Tex Beneke obit
Steve Voce
Steve Voce.
TEX BENEKE
'Glenn Miller should have lived,' said rival bandleader Artie Shaw. 'His
music should have died.' Miller's most popular music had a vulgar prettiness
and was designed not to trouble the intellect. It used a clarinet lead that
gave it an identity. Tex Beneke joined Miller's band in 1938 as a tenor
saxophone player and vocalist. He was to spend the rest of his life playing
Miller's music or music in the Miller style. When Miller ran the American
Army Air Force band during the war, he was famed for a disciplinary
strictness that was alien to other service bandleaders.
But it was not new to Miller. Beneke had never heard of Miller when he was
invited by him to join the new band. "He expected everybody to be dressed
immaculately at all times," Beneke remembered. "All jackets had to be
buttoned, the handkerchiefs had to be just right in the pockets. Shoes and
socks had to match, and there was no such thing as a man crossing his legs
on the bandstand, one leg over the other. You had to sit straight in your
chair, legs together, with both feet flat on the floor." When the band
played an eight-week engagement at the Paramount Cinema in New York at the
height of its fame, Miller decided that the band should learn its music off
by heart, and manage without music stands. "You've got three days to learn
the whole show. The music stands are coming out on the third night." It
worked, and the teen-agers thought the achievement marvellous. They were
conditioned to stay for the band's eight performances a day by Miller's
sending out for packed lunches to be distributed amongst them. A fleet of
cabs was kept outside to run the musicians to the Pennsylvania Hotel from
where, between sets at the Paramount, the band broadcast each day.
Beneke, who until then had been playing in little known bands in Texas and
Oklahoma, had been recommended to Miller by the drummer Gene Krupa. Miller
immediately saw Beneke's potential and exploited him as a vocalist and
tenor saxophone soloist. He gave him precedence over his other tenor player,
Al Klink, a musician who Beneke and everyone but Miller agreed was a far
better jazz soloist. The two featured in tenor saxophone duets on some of
Miller's biggest hits, including "In the Mood" and "String of Pearls".
Beneke had a pleasant, Texas voice and it graced "Don't Sit Under The Apple
Tree", "I Got A Girl In Kalamazoo" and "Chattanooga Choo Choo", the latter
being the first record to sell a million and two hundred thousand copies.
Miller was the first bandleader ever to be given a gold record and it was
for "Chattanooga Choo Choo". The band regularly made two records a week, and
was supercharged by the success of its film appearances in "Sun Valley
Serenade" (1941) and "Orchestra Wives (1942), both of which featured Beneke.
As a result Beneke won the tenor sax category of the "Downbeat" and
"Metronome" polls of those years.
The Miller band broke up in 1942. Beneke left to join other bands before
enlisting in the Navy. When the war ended and Miller had been lost over the
channel, Miller's wife Helen asked Beneke to take the Glenn Miller band,
consisting mostly of former Glenn Miller sidemen, out on the road under his
leadership. Because of Miller's image as a lost war hero, the band played to
capacity audiences across the United States, In the spring of 1946 it broke
the house record at a dance hall in New York where they took $9,999.60 in
one night. But the band was not well run, and eventually broke up because
Beneke was unsure of himself. He wanted to let the style of the band grow,
but the Miller estate insisted that the music should be preserved without
change. By now there were four bands cashing in on the Miller style. Teddy
Powell, a bandleader dismayed by the fashion, said "If Glenn Miller were
alive today, he'd be turning over in his grave."
Beneke formed his own band to mix Miller's music with later styles, and took
advantage of the rhythm and blues fad to record "Lavender Coffin", a blues
hit of Lionel Hampton's. His band didn't achieve the earlier legendary
status, but he remained popular until well into the Nineties. Several
notable jazz musicians got their start in his bands of the Fifties,
including drummer Mel Lewis and trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, who played piano
for him. Eydie Gorm? was the band singer at this time, and Beneke
commissioned arrangements from Jerry Gray, Neal Hefti, Billy May and Henry
Mancini amongst others. In 1954 "The Glenn Miller Story", typical Hollywood
rubbish, was made. Although he was a key figure in the late Major's story,
the Miller estate saw to it that a cast that included lugubrious acting from
James Stewart and June Allyson and an out of context but pungent
intervention by Louis Armstrong did not include Beneke.
