Len Goodman's Big Band Bonanza

Welcome to my old stomping ground.

I lived in East London, about ten miles away.

But when I was about eight or nine we moved here to Welling in Kent -

and I just love this place. It holds so many memories.

Because this is where I first fell in love with the music that

was the soundtrack to my youth.

-CHUCKLING:

-Oh, yes.

This takes me back. Syd Lawrence. Glenn Miller.

Joe Loss.

And, of course, the great Ted Heath.

For me, these were the kings of the big band sound. Fabulous!

It was hot, sexy, and so seductive.

And this is the music that made we want to dance.

The big bands had everything - great tunes and tonnes of attitude.

They were even used as a weapon during the Second World War.

After the fighting was over the big bands had another

battle on their hands - how to compete with

an explosion of other forms of music.

Just how would they cope in a modern world of musical

and social liberation?

It was a battle for survival -

with the record industry and the

demands of the teenager pushing big bands towards extinction.

It was crazy time, but those early days were great,

when swing was king and top of the pile were the big bands.

It's the Second World War and Churchill had quite

a bit on his plate down here in the security of the Cabinet war rooms.

When he did get a chance to relax, apparently old Winston liked

a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Above ground it was a different story - and a different sound.

And people just couldn't get enough of it.

Many of the musicians from Britain's big bands answered

the call of king and country.

Some managed to join one of the military bands,

like The Squadronaires.

And the coolest sound they were playing was the sound of swing.

Swing was a popular form of jazz - dance music

played by the big bands or the dance orchestras.

Swing was the hot new music from the States, made popular

by the likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Benny Goodman.

Britain's bright young things were developing

a taste for the transatlantic sound.

Clearly, American fashions and American culture generally

were very influential in Britain at that particular period.

And the big bands and the swing bands, particularly,

were seen as part of that.

-All those in favour of swing say aye.

-BAND: Aye!

OK, let's swing!

British bands had a more bouncy, sweet, song-based style -

but during the war, the music of Black America changed

everything, and with victory far from certain,

people wanted cheerful music to help brighten the mood.

The circumstances of the wartime had a lot to do with it.

Aye!

It was that big sound, that quite opulent sound,

I suppose, that is what you need to kind of lift the spirits.

Well, lots of British musicians loved it

and accepted both the swing aspect of it and the innovations

that the American musicians brought to the music.

The public, in terms of its popularity, was a bit slower.

I mean, the public generally preferred the more

sort of straightforward European sounds of the dance

bands of the '20s and '30s.

But by the 1940s, the American influence was

becoming greater and greater.

During those desperate days of the Second World War, there was one

man who perhaps did more than anyone else to make us snuggle up to swing.

When Glenn Miller arrived in Blighty in 1944,

his concerts were the hottest tickets in town.

I don't know how many he was actually on,

but he or one of his organisations...

There was just under 1,200 performances.

He was a busy man.

He was not an out-and-out jazz band, you know,

like the Benny Goodmans and the Arty Shaws.

He was more commercial.

They were always tunes that you could tap your foot, sing to.

Everyone remembers all the Miller tunes - the big hits.

There aren't many even pop artists that have as many tunes

that can be remembered for so long.

Glenn Miller - String of Pearls, Chattanooga Choo Choo,

In The Mood, Kalamazoo.

-Pennsylvania.

-On and on and on.

And one of the generals said, "Mr Miller, your music is...

"the next best thing to a letter from home."

The Glenn Miller sound caught on because it was so smooth and slick.

But how, precisely, did he make his music swing like that?

I asked my old mate Derek Scott to explain.

Glenn Miller's music gives you an opportunity to

discover what the fundamental elements of swing are.

And you can hear this in one of his best known tunes.

You begin a basic block of music.

A chord.

Now you break that up - not into a tune.

HE PLAYS NOTES

Do some repeating.

Now that's a three beat rhythm. One, two, three, one, two, three.

So, what about, to make it more interesting rhythmically,

if we put a two beat rhythm against it?

One, two, one, two.

Now, we've got this.

HE PLAYS In The Mood

What about if we loosen it up, make it more flexible?

HE HUMS ALONG

Now we're getting somewhere.

Maybe we can leave that as our tune but we need an accompaniment.

What about using different devices? And one of the things

Glenn Miller is fond of are stabs from his band.

Bah! Bah!

HE HUMS THE HOOK

Not bad, we are almost there.

If I now push these chords just before the beat, instead

of this - one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one.

We just go ahead of that four and ahead of the next one, we get this.

One, two, three, four.

See how it's just there?

Put them together and we've got this.

HE PLAYS In The Mood

And so on.

So, finally, we've got swing and we're In The Mood.

MUSIC: In The Mood

Some of Glenn Miller's arrangements may have been forged in the heat of

the Second World War, but they're still setting toes tapping today.

Glenn Miller's been an incredible influence on the big band scene,

and really important.

