Wilbur Schwartz (17 March 1918 Newark, New Jersey – 3 August 1990 Los Angeles), aka Wil Schwartz or Willie Schwartz, was an American studio session clarinetist, alto saxophonist, and flutist who was widely known as a member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra. [1] [2]
Born in 1918 to Charles and Pearl Schwartz of Newark, New Jersey, young Willie studied music as a child, along with his older brother Jack. At the 14th Avenue School, he performed in various ensembles, some under the direction of Henry Melnick. Despite the trepidation of their parents, young West Side High schoolers Jack and Wil took a paying gig on a cruise ship, the Atlantida, down to Havana one summer. Jack graduated in January of 1935, with Wil following suit in January 1936. Club dates and an engagement with Julie Wintz's band kept young Wil employed, until a fateful night in lower Manhattan in 1938 changed everything - Wil was playing with a trio, and veteran trombonist Glenn Miller came into the club and liked what he heard.
With twenty year-old Wil playing lead clarinet over four saxes, Miller assiduously rehearsed and polished his band's sound: a smooth, "sweet" style of swing with distinctive arrangements by Miller and Bill Finnegan, among others. According to big band chronicler George T. Simon, "Willie's tone and way of playing provided a fullness and richness so distinctive that none of the later Miller imitators could ever accurately reproduce the Miller sound." Then, on March 1, 1939 (Miller's birthday), the band received word of being booked for the summer season at the Glen Island Casino, an auspicious showcase. Dates at the Meadowbrook Ballroom followed, with recording sessions for Bluebird and coast-to-coast radio broadcasts sponsored by Chesterfield. The Miller band was accorded the first gold record ever by the RIAA for "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" and hits that defined the era followed: "In The Mood", "Pennsylvania 6-5000", "A String Of Pearls", "I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo", "American Patrol", "Tuxedo Junction", "Elmer's Tune", "Little Brown Jug", and the band's theme and the swing era's archetypical ballad, "Moonlight Serenade" on which Wil's golden clarinet tone was imprinted on a generation.
Upon the United States' entry into the Second World War, Miller's patriotism spurred him to disband his civilian band at the peak of its success and enlist in the Army Air Force. Despite repeated entreaties from Miller, Wil initially struck out on his own as a sideman, but sensing the inevitable, eventually enlisted in the Merchant Marines. Stationed on Catalina Island, he met lifelong friend Ted Nash, another woodwind legend who had come up from the Les Brown band. Following the war, Hollywood studio work blossomed and Wil was playing a five day-a-week radio show for Bob Crosby when he met Peggy Clark, she of the Sentimentalists with Tommy Dorsey. Six weeks later, they wed on September 17, 1948.
The studio work continued. Wil was in demand as a perfect sightreader and doubler on sax, clarinet, and flute (having studied with Roger Stevens). Sessions with his friend from the Miller days Billy May led to work with young Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins, and others. Album work with Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat Cole, Judy Garland, and many others was supplemented by film work for up-and-comers like Henry Mancini and Neal Hefti. Playing for the Kennedy inauguration was a highlight, as was playing for Johnny Mandel on the film score of "The Sandpiper". Johnny Mann hired him in the band for The Joey Bishop Show (up against The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson, for which he occasionally played under Doc Severinson, or The Merv Griffin Show with leader Mort Lindsey). Wil's sound was in demand well into the 1980's, when composer John Williams tapped him to play for the score of "Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom", and James Horner for "Cocoon" and "Batteries Not Included".
Wil married Peggy Clark, whose career rivaled his. She was singing on The Jack Smith Show for radio when they met, and she became a prodigious session singer, recording for Mancini, Jud Conlon, Jimmy Joyce, Earl Brown, and many others. Schwartz was the father of Karen, session singer for film, records, commercials, and television, and of Grammy-winning composer-arranger Nan Schwartz. [3] Youngest son Doug is a music engineer.
Alton Glen "Glenn" Miller was an American big band conductor, arranger, composer, trombone player, and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the US Army Air Forces. His civilian band, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra were one of the most popular and successful bands of the 20th century and the big band era. His military group, the Major Glenn Miller Army Air Forces Orchestra, was also popular and successful.
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.
Glenn Miller and His Orchestra was an American swing dance band formed by Glenn Miller in 1938. Arranged around a clarinet and tenor saxophone playing melody, and three other saxophones playing harmony, the band became the most popular and commercially successful dance orchestra of the swing era and one of the greatest singles charting acts of the 20th century. As of 2023, Ray Anthony is the last surviving member of the orchestra.
