On occasion, I get emails asking how the big bands came about and what caused them to fade from prominence. This is a difficult question to answer but for those of you poor students who've got a report to write in the next couple of hours, I'm posting this really, really brief explanation of the rise and fall of the big bands.

Jazz music sprung out of Dixieland music which sprung out of Ragtime which likely originated in New Orleans. These club musicians eventually migrated to Chicago and New York. As this style gained popularity, bandleaders like Paul Whiteman and Vincent Lopez (around 1916) took elements of jazz and combined it with the "sweet sounds" they observed people liked to dance to. They also began upping the ante by increasing the size of their outfits (BIG-bands) until they were considered orchestras. In the 20's, a new medium called radio brought these bands a broader audience than strictly performing on the road could possibly do.

Swing music had been brewing for awhile in the clubs but it was Benny Goodman's Palomar Ballroom appearance in 1935 that made swing music burst into wide acceptance, especially with the kids. The most popular big bands played a combination of swing (to show off their ability) and ballads (in order to sell records and get radio airplay). The most popular bandleaders were Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw (another clarinetist), Tommy Dorsey (with singer Sinatra), older brother Jimmy Dorsey, former Goodman sideman Harry James and likely the most enduring and famous of them all, Glenn Miller. If you're new to the music of the big bands, it's likely Glenn Miller is the one you've already heard. Some bandleaders like Sammy Kaye and Guy Lombardo made a good living playing strictly "sweet" music and stayed away from swing for the most part.

As World War II came about, the big bands reached their apex in popularity. It was unpleasant times and the mood of the country turned to sentimental sounds. As popular as these bands were on radio and records, there began to be a severe shortage of able musicians as most males were being drawn into the armed forces. Only the most established leaders could afford to hire the remaining top players. In 1942, James Petrillo, the leader of the American Federation of Musicians, ordered a ban on musician's recording new material which lasted until 1944. Singers with choral arrangements were not affected by the ban, which further outdistanced them from the big bands they were once a part of. With the end of the war came the big band's decline. Returning soldiers (musicians) had little interest in hitting the road again as traveling musicians. And of course, the final blow for these huge performing acts was the advent of television. There was little need to leave the house for an evening of entertainment. For those who did venture out into the smaller night clubs, they were more likely to find a more compact and economical jazz quartet or witness the emergence of bebop.