Most of the bands have traded on Glenn Miller,

so Glenn Miller has kept a lot of musicians in work over 60 years.

It's an incredible noise, really, when they all roar at you,

and it's impossible not to enjoy it.

Miller offered the perfect tonic,

seducing the nation with that smooth sound.

But behind the music was a hard-headed mission -

Glenn Miller wasn't just here to entertain.

Miller was working for the Allied cause -

recording propaganda broadcasts in German

that were aimed squarely at the enemy.

Thank you, Ilse. You speak German very well.

America means freedom

and there's no expression of freedom quite so sincere as music.

Before long, propaganda swing would turn the radio

and music into weapons of war.

While Churchill was in this very room plotting his next move,

the Nazis were playing the same game.

Oh, yes, they knew all about the power of jazz and swing.

Reich's Propaganda Minister Goebbels had this bright idea

that by getting American swing, jazz, and blues -

and getting it recreated, putting Nazi lyrics -

vicious, in many cases - lyrics over this music and then playing it back

to the Allies over short wave radio, would actually undermine our morale.

# I double dare you

# To venture a raid

# I double dare you

# To try and invade... #

Singer Karl Schwedler led the Nazis' very own swing band -

dubbed Charlie And His Orchestra.

Incredible, since the Nazis had already outlawed degenerate

jazz and swing in Germany.

# I double dare you! #

Karl Schwedler was given permission to travel through occupied countries

and neutral Sweden, collect all the latest American hits of the day,

take them back to Berlin. And all these little writers and

musicians in the Propaganda Ministry would actually rewrite the lyrics.

I mean, in the early days - 1939, 1940 -

they were actually quite humorous in their way

but as the war turned they became absolutely vicious.

# Let's go bombing

# Oh, let's go bombing... #

They underestimated British irony.

And I think that whoever probably listened to these propaganda

broadcasts - knowing the British, if they were soldiers

they were probably making V-signs at the radio and just carrying on.

# Let's go shelling

# Where they're dwelling

# Let's shell Churchill's women, children too... #

This is almost unbelievable. I mean, Hitler hates swing.

Goebbels hates swing.

Swing tanzen verboten! Swing dancing prohibited!

And yet they pay the salaries of an entire swing band

to broadcast on the radio.

'Here's Mr Churchill's latest song dedicated to Great Britain.'

# I never cared for you before

# Hong Kong, Burma, Singapore

# Bye-bye Empire... #

In the '40s, big bands were giving the punters what

they wanted - exciting music that they could dance to.

It's simple - a bunch of blokes blowing out a hot sound -

and then something else happens.

Ivy Benson certainly turned a few heads -

a woman leading an all-female big band. Whatever next?

Small but feisty, Ivy created her own big band sound

and she wanted the best female musicians she could find.

Ivy spotted a gap in the market, with so many male musicians away

in military action, it was time for the women to step up to the plate.

Young singers like Gloria Russell were catapulted into

an unfamiliar world of glamour and excitement.

"There's a telegram for you, Gloria."

And I said, "What is it, Mum?"

She said, "It's from Ivy Benson saying

"she wants you to join her." I was so excited.

She said, "Meet us up in London, in Paddington Station."

So I had to go up to Paddington Station.

I'd never left Exeter before to go to London.

And then we met the band and I said, "Where are we going?"

You know, and they said, "Germany." I was shocked!

Ivy and the band were amongst the first entertainers

to brave the ruins of post-war Berlin.

And Germany was just the start of it.

So there you are, you're in a well-paid, glamorous job,

touring the world. How did you feel?

I felt fantastic.

I thought we all did pretty good for an all-girl orchestra.

I mean, let's face it, they played for the troops

and the troops loved them.

Ivy knew what her audience wanted, but she was also

a strict disciplinarian. And her girls respected her for it.

Big band broadcaster Sheila Tracy

spent a couple of memorable years playing trombone in the band.

There you are, in your gorgeous strapless dress,

right up there, belting out those tunes.

How did you feel?

How did I feel? I thought it was the height of glamour.

Orange strapless dresses with green ivy leaves

appliqued down the front. I remember them so well.

And I should imagine, you know, all those girls,

you're in this orchestra, you're in glamorous seaside resorts.

Surely, you know, afterwards would you drift off and go

and meet some boys or whatever, or was Ivy very strict about all that?

Len, dear, I was born in Helston, Cornwall.

I went to Truro High School.

You didn't do things like that, dear.

Quite right. No. Of course not.

We didn't behave like that in those days.

-It must have been the same for you.

-Indeed it was.

HE LAUGHS

What was Ivy like as a band leader?

-Strict.

-Oh, really?

She wouldn't stand for any nonsense, Ivy, no.

If you were in the Ivy Benson Band you behaved yourself,

and if you didn't play well, you were out.

Was there a special type of audience who would come

because it was an all-female band?

