Songs of the 1920's Part 1 Repeat

·58 min·5 clips

Frank Miller launches a four-part series playing 1920s songs from A to D, starting with Benny Goodman's version of Ain't Misbehavin'.

Frank Miller introduces Big Band Bash, a show dedicated to big band music from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. He announces a four-part series focusing on songs from the 1920s, sourced from an alphabetical online list. The episode covers songs from A to D, with each track performed by a different big band. Miller starts with Benny Goodman's 1945 version of Ain't Misbehavin', followed by Harry James's Avalon from 1939. He then plays Woody Herman's Basin Street Blues and Bing Crosby's Blue Room. A Big Band Puzzler segment challenges listeners to identify a 1924 song sung by Harry Connick Jr. and Frank Sinatra in When Harry Met Sally. Frank Sinatra performs Blue Skies with Tommy Dorsey's orchestra, and Bobby Sherwood plays Bugle Call Rag. Later tracks include Elliot Lawrence's Bye Bye Blackbird and Ella Fitzgerald's 1940 recording of Can't Help Loving That Man. Erskine Hawkins performs Cherry, and Lawrence Welk features Pete Fountain on China Boy. The puzzler answer is revealed as It Had to Be You by Isom Jones. Artie Shaw plays Copenhagen, Jimmy Lunsford performs Coquette, and Stan Kenton records Crazy Rhythm. Duke Ellington plays The Creole Love Call, followed by Bunny Berrigan's Dear Old Southland and Will Bradley's Did I Do. The episode ends with Count Basie's Dinah, recorded for the Jubilee program for U.S. servicemen. Miller notes he selected one song per big band from his collection and looks forward to continuing the series.

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