The swing era was the period (1933–1947) when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. 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.
The Glenn Miller Story is a 1954 American biographical film about the eponymous American band-leader, directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart in their second non-western collaboration.
Gordon Lee "Tex" Beneke was an American saxophonist, singer, and bandleader. His career is a history of associations with bandleader Glenn Miller and former musicians and singers who worked with Miller. His band is also associated with the careers of Eydie Gormé, Henry Mancini and Ronnie Deauville. Beneke also solos on the recording the Glenn Miller Orchestra made of their popular song "In The Mood" and sings on another popular Glenn Miller recording, "Chattanooga Choo Choo". Jazz critic Will Friedwald considers Beneke to be one of the major blues singers who sang with the big bands of the early 1940s.
John Chalmers MacGregor, better known as Chummy MacGregor, a musician and composer, was the pianist in The Glenn Miller Orchestra from 1936 to 1942. He composed the songs "Moon Dreams", "It Must Be Jelly ", "I Sustain the Wings", "Doin' the Jive", "Sold American", "Cutesie Pie" in 1932 with Bing Crosby and Red Standex, and "Slumber Song".
Johnny Varro is a pianist with roots in the swing style of jazz. He is also a leader and arranger.
Richard Taylor Nash is an American jazz trombonist most associated with the swing and big band genres.
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.
Ernesto Caceres was an American jazz saxophonist born in Rockport, Texas. He was a member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra from 1940 to 1942.
Buddy Spicher is an American country music fiddle player. He is a member of The Nashville A-Team of session musicians, and is Grammy-nominated. He was nominated as Instrumentalist of the Year by CMA in 1983 and 1985. He was the first fiddler in the "Nashville Cats" series of the Country Music Hall of Fame. He recorded with virtually every major country star of the sixties, seventies, and early eighties, including Faron Young, Johnny Paycheck Little Jimmy Dickens, Reba McEntire, George Jones, Don Williams, Dolly Parton, Crystal Gayle, Loretta Lynn, Bob Wills, Asleep at the Wheel, Don Francisco, Ray Price, Willie Nelson, George Strait, Bill Monroe, David Allan Coe, and Emmylou Harris.
Between 1938 and 1944, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra released 266 singles on the monaural ten-inch shellac 78 rpm format. Their studio output comprised a variety of musical styles inside of the Swing genre, including ballads, band chants, dance instrumentals, novelty tracks, songs adapted from motion pictures, and, as the Second World War approached, patriotic music.
Bob Lively(néBobby Gene Lively 10 February 1923 Little Rock, Arkansas – 22 September 1994 Los Angeles) was an American jazz saxophonist who flourished during the 1940s swing era.
Don Raffell was an American saxophonist, woodwind doubler (multireedist), studio musician and educator. Raffell recorded on hundreds of records, movies, and T.V shows dating from the 1940s all the way through the 1990s. His career as a studio musician was long and stylistically diverse having started in the big band era and playing all the way up through rock n' roll and other modern pop era acts. He had a long time close professional association with arranger and conductor Nelson Riddle.
"I Know Why " is a 1941 song by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. The song appeared in the 20th Century Fox movie Sun Valley Serenade. The song was also released as an RCA Bluebird 78 single.
Abe Most was a swing clarinetist and alto saxophonist who is known for his performances and recordings of the works of Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman. He began his career in 1939 as a member of Les Brown's big band. After serving three years in the US Army during World War II from 1942-1945, he became a member of Tommy Dorsey's big band.
Pure Gold is a 1975 compilation album of 10 studio recordings by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra recorded between 1939 and 1942 by RCA Victor. The recordings were all originally issued as 78 RPM records on the RCA Bluebird and Victor labels and was certified Gold by the RIAA. The album was originally issued on LP and compact disc in reprocessed (fake) stereo sound; in 1988, RCA remastered the album in original monophonic sound for its second CD reissue.
Alton Reynolds Hendrickson was an American jazz guitarist and occasional vocalist.
Gene Fred Cipriano, known familiarly as "Cip", was an American woodwindist and session musician, playing clarinet, oboe, flute and saxophone among other instruments. He played on hundreds of recording sessions, possibly more than any other woodwind musician.