-Well, have your guess.

-Yes.

THEY LAUGH

I think, yes. It used to draw a pretty big audience, female band.

I mean, the men were very, sort of, you know bit sort of snooty

about it saying, "Oh, lot of girls," you know, "Best they can do."

Yeah, but in actual fact, I think the band, what I've heard,

you know, stood up against any of the male bands.

Oh, yes, Ivy ran a very, very good band indeed.

Ivy ruffled a few feathers.

A woman from Yorkshire playing the music of men from America

was too much for some people.

Things came to a head during a meeting

of the Bandleaders' Association.

I was the only girl band leader there.

And I think it was Billy Ternent, if I'm not mistaken, he just stood up,

Joe was there, Maurice Winnick, they were all there sitting there,

and Billy said, "I don't want any damned girl bandleaders

"in this organisation." So I just stood up and said OK and I left it.

It may have been a man's world, but one of the country's most

popular bandleaders spoke up for Ivy.

Joe stood up for me - Joe Loss - and said, "Well, give her a chance.

"It's been enough fight for her without you pulling her

"out of an association."

I said, "No, no - I'm out." And when I really mean something,

I mean it and I stopped out and I never went back.

Ivy was a product of the war just like her male contemporaries,

including one man who was to become respected as one of our finest

and most successful band leaders ever!

Ted Heath was a talented trombone player who,

like a lot of musicians, had started in a local brass band.

Ted's aim was to be the best -

and after the war he was able to take advantage of the ongoing row

between unions representing British and American musicians.

In an effort to protect jobs,

a tit-for-tat ban stopped orchestras crisscrossing the Atlantic.

Brits like Ted had the country to themselves.

Funnily enough, the ban didn't apply to the singers.

They weren't members of the Musician's Union -

they were classed as entertainers.

When American singers like Ella Fitzgerald came over here,

Ted offered his services.

And they played together at the London Palladium.

Yes, there was isolation, but for Ted Heath and other band leaders,

this was a great time, when British swing was pulling in the crowds.

Ted hired the best musicians and paid the best wages.

In return, he demanded the highest standards.

And once he had the offer of work at the BBC, his career took off.

'Listen to My Music.

'And it's the music of Ted Heath from the BBC Studios in London.'

And working for Auntie put you at the top of the bill.

At this point, Ted Heath was actually losing money -

generously paying out more than the BBC rate for musicians.

But he knew radio was the key to success -

it's where you got exposure -

and helped get an audience in for those live gigs.

# Sittin' in the sun

# Counting my money

# Fanned by a summer breeze... #

Ted understood the new business model -

get on the radio, sell records, and play packed concerts.

It was a circle of success.

# ..are in my bank account

# Sittin' in the sun

# Counting my money... #

Ted produced an enormous back catalogue of work -

and it's held here at the Leeds College of Music.

Dr Catherine Tackley is a big fan

and plays many of Ted's numbers with her own band.

Well, this is an amazing collection, actually of...

It looks like a huge number of charts

the Ted Heath Band used to play,

all in boxes here, listed in alphabetical order.

So, you can obviously have a look in and see what sort of

survived from that era when the band were prolific.

Just looking here.

Going to take this one. This one's called The Creep,

which is quite a well-known Ted Heath number.

Let's see what we've got.

OK, well, we've got a score here,

so that's the parts for all the instruments written out, so we've

got the trumpets, the trombones, and the rhythm section parts.

And you can see it's been written in pencil, so this is probably,

well, this would have been what the arranger wrote out.

And then, at a later stage,

these other indications have been added in red and green pencil.

Here, actually, it's quite interesting -

on the third saxophone line down, which would probably usually be the

first tenor part - there's something that says "ad lib" in brackets.

And then it's just indications of the harmony given, so that

would be for an improvised solo, so that's quite a nice thing to find.

So the arranger would produce something like that,

pass it over to a copyist, and then you can see here,

these are the individual parts that would go to each musician.

Instead of being labelled first trombone, or guitar, or bass,

or whatever, they're actually labelled with

the names of the people that were to play them.

So we've got Rick here, Wally...

I suspect these are trombone parts, actually.

Don, this one says, so that could be Don Lusher.

So, yeah, and you've got the whole set of parts here.

So, again, you could get this out and play it

and it would still work, I think.

SHE PLAYS The Creep

What Ted Heath managed to do, I think,

was to steer that path between satisfying the 'hot jazz' fans,

as they were called back in the '40s,

and also retaining that sort of popular appeal and currency as well.

Ted Heath was the band leader everyone wanted to work for.

Just ask legendary trumpeter, Ronnie Hughes.

What was it about Ted's band that made everybody want to play? Was

it the fact of the kudos of being a part of it? Did he pay more money?

He paid a lot more money.

I left Teddy Foster at Wimbledon Palais and I was getting

16 quid a week, which was, in those days, not bad.

