St. Louis Blues March Swingtime Big Band

New York s Swingtime Big Band performing in July 2021 at Connecticut s renowned Music Mountain Festival for Swingtime s 13th annual concert there. As is our tradition, we closed the first half of our show with a heartfelt salute to the men and woman who have served our great countryboth Veterans and current service members alike. And this WWIIera classic is an ideal tribute (especially to commemorate 2020 s 75th Anniversary of the end of WWII). In October 1943, Captain Glenn Miller and his Army Air Force Orchestra recorded a Vdisc of this regimental version of W. C. Handy s early jazz classic, St. Louis Miller s chief arranger, Jerry Gray, has the troops marching in step from the very beginning, but allows everyone to swing a bit after the opening fanfare. The version we perform here is actually based on the 1948 recording by Tex Beneke and his orchestra (which was an outgrowth of the Glenn Miller band when the war was over), and along with our gre