Music Album Review: 'The War: I’m Beginning to See the Light – Dance Hits from the Second World War'

(C) 2007 Sony BMG Music Entertainment

I'm Beginning to See the Light (Original 1945 Recording)

On September 11, 2007, Sony BMG Music Entertainment’s Legacy label released The War: I’m Beginning to See the Light – Dance Hits from the Second World War. “Dropped” to precede the premiere broadcast of Ken Burns’ The War: A Ken Burns Film, this 20-track album was one of four Sony soundtrack recordings tied in to Burns’ 14-hour-long World War II documentary. (The other discs were The War: A Film by Ken Burns – Original Soundtrack; Songs Without Words – The War; and The War: Sentimental Journey: Hits from The Second World War)

Culled from several recordings made in the 1930s and 1940s, The War: I’m Beginning to See the Light – Dance Hits from the Second World War showcases some of the best jazz and swing music ever composed. Some of the greats from the Big Band era – Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Coleman Hawkins, and Benny Goodman – are heard in this nostalgia-laced collection of dance hits played both in the battle fronts overseas and in dance halls and family AM radio sets back Stateside. 

In the Mood: Glenn Miller & His Orchestra

In wartime America, music provided both entertainment and uplift. There may have been rationing and general shortages, but dance halls flourished as never before, fueled by the big band of the era. Despite constant depletion of their musicians by the draft, the bandleaders still found able replacements from the small towns and big cities of America. Never before or since has such musical talent existed. On this CD you’ll hear the talent and the tunes, distilled through the swing of the bands that kept America dancing and singing during the darkest times of World War II – tunes that buoyed the spirits of soldiers overseas as well as those at home, and perfectly expressed the American spirit of affirmation in the face of adversity. – Back cover blurb, The War: I’m Beginning to See the Light – Dance Hits from the Second World War

Frenesi: Artie Shaw & His Orchestra (1941 Recording)

My Take

I was born in the early Sixties, less than 20 years after V-E (Victory in Europe) and V-J (Victory Over Japan) Days. Both of my parents had lived in Colombia during the War, but through the power of radio and the availability of vinyl records, they were familiar with American music of the period. Indeed, my dad once owned an extensive collection of mono and stereo albums that featured a lot of Big Band music. Mom used to tell me that the first thing Dad would do after he arrived home from flying C-46’s from Miami to Latin America was turn on the stereo, put one of his records on, and make himself a martini to destress after a day’s – or night’s – long stint in the cockpit.

Chances are that I was exposed to swing and jazz through my father’s love of music. I don’t remember; Dad died in a plane crash near Miami International Airport a few weeks before my second birthday, and all of his records – which included cumbia music from his homeland of Colombia and a few classical music works by French composers – were destroyed in a fire that consumed our house just a few months after his tragic death. But if anyone planted the seed for my love of music from earlier periods than the ones I have lived through, it must have been my dad.

Obviously, I wasn’t around for World War II, but I’ve always been fascinated by that time period. My mom, especially, encouraged me from as far back as I remember to read books and watch documentaries, and the War was – from age six on – one of my favorite topics to study.

Of course, many Hollywood movies and television documentaries use Big Band music as underscore, not just as a filmmaking cliché but also to draw viewers into the on-screen story So even though I’m not a jazz aficionado, I had already heard some of the 20 songs in The War: I’m Beginning to See the Light – Dance Hits from the Second World War countless times. (Frenesi, for instance, is heard in the famous “Paris flashback” montage in Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, while Glenn Miller’s Americam Patrol and In the Mood have been used in the internationally-renowned documentary The World at War.

Ken Burns is a consummate filmmaker who is well aware of the power of music, not just in terms of making a documentary but also on how the songs and instrumental compositions written during specific periods of history evoke the moods and the sensibilities of the times. Time and time again – in The Civil War, Baseball, Prohibition, The West, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, and The Vietnam War- Burns and long-time collaborators Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein weave music into the narrative in such a way that it becomes almost like a second narrator that takes viewers back in time along with the still photographs, paintings, and moving images on the screen.

Pistol Packin' Mama: Al Dexter and His Troopers

I love the songs heard in The War: I’m Beginning to See the Light – Dance Hits from the Second World War. Not just because they are aesthetically pleasing or full of positive energies, but because, as the back cover blurb for this album says, the music of Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Gene Krupa, Duke Ellington, and others “perfectly expressed the American spirit of affirmation in the face of adversity.”

And at a time when the country is deeply divided by differences over politics, racial strife, and the never-ending struggle to define what it means to be American, this album is like a time machine, one that takes us back to a period in which our Republic was united like never before, or never since.

   

Track List for The War: I’m Beginning to See the Light – Dance Hits from the Second World War

1.      C Jam Blues: Duke Ellington & His Famous Orchestra

2.      Frenesi: Artie Shaw & His Orchestra

3.      In the Mood: Glenn Miller & His Orchestra

4.      Let Me Off Downtown: Gene Krupa & His Orchestra

5.      Taxi War Dance: Count Basie & His Orchestra

6.      The Sheik of Araby: Coleman Hawkins’ All Star Octet

7.      Pistol Packin’ Mama: Al Dexter & His Troopers, with vocal by Al Dexter

8.      American Patrol: Glenn Miller & His Orchestra

9.      For the Good of Your Country: Count Basie & His Orchestra

10.  Cherokee: Charlie Barnett & His Orchestra

11.  Rose Room: Benny Goodman & His Orchestra

12.  Opus #1: Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra

13.  I’m Beginning to See the Light: Harry James & His Orchestra

14.  Tuxedo Junction: Erskine Hawkins (the Twentieth Century Gabriel) & His Orchestra

15.  One O’Clock Jump: Count Basie & His Orchestra

16.  I’m Confessin’: Artie Shaw & His Orchestra

17.  (I’ve Got a Gal in) Kalamazoo: Glenn Miller & His Orchestra

18.  Boogie Woogie: Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra

19.  T’ain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It): Jimmie Lunceford & His Orchestra

20.  Sing, Sing, Sing: Benny Goodman & His Orchestra