And my first week with Ted Heath - but it was a very busy week -

I got 60 quid.

But for that 60 quid,

I worked like I never worked before in my life.

We'd do the Variety Show, two shows.

We'd go in the morning to Aeolian Hall and rehearse a broadcast.

We'd go to Decca in the afternoon and do some recording,

then we'd go the theatre and do our two shows, and then rush

back and do the live 11.00 at night Aeolian Hall broadcast.

That was the sort of thing you did.

And I suppose the track that most people would

know from the Ted Heath Band was Hot Toddy.

Were you a part of that?

That was me. I played the famous solo in Hot Toddy.

That's a marvellous story.

You know, you go into a studio and you've got the music in front of you.

And if you're a jazz musician you extemporise, so there's no tune to

play but they put the chord symbols so you play it on the right chord.

That's all I had. I had these chords and I played, OK.

We did it again and we rehearsed it again

and then we did a couple of takes.

I didn't know what I played, I played something different every time.

Some weeks later,

when it became obvious it was going to be a hit, Ted came up to me

and he said, "We're going to play Hot Toddy tonight.

So I said, "Oh, fine."

So we played it on the dance, or wherever we were.

And I played something.

And he came up to me afterwards and he said, "Listen, mate."

I said, "Yes, Ted?"

"That Hot Toddy, I want you to play what you played on the record."

And I said, "I don't remember what I played on the record."

He says, "Well, go and buy the record!"

-LAUGHING:

-Oh, really?

That, you know, that was...

MUSIC: Hot Toddy

Ronnie was just one of the amazing musicians in Ted Heath's line-up.

Together they developed a unique style and a sound that was selling.

This man was a huge hit.

He may not have had the looks of a pop star but, believe me,

he certainly was!

Ted Heath went on to sell 20 million records,

and made more than 100 albums. He was a phenomenon.

But his relationship with the BBC hadn't always been so positive.

His contract was terminated and they showed him the door.

According to Heath, the corporation found his sound

"aggressively modern."

Their research showed his kind of music was deplored by middle-aged

listeners to whom it was "incomprehensible."

But in the clubs and theatres, a younger crowd was lapping it up.

They started to get a reputation for rowdiness.

I used to go myself but, to me, it always seemed a bit innocent.

You might meet a girl, take her home, get a kiss if you were lucky,

or you'd just sit there having a few drinks with your mates.

Rarely did you get any trouble,

but back in the day the big band crowd were viewed with suspicion.

There's a great line here from Ted Heath's memoirs. He's explaining

how he tried to get a slot at the London Palladium but needed

to persuade the boss, Val Parnell.

Ted says he'd heard about swing fans.

"They were," he felt, "more than a little on the rowdy side...

Eventually, Parnell gave in, but only after Ted agreed

to cover the costs of any damage done to the carpet

and theatre fittings!

# Be mine, be mine, little baby... #

The dance halls had a problem - people wanted to dance.

But now there were all sorts of dance styles to accommodate,

including the swing dances.

# Say that you'll be mine, little baby

# Stop your hesitating... #

This is Biggin Hill, just south of London,

and I've got an invite to the local jive club.

# If you say yes, I will give my heart to you... #

It's strange looking back but music had to be divided up,

some numbers for those who wanted to waltz or foxtrot,

others for the jivers.

If people didn't behave, they'd put a spotlight on you

and you were in trouble for illegal jiving!

I tell you what, you couldn't tell this lot that.

# Little baby! #

What do you think it is about swing music that makes everybody

love to dance?

Well, I think it's the joie de vivre, Len, and all ages can enjoy it.

The sound is superb and it just makes you want to get up

and have a dance.

It really, really does.

# Now, if you say yes, I will give my heart to you, baby

# And if you say no, then you'll break my heart in two

# Say that you'll be mine, little baby

# What's the use of scheming?

# Tell me I am dreaming

# Be mine, be mine, little baby... #

Oh, hey-hey! Ah, what a team!

This was something that kind of threatened that status quo

of ballroom couple dancing where, you know, by and large,

both feet remained on the floor and people saw...

It was a new thing, people saw it as a threat.

There was certainly a sense that these new trends of jive

and jitterbugging that had come from across the Atlantic

were kind of incorporated into what people were doing

in the ballrooms, and that wasn't always welcomed

by people that were in charge of the dance halls at the time.

Ladies, ladies, come out of that jungle!

There was a clash of cultures on the dance floor

as Britain's musical tastes changed.

There seemed to be a mad mix of music.

Before the war, there hadn't been so much choice,

but now it was all there on a plate.

You may think everybody was into rock'n'roll,

and then the Beatles but, in reality,

there was an incredible, rich mix of popular music.

It was, truly, a very special time.

Musical success was once defined by the sale of sheet music,

but in the '50s, teenagers had money to spend

on the latest hits, on new vinyl.

