Glenn Miller Orchestra
US big band led by Glenn Miller (1937-1942)
Glenn Miller and His Orchestra was an American swing dance band that was formed by Glenn Miller in 1938. Arranged around a clarinet and tenor saxophone playing melody, and three other saxophones playing harmony, the band became the most popular and commercially successful dance orchestra of the swing era and one of the greatest singles-charting acts of the 20th century. As of 2026, Ray Anthony is the last surviving member of the orchestra at the age of 104.
Miller began professionally recording in New York City as a sideman in the hot jazz era of the late 1920s. With the arrival of virtuoso trombonists Jack Teagarden and Tommy Dorsey, Miller focused more on developing his arrangement skills.
Writing for contemporaries and future stars such as Artie Shaw, and Benny Goodman, Miller gained prowess as an arranger by working in a variety of settings. Later, Miller largely improved his arranging and writing skills by studying under music theorist Joseph Schillinger.
In February 1937, Miller started an orchestra that briefly made records for Decca. With this group, Miller used an arrangement he wrote for British bandleader Ray Noble's American band in an attempt to form a clarinet-reed sound. This style developed over time, and eventually became known as the Glenn Miller sound.
“Glenn Miller Orchestra” enters the record as uS big band led by Glenn Miller (1937-1942). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Glenn, Miller and Orchestra can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2446255. VIAF identifies the subject as 121317249. The Library of Congress control number is n93005948. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 2026 and 1937.
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This entry incorporates text from “Glenn Miller Orchestra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.