era of other great soloists: the tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Lester Young; the alto saxophonists Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges; the drummers Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, Jo Jones and Sid Catlett; the pianists Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; the trumpeters Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Bunny Berigan, and Rex Stewart.
Red Norvo was an American musician, one of jazz's early vibraphonists, known as "Mr. Swing". He helped establish the xylophone, marimba, and vibraphone as jazz instruments. His recordings included "Dance of the Octopus", "Bughouse", "Knockin' on Wood", "Congo Blues", and "Hole in the Wall".
The Dorsey Brothers were an American studio dance band, led by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. They started recording in 1928 for OKeh Records.
George Abel Van Eps was an American swing and mainstream jazz guitarist.
Edward Joseph Bertolatus, also known as Eddie Bert, was an American jazz trombonist.
Jack Sperling was an American jazz drummer who performed as a sideman in big bands and as a studio musician for pop and jazz acts, movies, and television.
A big band remote was a remote broadcast, common on radio during the 1930s and 1940s, involving a coast-to-coast live transmission of a big band.
Abraham Arthur "Glenn" Osser was an American musician, musical arranger, orchestra leader, and songwriter. His birthname was Abraham (Abe), but much of his work was under the name Glenn; he can be found with references under both names. He also worked under a number of other names: Arthur Meisel, Bob Marvel, Maurice Pierre, and others.
The Metronome All-Stars were a collection of jazz musicians assembled for studio recordings by Metronome Magazine, based on its readers' polls. The studio sessions were held in the years 1939–42, 1946–53, and 1956, and typically consisted of two tracks which allowed each participant a chance to solo for one chorus. Earlier recordings feature more swing style, while the later sessions tend more toward bebop.
Cliff Leeman was an American jazz drummer. His nickname was "Mr. Time".
This is a timeline documenting events of Jazz in the year 1908.
The Famous Door was a jazz club on New York's 52nd Street. It opened in 1935 and was one of the major clubs on the street, hosting leading jazz musicians until 1950, through changes of location and periods of closure.
The Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame is part of a US-based non-profit organization that began operations in 1978 and continues to the present (2022) in San Diego County, California. David Larkin is current president.
Joseph P. Lippman was an American composer, arranger, conductor, pianist, and songwriter working in jazz and traditional pop. His musical career was over five decades long, having started at age 19 with the Benny Goodman orchestra in 1934 and writing for television, films, and Broadway in the 1980s. He composed and arranged for Bunny Berigan, Jimmy Dorsey, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker and worked as staff arranger in television for Perry Como and Hollywood Palace.