The record industry as we know it was born.

NEWSREADER: The gramophone industry cashes in on the well-off teenagers

to some tune. 80% of the disc output is bought by the youngsters -

that's 50 million records a year in Britain alone.

All industry knows that to please the teenagers is the golden way

to big dividends.

But it's never just about the music, it's everything that goes with it,

including the espresso bars where you'd hang out with your mates.

-Good to see you. How are you?

-Good.

Like me, Pete Conway loves the music from the '50s and '60s.

We both worked with big bands.

I was dancing alongside them,

he was often a support act, doing his stand-up comic routine

or singing along when he got the chance.

You know, Pete, there was this period

when everything seemed to go a bit crazy.

And in the charts at that time, you could get everything

from Elvis Presley and rock'n'roll,

Dickie Valentine, Dennis Lotis, Ted Heath, it was all sort of a mix.

Started in the mid-'50s, coffee bars,

juke boxes in the coffee bar. Come down and do this sort of thing.

-Yeah.

-And music was changing.

Our parents had those wonderful Vera Lynn, Gracie Fields people

that's different music altogether.

And then suddenly the big bands.

After the big bands, of course, came the jazz,

came traditional jazz, trad jazz, Chris Barber,

-who used to play in the...

-Acker.

Acker, who used to play in the coffee bars.

And then, of course, rock'n'roll in the mid-late '50s.

Tommy Steele came along, and Elvis, and Gene Vincent,

-Bill Haley.

-Yeah.

And it was a big change, the whole thing changed.

But the big bands were still there

because the big bands still had music in the charts in the '50s.

-Yeah, you had Swingin' Shepherd Blues...

-That was right.

-..Hot Toddy.

-Yes!

-And then suddenly Stranger On The Shore,

-Acker Bilk.

-Acker Bilk.

And this was all in amongst all this other rock'n'roll

-and Buddy Holly and everything else.

-Monty Sunshine.

-Ooh, Petite Fleur.

-Petite Fleur, who was with Chris Barber.

Yeah. It was an absolute bizarre mix of everything you can think of.

And, I don't know, it sort of crept up on us.

Do you know what I mean? In Welling, suddenly there was a coffee bar.

-Yes.

-Frothy coffee. Oh, it was...

Ours was Emmanuel's. Emmanuel's Coffee Bar.

It was the only one we had in town.

The big problem, you know, if you were in a coffee bar,

chatting up a girl, and there you were

and you sort of felt quite smooth.

It would be in a glass cup, actually, and then you'd say,

"Oh, fabulous in here," and you'd take a sip,

and then you'd...

-And then you'd...

-That's why I haven't touched that.

THEY LAUGH

-But they were great days.

-They were great days.

-They were wonderful days.

-Yeah.

With pop stars all the rage, some of the big bands

started to lose top billing as the spotlight settled on the singers.

It was a great time to be a vocalist.

With your name in lights, it was a chance to shine.

And there were plenty who took their moment in the sun.

# When the stars make you drool just like a pasta fazool

# That's amore

# When you dance down the street... #

Dennis Lotis was a South African who hit the big time in the UK

when he hooked up with Ted Heath in the early '50s.

# When you walk in a dream

# But you know you're not Dreaming seniore

# Scuzza me, but you see, back in old Napoli

# That's amore. #

And what made Dennis a bit different is that he successfully crossed

the divide between singing and light entertainment.

I had no intention of working with a band.

I wanted to be a song and dance man,

I wanted to be Fred Astaire.

# Bells will ring,

# Ting-a-ling-a-ling, ting-a-ling-a-ling,

# And you'll sing, "Vita bella." #

I did have a letter of introduction, in fact, to Ted Heath.

I went to the Palladium to see him...

..and I sat in the audience and listened to this band.

I thought, to hell with Fred Astaire, I want to sing with this band.

It was...just knocked me out. It was fantastic.

# Do you think that I care

# If you're here or you're there?

# If you make up your mind

# To stay or go... #

He said, "We're doing a recording session at Decca next week.

"Come along then, you can sing a couple of songs for me."

So that's exactly what I did.

# Forget your troubles

# Just get happy

# Chase your cares away

# Shout, "Hallelujah..." #

Yeah, fantastic.

I sang that and...

..uh, Try A Little Tenderness.

And that was it.

"Fine," he said, "you can join the band."

And the following week, I was with the Ted Heath band.

First concert was at the Shoreditch Town Hall,

and I was sitting on the stage next to Dickie Valentine

and Lita Roza.

And that was my beginning with the Ted Heath band.

It was the most popular band in the country.

All the places we played were always full of people.

THEY SHOUT

Screams.

And frantic applause.

I mean, in Blackpool at the Winter Gardens,

I said to Dickie, "Look at them all."

I said, "I think we could walk over their heads."

There were so many people there.

I learnt so much about music from that band,

from all the guys, not only from Ted,

cos I was with guys who knew what they were talking about.

