Serenading Swing Music

BAC series presented 40s sound with the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra

• The Glenn Miller Orchestra performed at the Bosque Arts Center’s Frazier Performance Hall on Saturday, February 10, in Clifton. Courtesy Photo By Chisholm Country magazine
• Serenading Swing Music
• Serenading Swing Music
• The Big Band-era sound thundered from the third floor of the Bosque Arts Center on Saturday, February 10, as the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra performed in the Frazier Performance Hall. Courtesy Photos by Chisholm Country magazine

BAC series presented 40s sound with the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra

One of the most successful bands of the Swing Era of the 1930s and 40s, the Glenn Miller Orchestra had a string of hit records before their legendary leader disbanded the group to volunteer for the Army in World War II. After the band leader’s tragic death during the war, the orchestra was revived in 1956 and has been touring ever since.

Keeping the King of Swing’s legacy alive, the Bosque Arts Center Troubadour Series presented the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra on Saturday, February 10, to a full house at the Frazier Performance Hall. The current 14-member ensemble continues to play many of the original Miller pieces, as well as some more modern selections arranged and performed in the Miller style and sound.

This orchestra under the musical direction of saxophonist Erik Stabnau, and accompanied by female vocalist Jenny Swoish, delighted the Bosque county audience in 2023 with impeccable musicianship on nostalgic tunes like “Tuxedo Junction,” “Pennsylvania-6500,” “In the Mood,” and “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.”

Besides those iconic tunes, the band’s set list for this concert focused on the upcoming Valentine’s Day, offering a variety of lovethemed songs. As always, the band opened and closed the concert with their theme song “Moonlight Serenade.” And as a tribute and a thank you for their service to the Military Veterans in the Hall and all veterans across the nation, the band played the upbeat “American Patrol.”

The historic BAC Frazier Performance Hall, built in 1923 as part of the Clifton Lutheran College with its exceptional acoustics, was the perfect period backdrop for the orchestra’s big band sound. Toe-tapping, head-bobbing, and one couple even daring a dance or two, the people in the audience enjoyed the sense of nostalgia the big band brought to the venue, remembering how parents or grandparents would grab each other for a dance to one of the memorable swing songs.

Many solo moments highlighted the band’s outstanding and talented musicians, giving band leader Stabnau the opportunity to introduce them. Besides singing, Stabnau also gave interesting, additional information about the songs, and the history of the Glenn Miller Band. After 80 years of excellence, the band is still enormously popular and plays approximately 200 concerts a year, all around the nation.

Miller had no pretensions of being too artistic to be popular, and gave his audience what they wanted, fun music to dance to. More than any musical ensemble, bandleader, arranger, composer and trombonist Glenn Miller and his Big Band Orchestra inspired the World War II generation and boosted morale with many, many number one hit chart songs. There isn’t a WWII movie without the iconic swing music he made mainstream.

In 1954, Miller was the subject of a partly fictionalized film biography, The Glenn Miller Story, starring James Stewart which kept his musical legacy and memory alive. Additionally, in 2003, Miller posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Miller’s original recordings continue to sell millions of copies, and the Glenn Miller Band is delighted to play them over and over, for their audiences to enjoy. And even after 20 songs, Saturday’s audience couldn’t get enough, and the standing ovation gave them an encore with the fun “Little Brown Jug.”

Glenn Miller recorded the song -- written in 1869 by Joseph Eastburn Winner-- in 1939. The recording was an early chart hit and became a staple of the Glenn Miller Orchestra repertoire, and a classic of the Big Band era.