JAZZ & WORLD WAR 2

With Remembrance Day festivities a week away, I ponder, as I do every year, the significant music that was produced during one of mankind’s darkest periods in history; namely World War 2. The popular songs created ranged from patriotic to romantic and sentimental. This was an era where big bands and the wing era prevailed. Whether the civilians were at home, or the troops were in the war zones, people gathered to listen and even dance to such popular bands as Jimmy & Tommy Dorsey with Frank Sinatra and Jo Stafford, Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, and Benny Goodman to name a few. Besides the aforementioned vocalists, other artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, and The Mills Brothers sang the fitting lyrics to serve as the perfect distraction for our parents and grandparents to somehow endure the horrors that the war brought to their lives. There were also celebrities like comedian Bob Hope and their wife Dolores, and band leader Les Brown. who had an enormous impact on the troops abroad with the most perfect cure for loneliness, despair, and the incredible longing for their homes, music and humour? Many of these iconic songs are still being performed to this day; some 8 decades later! I am not certain that movies served the same great purpose to such a hopeful extent in the possibilities of dreams of reunion and homecoming. Of course, not every country involved in this war had the same luxury as Canada and the US. Countries like Germany were led by dictators who disdained much music, especially from North America. Consequently, as seen in movies like ‘Swing Kids’. secret societies were established for music lovers who would gather to not only listen to records but also to dance away the horrors that lay beyond. If they were caught, however, they were subject to severe punishment.

In conclusion, I would like to quote musical historian, Rob Bamberger, in his liner notes associated with the marvellous Smithsonian Collection of Recordings of the war years entitled, ” You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To”; But once in a while, we are bid to remember their old times. For that, there is Memorial Day and Veterans Day. And there are the love songs, themselves a piece of history, from which there is much to be gleaned about the human spirit and its journey. In these songs, there is something to be understood and held close about old times, whether or not they are our old time to remember.”

ESSENTIAL WAR SONGS FOR JAZZ

1. American Patrol – Glenn Miller Orchestra
2. Sentimental Journey – Doris Day & Les Brown
3. I’ll Never Smile Again – Frank Sinatra & Tommy Dorsey
4. That Soldier of Mine – Helen Forrest & Harry James
5. You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To – Buddy Clark
6. Time On My Hands – Artie Shaw
7. The Music Stopped – Woody Herman & Frances Wayne
8. I’ll Be Around – The Mills Brothers
9. My Guy’s Come Back – Benny Goodman & Liza Morrow
10. Flying Home – Lionel Hampton
11. G.I. Jive – Johnny Mercer
12. This Is The Army, Mr. Jones/5:O’Clock Whistle – Mel Torme & George Shearing
13. Soldier, Let Me Read Your Letter – Glenn Miller
14. Poinciana – Benny Carter
15. Buzz-Bomb Blues – Robert Farnon & The Canadian Band Of The Allied Expeditionary Force
16. We’ll Be Together Again – Frankie Laine
17. Swingin’ On Nothin – Bob Crosby
18. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy – The Andrew Sisters
19. And The Angels Sing – Martha Tilton & Benny Goodman
20. Star Dust – Artie Shaw
21. Moonlight Serenade – Glenn Miller
22. My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time – Les Brown & Doris Day
23. White Cliffs of Dover – Sammy Kaye
24. I Guess I’ll Have To Dream The Rest – Tommy Dorsey & Frank Sinatra
25. Seems Like Old Times – Guy Lombardo
26. Waiting for The Train To Come In – Peggy Lee
27. I’ll Be Seeing You – Tommy Dorsey & Jo Stafford
28. When The Lights Go On Again – Vaughan Monro
29. Le Mer – Charles Trenet (Beyond The Sea)
30. Praise The Lord and Pass The Ammunition – Kay Kyser