It's a highlight of my life, quite frankly.

Girls! Love 'em!

While singers like Dennis carved out a new career,

by the mid-'50s, the Musicians' Union ban that stopped bands

crisscrossing the Atlantic was over,

and for Ted Heath, it was a chance to sail to the States

and show the Yanks what the Brits could do.

Little did he know that he was stepping into a world

of racial turmoil and tension.

Ted Heath's son, Tim, has raided the attic

to give me a glimpse of that legendary tour.

This is cine footage from the family archives,

and some of this has just never ever been seen outside the family before.

And all of this is from the American tour of 1956.

My mother and father going out on the Queen Mary

en route to the US tour.

And the whole band went on the Queen Mary too.

My dad insisted that the band travel in style

-and that they should arrive in style in New York.

-Right.

-In British style.

-Of course.

Yeah, fantastic.

And this tour was mainly of the southern states, wasn't it?

It was principally of the southern states.

Most of the gigs were in the southern states.

Here's a poster of the concert with the billing of Ted Heath,

Nat King Cole, June Christy and the 4 Freshmen.

There you are. Yeah.

And, of course, Ted Heath's top of the bill.

-He is on that poster there.

-Yeah, yeah.

Even though Nat King Cole... There's the truck,

the equipment truck with Nat King Cole and Ted Heath

-on the side of it.

-Yeah.

Do you know, there must have been such a buzz for the whole band,

you know, "Off we go."

They're all guys...

I guess, originally who were in either the Salvation Army,

-or brass bands, or worked during their time in the Forces.

-Yes.

And then, suddenly, there they go, they're on the Queen Mary.

Going out to America.

-And floating down the Mississippi.

-I know.

What a... They loved it.

-It was a fantastic experience for them.

-Yeah.

He may have been a big star but, in the southern states of America,

Nat King Cole wasn't guaranteed a warm welcome by everyone.

When they got to Birmingham, Alabama,

there was a sense of tension there.

And it started off... The concert started off all right

and my father played the first half, and everything was fine.

And then, when Nat King Cole came on, the promoters there

wanted to have a gauze curtain lowered down,

down the middle of the stage to separate my father's band

on the back of the stage who were backing Nat King Cole

during the second half

and the Nat King Cole Trio who were at the front of the stage.

They didn't think it was appropriate to have Black musicians

appearing on the same stage with White musicians,

-that's how bad it was.

-Right.

Nat King Cole played the first number in the second half with

the gauze curtain down, and it all went fine,

and then my dad suggested that the gauze curtain was raised

because everything was going so well.

And then, when the curtain got raised, these white guys

came charging down the aisles and they jumped on the stage.

They knocked Nat King Cole over and started to assault him

and the whole thing turned to pandemonium.

There were lot of police there because they'd sensed

there was going to be something going on,

they sensed there'd be an incident.

And the police went on the stage and broke it up

and arrested these men who went on stage.

But it was absolute pandemonium and it was very dangerous.

-It was a very ghastly, horrible situation.

-Yeah.

# Oh, baby

# Look what you've done to me... #

Many were appalled at how one of the world's biggest singing stars

had been treated.

Ted's tour of the states was now front-page news.

So, did the concert grind to a halt? Or what happened?

The concern was that it would turn into a full-scale riot.

It was one of the promoters' idea to play the national anthem,

and he didn't know the American national anthem,

so he played God Save The Queen.

Despite problems in the Deep South, the American tour

established Ted on the global stage

and proved the Brits could cut it with the best.

Back home, British swing was going through a bit of a purple patch.

Johnny Dankworth, Joe Loss, and Ken Mackintosh were all

pulling in the crowds and taking the music in different directions.

SHE SINGS TO SWING MUSIC

One of the tricks of swing was to take a standard tune

and give it a new twist.

Singer Clare Teal has agreed to show me

just how a song can be made to swing in any number of ways.

# Yeah. #

Fantastico! Oh, yes.

It's a funny thing, when I listen to Glenn Miller

or I listen to Ted Heath, you'll hear the same song,

yet somehow it's a totally different arrangement

-and comes over in a different way.

-Yes.

Some swing, some are a little bit more gentle, you know? And I can't

really put my finger on why that is and what really defines swing.

Well, I think it's one of those things - you don't need to.

We don't need to think too much about it,

because you could ask a million people the same question

and you'd get a million different answers.

If you put somebody like Count Basie against somebody

like Stan Kenton, it's a massive difference that we can all hear

but, you know, spending hours debating on why it's different,

I'd rather just put the records on and enjoy them.

So, we'll do a little demonstration for you to kind of demonstrate

a little bit about how you can re-interpret a song in a million

different ways, but we'll try and do this quite quickly for you.

Can you give me the intro there, Graham, please?

We'll start off... This is, I guess, how it would have felt

when it was written mid-'20s, it would have been very precise.

