I believe it's correct about my being with Ray Noble longer than any other sideman, 1935 to 1954. 19 years. Of course, Ray didn't have an organized band during all of those years. We'd do various radio programs for a while like "Burns and Allen" or "Edgar Bergen" and then Ray would organize a band and we'd tour again, playing hotels, clubs, etc. For us sidemen doing nothing but studio work it was a nice change to really play again.
Contrary to popular belief, almost all of the stories about how the New York band was put together are wrong. Glenn Miller didn't exactly form the band. You see, Ray had selected the key men he wanted before he left England. I was lucky enough to be one of them (Albert Harris, the jazz guitarist in England, had sold me to Ray, for which I'm grateful). Other choices of Ray's were Glenn, Claude Thornhill, Pee Wee Erwin, Charlie Spivak and Bud Freeman.
The key men had a voice in who they preferred in their sections. Claude and I loved Kappy Kaplan's bass playing at the time he was with Jimmy Dorsey at the "Royal" on Times Square, and he joined us. What a wonderful bass player Kappy was. He kept good time, played in tune and had the greatest technique I've ever heard. We used to hear him warming up in the "Rainbow Room" band room playing "The Flight of the Bumble Bee" in the upper register, up to tempo (bowed, of course). Bill Harty, Ray's manager and drummer, completed the rhythm section.
The book of arrangements Ray brought from England was very demanding of all the instruments (good, but hard), particularly the piano book. Claude handled it well, and Ray gave him lots of solos. The band was classic in nature, and the players had to be able to play anything.
As odd as it sounds, Glenn Miller was not well known for his arranging at that time. After a few months at "The Room" he'd bring in arrangements on a sort of trial basis. Ray helped him a lot in the art of orchestration. I'm not trying to discredit Glenn, for we were very good friends, I'm just trying to set the record straight. After a year or so a third of the new book was Glenn's, and it was a big book and a good one.
Ray's approach to Jazz was not one of wild abandon. It was a bit stiff, but always very musical. (The band provided all the wild abandon off the bandstand!) Ray could take some horseplay even on the stand, such as the time we were on the air from the "Rainbow Room" and there were two large silver globes, one on each side of the stand. Ray was busy talking to dancers on the floor with his back to us, and we were coming up to the first and second ending in an arrangement and trying to guess which way to go. One night Claude put a tablecloth over his head, stared into one of the globes and announced in a very loud voice "Madame Zookis says, "Take the second ending!"
Hurley's Bar & Grill was below us on 49th and Sixth Avenue, and we would take the express elevator down to the bar each intermission.
This one night we made it back to "The Room" in time for one of our broadcasts, all except Claude. We were just finishing the theme, "The Very Thought of You", when Claude slid into the piano seat at the very moment that someone handed Ray a telegram delivered from Western Union which had an office on the ground floor. It read:
Teacher Noble, noble teacher — please excuse this man you feature —
Claude has been a Noble boy. His work has always been his joy
When the Hurley burley's done and Claude has had his bit of fun.
So if his fingers seem all thumbs — it's because he's been drinking with these bums.
(Signed) Dick McDonough Roy Bargy
A little later in the evening Ray laughed about it, and saved the wire. Dick and Roy composed the wire in a matter of seconds.
Ray Noble was one of the most aware and sensitive musicians I've ever known. For example, we all had to meet at CBS on Madison Avenue in one of their studios to talk about and sign our individual contracts. Ray said, "I don't really know how to write a logical guitar part. ’What would you like me to write?"
Till, up to that moment no one had ever asked me, and I was almost spellbound. Ray followed up by saying, "Old Boy, I'll write you a 'condensed score' and then you can construct your own part." I was never happier.
I learned a lot from Ray. He was a master orchestrator and a great harmonist. That's quite a nice double-header. Yes, I liked him very much. It's a shame that somehow the band's best work was not recorded. The popular demands of the day prevailed, not the musical demands.
I married and we came to California on our honeymoon in the summer of 1936 after completing the band engagement in Galveston, Texas, on August 2nd. Four weeks later we were to reopen the "Rainbow Room" for the regular fall, winter and spring seasons. I was talked into staying in California and wired Ray that I was remaining on The Coast. Six months later I received a call from Ray saying that he was coming to the west coast to do the "Burns and Allen" show. Could I form a band for him? I put together a band I thought he'd like and, luckily he did like it. We stayed together off and on for more than 16 years.
The first California band was put together just to do "Burns and Allen" plus records and a few one-nighters. In 1939 Ray assembled the first regular California organized band, and it was a very good one. That band stayed together till the war broke out, then, of course, everybody went off in different directions. Ray didn't have an organized band after that, just groups assembled to play shows, record, etc.
I believe the 1939 band was the first to have its very own chartered DC 3 airplane. While playing the Palace Hotel in San Francisco we flew down to L.A. to do "Bums and Allen" every Thursday for six months, no matter what the weather. It was pretty hairy at times.
We flew at very odd hours, therefore regular airline flights were out of the question. We flew when everyone else was grounded. We had to. This is how it went:
"We had an early Thursday morning rehearsal in L.A., worked all day, did two shows, packed everything up, got out to the Burbank airport, loaded the plane and flew up to Oakland where a waiting bus took us back to the "Palace” to finish the night out. It was very rough, hard work. Sometimes we'd make two trips a week, what with special engagements, etc. Ray commemorated these trips with a jazz number he wrote and later recorded, From Oakland to Burbank" (COLUMBIA 35708).
Which brings me up to today. I've not retired. I'll never retire.
In fact, I'm busier now than ever before in my life, both playing and writing musical text books. That’s it, I guess!
GEORGE VAN EPS
An interesting Pee Wee Erwin story: Pee Wee wasn't too crazy about Miller's arrangements, they were hard to play and made him work too hard. He also soft-pedals his own reputation as a high-note artist while admitting at the same time that he was playing Miller's trumpet parts an octave higher than they were written. He says Miller would turn to him and say, "Somebody's playing birdcalls again. Look, if you insist on playing these things that way, I'm gonna fix you good by writing like that', and he did. He wrote some arrangements scoring the trumpet an octave above the saxes, doubling the melody, and this was the basis for the arranging that later resulted in the “Miller sound” Of course, the clarinet replaced the trumpet later...but that's another story.