Glenn Miller

Alton Glenn Miller was born on March 1, 1904, in Clarinda, Iowa; the son of Lewis Elmer and Mattie Lou Cavender Miller. He started his music studies when his father gave him a mandolin. He soon traded the mandolin for an old horn. In 1916 he switched to trombone. In 1923, he enrolled in the University of Colorado, but after a year, he dropped out of school and moved to Los Angeles, where he joined Ben Pollack's band. He spent most of his time playing gigs and attending auditions.

In 1928, Miller moved to New York, where he played session gigs and made orchestrations. At that time he studied with the Russian musician and mathematician Joseph Schillinger, whose star apprentice was George Gershwin. Miller took Schillinger's instruction on orchestration of a practice exercise, which he developed into the song "Moonlight Serenade", making a small fortune with it. In 1934, Miller joined the Dorsey Brothers' Orchestra for a year, then organized an American band for Ray Noble, and made his debut at the Rainbow Room in New York's Rockefeller Center. The special sound of his band was developed in Miller's orchestration by using the "crystal chorus" and other inventive ways of arrangement.

Maj. Glenn Miller was seen boarding on a plane to Paris, where he was invited to perform for the allied troops and senior commanders of the allied armies. Later the plane on which he was supposed to be traveling was officially reported crashed on December 15, 1944, in the waters of the English Channel. In 1985, the British Ministry of Defence came up with explanation of Miller's disappearance, claiming that his plane was struck by a British bomb dropped in the waters by returning RAF pilots. No wreckage, remains, or IDs were found. Glenn Miller was officially declared dead in a plane crash on December 15, 1944. His tombstone was placed in Memorial Section H, Number 464-A on Wilson Drive in Arlington National Cemetery in April of 1992, at Miller's daughter's request.

• Glenn Miller's Last Flight Saturday, January 01, 2000
• The Five Pennies Thursday, January 01, 1959