SHE CLEARS THROAT

# Picture you upon my knee

# Tea for two and two for tea

# You for me and me for you alone... #

-So, quite pedestrian there.

-Yeah.

There's not much to swing, we're kind of more waving, eh?

Yeah, we're tripping along.

-We're tripping along but it's quite jolly and jaunty.

-It is.

So then, if we move to sort of to... I don't know,

say the mid-'40s, or '30s or '40s,

any of that swing era or something that perhaps Ella and Basie did.

Let's...to a kind of medium-groove swing.

# Picture you upon my knee

# Tea for two and two for tea

# You for me and me for you alone

# Da-da-da-da-da

# Nobody near us

# See us or hear us

# Friends, relations... #

OK.

I was quite enjoying that, but that was...

-So you can see there was a lot of swing there.

-That's right.

That really... Compared with the first one,

which was light and frothy, now we're getting into it.

Exactly. And that was quite a hard swing, wasn't it? That was good.

-Yes.

-But let's push it now very far in one direction.

So, when somebody like the great Anita O'Day would get her chops

on a song like Tea For Two, this is what she did

at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958.

# Picture you upon my knee

# Tea for two and two for tea

# Can't you see how happy we could be?

# Nobody near us, see us, hear us

# Friends, relations, on vacation

# We won't have it known

# We own a telephone, dear

# Dawn will break and you will wake

# And start to bake a sugar cake

# For me to take for all the boys to see

# We could raise a family

# Boy for you, girl for me

# Can't you see how happy we could be, we three? #

Whoo! Yeah.

Oh, come on.

I can imagine being at Newport and Anita O'Day says,

"Well, we're going to go into Tea For Two now

and everybody going, "Oh, no."

-And then, suddenly...

-Yeah.

You know, and that's what's great about music, I think.

You can take a simple tune and make it into anything you want.

I've always said that dancing is dependent on the music

but I think if you can't dance to swing, then it's...you know.

-There's something wrong with you.

-There's something wrong with you.

For many big bands, dancing remained their bread and butter.

But they were constantly having to adapt

to all sorts of fads and fashions.

As pop became king, so did the rise of popular dancing.

I'm not talking about ballroom or even jiving

but new, novelty, silly dances.

People were coming up with one after the other.

'There's no end to the spate of new dances.

'Watch The Locomotion being demonstrated at a West End studio.'

-# Come on, Baby, do... #

-The Locomotion!

# I know you'll get to like it if you give it a chance now... #

The bossa nova!

Also in the repertoire worthy of your attention is The Slop.

The Slop?

No.

Now here's a dance I used to do,

Joe Loss, The March Of The Mods. Good grief.

Early '60s, Joe Loss brought out a record

called The March Of The Mods

and, for a month or so, it was a big craze.

All the Mecca ballrooms used to do it.

Ready?

And heel, toe, heel, toe, heel, toe, heel, toe, jump, back.

Run!

# Da-da-da-da, diddly umpah, inkah, oopah, ehpah, oi, oi

# And off you go again

# Diddly umpah, umpah, umpah, umpah uh, uh,

# And now you start again. #

Keep going. We've got the 12-inch version here.

-THEY LAUGH

-It's nine and a half minutes.

'The big bands were doing what musicians have always done -

'adapting to the times and making music that sells.'

Hooray!

'But money trouble was looming...'

Fantastic!

'..and now the accountants were calling the tune.'

Economically, big bands became less and less viable.

It became simply cheaper to present and to record guitar groups

four young men, three guitarists and a drummer, rather than 20

or 22 people onstage, all together, all having to be paid.

A generational division became much more marked then

than it had done previously.

Lots of people in the music business had grown up in the big-band era,

hated rock'n'roll and they thought it was a passing fad.

People who were in positions of authority in the music business,

particularly, were hoping it would just go away

if they closed their eyes

and, unfortunately for them, it didn't.

There was still a market for big bands in the '60s

but finding a place to play could be tricky.

There were now huge competition for space.

The old venues and dance halls were being used for other things -

bingo, casinos, and of course, beauty contests. Ooh!

And then there was television.

When Ted Heath lost his slot at the London Palladium,

it was to make way for the TV cameras

and a new age of variety entertainment.

We grew up with those early days of television,

but many people feared that the box in the living room would take over,

another nail in the coffin for big bands

and all sorts of live music and entertainment.

But one fella had a cunning plan

and embraced the move from the dance halls to the TV studios.

Syd Lawrence was a talented and experienced trumpet player.

In 1967, he set up his own band in Manchester, making records

but also appearing on popular TV variety shows like Morecambe & Wise.

Trombonist Chris Dean took over the orchestra in the mid-'90s.

When I first joined the band,

we used to do the Morecambe & Wise shows.

We were never off television.

-Glenn Miller.

-Oh, Glenn.

-What a band that was, eh?

