The Sound of an Era

For the big bands, the war's initial disruption came from the nation's first peacetime draft, which swept young musicians from the bandstands. Ozzie Nelson's band reacted to the personnel shortage with a song called, "We're Looking for an Alto Man Who Also Plays the Baritone and Doubles on the Clarinet and Wears a Size 37 Suit." After Pearl Harbor some band leaders enlisted. Artie Shaw went into the Navy and led a band that toured the South Pacific. But the most famous service band was Glenn Miller's. Although over the draft age, Miller applied for and received a captaincy in the Army Air Force where he formed a big swing orchestra that eventually became known as the American Band of the Supreme Allied Command. In December 1944, while flying from England to France, Captain Miller's plane vanished over the English Channel. The band, under the direction of drummer Sergeant Ray McKinley, continued to entertain American troops in Europe until the war's end.

Back on the home front, a government tax on dance floors together with gas and tire rationing spelled the end of big band touring for the duration of the war. The bands were still heard on radio and on records, but then on August 1, 1942, they eliminated their own record sales by going on strike. James Caesar Petrillo, the feisty president of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), refused to allow his musicians to record a note of music until the recording companies paid the musicians higher royalty fees. The only exception was V-discs made for U.S. Government distribution to fighting men overseas. Unfortunately for the musicians, the AFM record ban created a major unintended consequence: The strike freed the band singers, most of whom were not union members, from the chains of the bandstand. Using choral groups in the background to replace the musicians, the band singers recorded on their own. Frank Sinatra led the way, leaving Tommy Dorsey for a solo career in late 1942. Mayhem greeted Sinatra's first live solo appearance at New York's Paramount Theatre when his young female "Bobby Soxer" fans nearly rioted. The record ban ended in the fall of 1944, when RCA Victor and Columbia finally capitulated to the union. It was a pyrrhic victory; the unleashing of the band singers together with other wartime problems began eroding the popularity of the big bands.

When the war ended in the summer of

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