In a recent story in The Anniston Star about Glenn Miller’s disappearance during World War II, AP writer Mara D. Bellaby makes a couple of sweeping claims about Miller that a real big band buff like me cannot let go uncorrected.
She states boldly, “(Glenn) Miller, who created the 1940s big band sound, was en route...” Although Miller had one of the better big bands of the era, he recorded his first record for Bluebird in 1939. Here are just 10 of the big bands (some of which Miller played in) that recorded hugely successful swing records well before 1939: Isham Jones, Ben Pollack, Glen Gray, Benny Goodman (AKA The King of Swing), Tommy (and/or Jimmy) Dorsey, Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Jimmie Lunceford, Bob Crosby and Woody Herman.
The war broke up a lot of these bands, but their records were wildly popular during my high school days in the early 1940s, especially Herman’s “Woodchoppers’ Ball.”
About the only thing Glenn Miller created was the “Miller sound” of having the clarinet on top in the ensemble playing. And even though it was his biggest hit, Miller neither wrote nor arranged the famous “In the Mood,” as claimed by Ms. Bellaby. That honor goes to Joseph C. Garland, one of the many unsung heroes that were responsible for the making of the big band sound.
Bill Christian
Anniston
NATO bombing
IT IS puzzling. During Ope-ration Desert Fox, we bombed Iraq to gain unfettered access for U.N. weapons inspectors. Where are the inspectors today? Not in Iraq.
We suspended bombing at that time out of respect for the Ramadan. Too bad Passover, Good Friday and Easter are holy days deserving only of firebombing. Coincidentally, the recent Good Friday NATO bombing came on the 58th anniversary of the Easter bombing of Belgrade by the Nazi Luftwaffe. A strange coincidence.
Are your readers aware that being a Serb landed you in a Nazi death camp just as quickly as being a Jew or Gypsy? I haven’t found a single person who is aware of this fact. I’m sure they don’t have a clue that Croats and Yugoslavian Muslims helped the Nazis round up Serbs for the death camps ... or that WWII was the second German attempt to exterminate Serbs this century! I’m not surprised. The Turks spent nearly 500 years trying to exterminate the Serbs and their culture. Then the Turks came close to exterminating Christian Armen-ians. Nobody cared.
Today, the Turks are trying to exterminate the Kurds. Here, we not only don’t care — we supply the bombs. No matter, they are a good NATO ally.
Our “bombs for peace” were supposed to prevent a humanitarian disaster. Instead, our delusions of B-52 bombers and cruise missiles stopping Serbian goon squads from ethnic cleansing have stimulated a human catastrophe that would have taken 10 years to accomplish.
I hope we are satisfied. Welcome to the new, improved “Big Muddy!”
A. J. Lehe
Talladega
The Libertarian Party
IN RESPONSE to the letter to The Anniston Star regarding petitioning for ballot access, as the representative of the Libertarian Party of Alabama in this area, I would like to apologize for the rudeness of these out-of-state people who did not notify me they were working in this area.
However, I would like to point out that signing a petition to get a party on the ballot for an election, in no way constitutes an endorsement of that party, any person, or any measure. And the letter writer would not be supporting paid petitioners from out of state by signing a petition. She would only be helping to gain ballot access for a lot of disenfranchised voters.
The success of Jesse the Gov. Ventura in Minnesota proved that the people are fed up with the two ruling parties and want change.
It is also useful to remember that those representatives in Washington — and in states and counties and cities — are the servants of We the People, and not the rulers.
Margi Crook
Libertarian Party of Alabama District Representative
Graham
The Clinton military
SLOBODAN Milosevic and Bill Clinton do have something in common — they both loathe our military.
Armond “Si” Simmons
Pell City