The demand for Miller's music has remained more subdued but fairly constant
over the decades, and Beneke's bands were never short of work. He played
tenor and sang his hits with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra as the main
attraction at their concert last October.
He was a keen short wave radio ham, and was well known across the airwaves
for this, rather than for his music.
Steve Voce
Gordon "Tex" Beneke, tenor saxophonist, vocalist and bandleader; born Fort
Worth, Texas, February 12, 1914: died 30 June, 2000, Costa, Mesa,
California.
Farklempt
> Gordon "Tex" Beneke, tenor saxophonist, vocalist and
bandleader; born Fort
> Worth, Texas, February 12, 1914: died 30 June, 2000, Costa,
Mesa,
> California.
This is an amazing feat, even for a tenor player!
Regards,
Tony in FL
Adam Bravo
"Farklempt" <tony...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:8harkv$cvh$1...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net...
> Your post concludes:
> > Gordon "Tex" Beneke, tenor saxophonist, vocalist and
> bandleader; born Fort
> > Worth, Texas, February 12, 1914: died 30 June, 2000, Costa,
> Mesa,
> > California.
>
Bruce LeClaire
reporting event which is inside my lightcone and thus causually
allowed):
"RIP: Gordon 'Tex' Beneke, tenor saxophist and vocalist with Glenn
Miller, who assumed leadership of the band after Miller's deather,
died Tuesday, at age 86."
Hence:
Gordon "Tex" Beneke, tenor saxophonist, vocalist and bandleader;
born: Fort Worth, Texas, February 12, 1914,
died: 30 May, 2000, Costa, Mesa, California.
--Bruce
Ralph Geiger
Ralph
Thomas F Brown
Ulf Åbjörnsson
Ulf in Svedala
Ralph Geiger <ralph....@yale.edu> skrev i
diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:8hbjsq$bu1$1...@news.ycc.yale.edu...
> While we're on the subject, how do you pronounce "Beneke"?
>
> Ralph
Hal Vickery
> While we're on the subject, how do you pronounce "Beneke"?
BEN-eh-kee
The "eh" is a substitute for a schwa, if you remember those from the
dictionary (upsidedown "e").
nsmf
no...@webtv.net
Not even I --- who has done so much --- (and to so many):(joke) --- has
equalled it.
Yet.
A recent newspaper squib ---
"Saxophonists die younger than musicians who specialize in any other
instrument, says a British Medical Journal finding reported in
Metrosource.
"Studying 813 Jazz saxophonists born between 1882 and 1974, the
researchers discovered that half died before they were 40; and that half
of the other musicians lived until at least age 60.
"The researchers thought that "circular breathing technique," in which a
player inhales through the nose while blowing out through the mouth
might reduce blood flow to the heart and brain and contribute to a high
a player feels. It also might facilitate stroke and heart attacks.
"Playing more than one instrument seemed to increase longevity".
All this (and Heaven, too) from the San Francisco Chronicle, Friday,
06.02.00.
In 1942 at the Roxy Theatre in New York --- I watched (and listened) in
amazement as Jimmy Dorsey played two Tonettes through his nose at the
same time.!! He was 38 at the time and lived until age 53.
---
norton shawn
. .. .. .. ..
Leo Scanlon
Leo
On Sat, 3 Jun 2000 22:01:41 +0200, "Ulf Åbjörnsson"
<aabj...@algonet.se> wrote:
>Be-ne-kee
>
>Ulf in Svedala
>
>
>Ralph Geiger <ralph....@yale.edu> skrev i
>diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:8hbjsq$bu1$1...@news.ycc.yale.edu...
Ulf Åbjörnsson
Ulf
Leo Scanlon <lsca...@erols.com> skrev i
diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:393a2e8e...@news.erols.com...