March On Up to the Microphone, Ladies

March is Women’s History Month. While you can probably rattle off several of the male players of the big band era, how many female vocalists can you name? If you’re not sure of any, a good stab in the dark would be “Helen.” Helen Forrest, Helen Humes, Helen O’Connell, and Helen Ward were among the top vocalists of the day, which means your name pretty much had to be Helen to make it big. Well that’s not quite true, your name could also have been Martha (Tilton), Ella (Fitzgerald), Kitty (Kallen), or…the list goes on. 

Read up on the three female vocalists (or “girl singers” as they were called) highlighted below who sang with the best the big band era had to offer, and keep in mind there were many more.

Ivie Anderson
Anderson joined Duke Ellington’s band in February 1931 and stayed until 1942. The night she joined Duke Ellington in 1931, the band broke all attendance records. In his autobiography, Music Is My Mistress, Ellington calls her his good luck charm, and she was one of the best—if not the best—vocalists with the band. It is Ivie Anderson who recorded “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” with Ellington in 1932.

Helen Forrest
Forrest was nicknamed “the voice of the name bands.” Why? Because she was the female vocalist for three of the biggest big bands of the time—Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Harry James. Forrest sang with Shaw’s band from 1938 until the band dismantled in November 1939. In December of that same year, she started working with Benny Goodman, making 55 studio recordings with him. She stayed with Goodman until 1941, when she joined Harry James, with whom she stayed until 1943. In 1942 and 1943, she was voted the best female vocalist in the United States in the Down Beat magazine’s poll. 

Billie Holiday
Early in her singing career, “Lady Day” worked as a big band singer. She started out with Count Bassie in 1937, recording hits like “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” In early 1938 she left (err, actually was asked to leave) the band. No worries, though, she soon found a gig with Artie Shaw, a job that made her one of the first black women to work with a white orchestra. After a little less than a year, Holiday left the band and was replaced by Helen Forrest (maybe there really is something to that “Helen” thing).

How Big Band Came To Be

The Origin, People, and Current State of Big Band Music

Origin

The true roots of big band music began in 1898 in New Orleans. Groups of African-Americans bought decommissioned military instruments and played them in brand new way. Their approach was unconventional and offbeat in comparison to the European concept of rhythm. When the African-American groups' new style was molded with traditional European music, the genre of "ragtime" was born.

Fletcher Henderson

Flash forward two decades - ragtime's popularity led to the birth of orchestral "dance bands". Fletcher Henderson, a chemistry major from Columbia University, left the chemistry realm and returned to another passion of his - music. By the mid 1920s, Henderson experienced mild success as an arranger for the band he assembled, which included jazz legend Louis Armstrong. When Armstrong joined the band in 1924, Henderson started to incorporate jazz and blues styles into the band's arrangements. At the time, no one had ever attempted to do so with a "big" band (Henderson's band had roughly 11 musicians). Although they quickly became known as the "best African-American band in New York", the band, Henderson, and the new genre of music struggled to gain national attention.



Fletcher Henderson 

Benny Goodman

In 1935, jazz and swing musician Benny Goodman was the leader of a talented "dance" orchestra that was set to perform as a house band for the radio program "Let's Dance". Renowned producer and friend of Goodman, John Hammond, suggested that Goodman buy a few charts (music arrangements) from Fletcher Henderson. Goodman agreed to do so and his exceptional group of musicians - who were much more talented than Henderson's band - brought new life to Henderson's arrangements. The fusion of Henderson's arrangement ability and Goodman's musicians launched big band music into the national spotlight.




Benny Goodman

The Current State of Big Band
Due to the talent and work of Henderson, Goodman, and others, the genre reached the peak of its mainstream popularity in the 1940s. Since then, performers like Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Sam Rivers, Tony Bennett, and Michael Buble have carried the big band torch. While the big band genre's following has become intimate, many critics believe the state of current big band music performances fall into one of two states.

First, the "state of precision", in which a group's individual musicians play without ego. The goal of this state is to forgo the talents of individuals in hopes of bringing the arranger's and or composer's true intentions to life. While this state has merit, the second state of a big band is looked upon more fondly. This state expresses both the composer and individual musician completely by allowing talented soloists to enhance the composer and arrangers original song structure - without making such solos all about the individual musician.

shaun johnson Big Band Experience (BBE) is a current, yet rare example of the second state of performance that a big band can take on. BBE's "contemporary big band sound with a pop flair" is a result of the group's exceptional instrumentalists and Johnson's award-winning voice and confidence in front of the microphone.