Glenn Miller

In April of 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Psychological Warfare Division began transmitting multilingual radio programs from the American Broadcast Station in Europe (ABSIE). Between October 30 and November 20 of that year, Major Glenn Miller and the American Band of the Allied Expeditionary Forces occupied what are now known as the Abbey Road Studios in Westminster at the heart of London's West End, and recorded enough material for six complete programs specifically aimed at German-speaking audiences. Originally broadcast as "Music for the Wehrmacht," these recordings were issued to the public in 1995 on a 47-track double CD by RCA Victor as The Lost Recordings, then in 1996 by Avid as The Complete Abbey Road Recordings. The stash was tapped for a puny 11-track Laser Light edition in 1999 under the non-specific heading of War Broadcasts, and the material resurfaced in 2008 as a 23-track concentrate by Sounds of Yesteryear titled The Wehrmacht Hour. This is the Glenn Miller Orchestra at their very finest, recorded under optimum conditions (the sound quality is superb) and performing a perfectly balanced blend of swinging dance tunes and lush mood music, sometimes sweetened by a string section. What makes this portion of the Miller legacy so unique is the German announcer Ilse Weinberger, Miller's own diligent attempts to convey greetings (and propaganda) in German, and vocals by Irene Manning and crooner Johnny Desmond, smoothly enunciated in German as well. Some historians have since noted the irony inherent in the egalitarian rhetoric of U.S. propaganda at a time when African-Americans were being treated as second class citizens at home and even while serving in the Armed Forces. This very contradiction was pointed out by Dr. Joseph Goebbels through his Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, in language that echoed earlier criticism directed by Goebbels at the British Empire. It was a terrifically skewed argument coming from the government of Nazi Germany, a nation that was pursuing and achieving unprecedented success at systematized racism. But the problem existed on a global scale, and was rampant throughout a still largely segregated United States of America. Consider the fact that in September 1937, Glenn Miller's competitor Tommy Dorsey had seen nothing wrong with recording a turn of the century Jim Crow ditty bearing the title "If the Man in the Moon Were a Coon." With Goebbels warning citizens of the Reich that a U.S. occupation would involve widespread black on white miscegenation, the directors of Eisenhower's Psychological Warfare Division were careful to present music performed exclusively by white musicians. Bear in mind the fact that the Glenn Miller Orchestra's most exciting dance tunes originated with people of color. "In the Mood" was a product of Joe Garland and Edgar Hayes; "Tuxedo Junction" came from Julian Dash and Erskine Hawkins, and "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby" was written by Louis Jordan. ~ arwulf arwulf, All Music Guide