-Loved Glenn Miller.

-All that jitterbugging and everything.

-In those days.

-Oh, knockout it was.

-Don't play music like that anymore.

I'm afraid they do, yes.

-They do?

-Oh, yes. Ladies and gentlemen, under duress,

Syd Lawrence and his orchestra.

He had a Royal Variety performance, then all the Pebble Mills

and he was on TV, and it was more a band that was in showbiz

as opposed to out-and-out jazz or out-and-out big band stuff.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

He obviously got a lot of work as a result of the television,

and for many years he traded on that television,

and when I first joined the band, we were doing 270 dates a year.

And now there aren't that many places to play.

The music was still great but the world was moving on.

By the '70s the big band sound seemed less relevant.

Condemned by some as 'easy listening',

the records were moved to the back of the shop.

There were those, though,

who refused to let the big-band sound die.

I've been invited to a reunion.

A load of big-band musicians meet up every now and again

in this village hall in Surrey and have a bloomin' good blow.

Hoo-hoo, come on!

THEY PLAY SWING MUSIC

There's some real legends in this band of volunteers,

top-flight players with a lifetime of experience.

Len, I've had the most incredible career.

I mean, I was lucky enough to play with Sinatra

every time he came to Europe,

Judy Garland and all the rest of them,

so I've had a marvellous, wonderful career.

Bill Geldard's played trombone almost since it was invented.

You still want to come along here and play with the guys.

What is it about it that makes you want to do that?

I don't know what I'd do if I didn't, to be quite honest.

To play with good players, it's a lift, it really is.

There's nothing quite like it.

You've been in the business all your life...

All my life, literally.

..and yet you still find joy and just love to do it,

and I think that is so wonderful.

-Well, that's it. That's the way I feel.

-Yeah.

I love doing it.

And I don't want to stop doing it. I don't like the alternative.

No, of course.

CRESCENDO BUILDS

Oh, fantastic!

Honestly. I've got to speak to you.

Truly...hair-raising.

THEY LAUGH

HE CHUCKLES

That was fantastic.

I'll tell you, I've had a crazy time and it's great to look back.

But, do you know, for me the thing is,

swing music is still here right in the present

and I just hope it's still going to still be with us in the future.

Fabulous.

Pete Conway also believes there's a rosy future for big bands

and so does his son Robbie.

# Do nothing till you hear from me

# Pay no attention to what's said... #

He's helping to bring the swing sound to a whole new audience.

# ..is over my head

# Do nothing till you hear from me. #

When he was growing up and he was learning about music.

We used to sing songs, I'd have it on the stereo in the car

and we used to sing songs of this swing era.

I remember we sang Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me,

and he'd be about nine.

# My daddy, Pete! #

CROWD SCREAMS

And that's the song we're singing together,

and we sang it when he was nine.

# I've been untrue while we're apart?

# While we're apart!

# The words in my heart

# Reveal how I feel about you

# Some kiss may cloud my memory... #

It was in here, right from when he was very, very young.

# BOTH: But please do nothing till you hear from me... #

I retired a little while ago and I've had a new resurgence again

to come out and sing with a big band behind me,

and, for an old pro like myself, it's sent from heaven, Len.

It's great.

The sound of big bands and swing has been around since the 1930s,

and it's starting to come full circle.

You can go up and down the country, you know, on a Saturday night

and there will be big band gigs being put on.

Often it's semi-pro or amateurs,

and they're still playing this music from the '30s, the '40s, the '50s,

so that music has still got a sense of longevity.

It's never going to go back to the glory days that it had,

but this music is not going away, it's part of our culture.

With swing, what is really good has stayed.

It makes you want to dance, it makes you want to tap your feet.

It's just... It really is exciting

when you get eight brass hammering away at you

and that big wall of sound.

It's very, very exciting.

It's timeless.

-You can understand why this kind of music just swept the world.

-Yeah.

It connects with us so strongly.

And one man helped to make that connection more than most.

On December 15th, 1944,

newly-promoted Major Glenn Miller left RAF Twinwood near Bedford

in a single-engine aircraft bound for Paris.

He was never seen again.

We'll probably never know exactly what happened.

-RADIO BROADCAST:

-Major Glenn Miller,

the well-known American band leader, is reported missing.

He left England by air for Paris nine days ago.

In the few months he'd been based in Britain,

Glenn Miller and his orchestra played an extraordinary number

of concerts and broadcasts.

During that time, we'd really taken him

and the big-band sound of swing to our hearts.

He gave us a musical style that we'll treasure forever.

It was music that united people.

And what happened afterwards?

Well, there was so much musical choice,

with all of it competing for our attention.

Yet, in a funny way, we've now come full circle.

Today, there's nothing like a big band for a party or a celebration.

Everyone seems to have an affection for it.

And you know what? When I hear Glenn Miller's music

drifting lazily through the air, I can really understand why.