Tex Beneke

Tenor sax­o­phon­ist and singer Tex Beneke is best re­mem­bered for his long as­so­ci­a­tion with Glenn Miller. Beneke, con­sid­ered one of the top sax­o­phone play­ers of the early 1940s, be­came a pop­u­lar star in Miller’s or­ches­tra both for his vo­cals and his in­stru­men­tal work. After the war, he led the late band­leader’s Army Air Force or­ches­tra when it re­turned to civil­ian life. Though he often felt hemmed in by Miller’s legacy, Beneke kept Miller’s music at the cen­ter of his pro­fes­sional life through­out his ca­reer.

Beneke began his ca­reer per­form­ing in re­gional bands in the Ok­la­homa and Texas area. He joined Ben Young’s out­fit in 1935 and trav­eled to De­troit with them in 1937. There, in 1938, he was heard by fel­low sax­o­phon­ist Sam Don­ahue, who rec­om­mended him to his then boss, Gene Krupa. Krupa couldn’t hire Beneke but knew Miller was putting to­gether a new out­fit and in­formed the Miller about him.

Beneke de­buted with Miller’s or­ches­tra in 1938. He quickly be­came one of the band­leader’s clos­est as­so­ci­ates and emerged as a pop­u­lar star in his own right, his sax solos dec­o­rat­ing many of Miller’s hit songs. Down Beat mag­a­zine read­ers voted him to the 1940, 1941 and 1942 All-​American Swing Bands, the only Miller mu­si­cian to earn that honor.^[1] Aside from his sax du­ties, Beneke also stepped out of the band to sing nov­elty tunes. His most no­table vocal hits in­clude “Chat­tanooga Choo Choo” and “I’ve Got a Gal in Kala­ma­zoo.” He also ap­peared with the band in their two 20th Cen­tury Fox films.

After Miller dis­banded in Sep­tem­ber 1942 to join the Army Air Force, Beneke went out on tour with fel­low Miller vo­cal­ists Mar­ion Hut­ton and the Mod­er­naires as a com­bined act called the Glenn Miller Singers. Band­lead­ers Jan Savitt and Ho­race Heidt both at­tempted to lure Beneke into their or­ches­tras, with Beneke ul­ti­mately join­ing Heidt in De­cem­ber at a ru­mored guar­an­tee of $500 per week, a princely sum. His sud­den ap­pear­ance in Heidt’s or­ches­tra sur­prised many peo­ple, but his un­ex­pected de­par­ture after only five days on the band­stand sur­prised even him. Beneke had tried to en­list in the Navy ear­lier in the year but had been re­jected due to color blind­ness. No sooner had he set­tled in to Heidt’s out­fit when he re­ceived a wire from the Navy in­form­ing him that they had waived his dis­abil­ity, and he was or­dered to re­port. While in the ser­vice, Beneke was sta­tioned at the Naval Air Tech­ni­cal Train­ing Cen­ter in Nor­man, Ok­la­homa, where he was a mem­ber of the wel­fare de­part­ment and di­rec­tor of two dance bands. He rose to the rank of Chief Petty Of­fi­cer.

Post-​War Miller Band

After his dis­charge in No­vem­ber 1945, Beneke was re­cruited by Miller’s widow to front his for­mer em­ployer’s Army Air Force or­ches­tra when it re­turned to the States. The band made its first civil­ian radio per­for­mance on Jan­u­ary 12, 1946, over NBC and its first live per­for­mance on Jan­u­ary 24, 1946, at the Capi­tol The­ater in New York. Com­posed mostly of Miller’s AAF mu­si­cians and those who had played with Miller be­fore the war, the group was of­fi­cially called the Glenn Miller Or­ches­tra with Tex Beneke and was billed as the band Miller “wanted to pre­sent to the Amer­i­can pub­lic on his re­turn from over­seas.”

The or­ches­tra, which used both Miller’s pre-​war and wartime books, was one of the largest bands in the coun­try, with 30 or more mu­si­cians, in­clud­ing a string sec­tion. Johnny Desmond was orig­i­nally slated to be the male bal­lad singer but de­parted for a solo ca­reer be­fore the band made its debut. Artie Malvin, an ex-Claude Thorn­hill vo­cal­ist who had been an arranger for Miller’s AAF band, stepped in to take his place. Vocal group the Crew Chiefs made the tran­si­tion from the wartime band, and Jerry Gray con­tin­ued to arrange. Lil­lian Lane joined the or­ches­tra as its first fe­male singer be­fore their ap­pear­ance at the Capi­tol.

Beneke’s or­ches­tra quickly be­came one of the most pop­u­lar in the coun­try, often play­ing to record-​breaking crowds. At a time when most bands were strug­gling, and many dis­band­ing, Beneke’s Miller group was rak­ing in the prof­its. Beneke was not of­fi­cially the leader of the band how­ever. That title went to man­ager Don Haynes, who had also been Miller’s man­ager. Haynes had joined Miller in 1940 and had en­listed in the ser­vice along­side him, man­ag­ing Miller’s wartime band. Beneke was salaried as a front man, but after the band proved a huge suc­cess he raised the issue. Re­ports stated that there was fric­tion be­tween him and Haynes over the mat­ter, which Beneke “strongly” de­nied. Beneke was fi­nally cut in on the profit shar­ing equally with Haynes in Jan­u­ary 1947.

Haynes and Beneke slowly tried to wean the band off of Miller’s name and book but were un­suc­cess­ful at every turn. Beneke began by adding a few songs to the band’s book that were not closely tied to Miller, but fans com­plained. Billing on record la­bels, orig­i­nally cred­ited as “Tex Beneke with The Glenn Miller Or­ches­tra,” had sub­tly changed to “Tex Beneke and The Miller Or­ches­tra” by the end of 1946, but when Haynes sent a con­tract to a the­ater op­er­a­tor re­quir­ing that only Beneke’s name be dis­played on the mar­quee and in ad­ver­tis­ing, the op­er­a­tor sent it back. When Haynes sent a new con­tract with both Beneke and Miller’s name in­cluded, the op­er­ated ac­cepted it, and at an in­creased price. “That proved it to us,” said Haynes, “and as far as we are con­cerned, the Miller name will re­main in­def­i­nitely.” When Down Beat printed an ar­ti­cle dis­cussing the de­sire by Haynes and Beneke to make the name change, angry let­ters flooded into the mag­a­zine. Read­ers were al­most unan­i­mously against it.

Beneke’s Miller band fin­ished first in Bill­board mag­a­zine’s 1947 poll for best sweet band. They ap­peared reg­u­larly on radio on all the major net­works in 1946 and 1947, in­clud­ing a thirteen-​week ap­pear­ance on Johnny Desmond’s Mu­tual net­work radio pro­gram, Judy, Jill and Johnny, start­ing in De­cem­ber 1946. In Sum­mer 1947, the band began al­ter­nat­ing with Frankie Carle on the Chester­field Sup­per Club. The deal caused major prob­lems with Beneke’s book­ing sched­ule, forc­ing him to can­cel a num­ber of dates due to Chester­field re­quir­ing the band to do their Mon­day and Wednes­day shows from New York. Beneke lost $35,000 in the process. In early 1948, the band began a weekly re­cruit­ment pro­gram, On the Beam, for the Army Air Force on the Mu­tual net­work.

As the band began to come into its own, Beneke had to walk a very tight rope when it came to using the name of his for­mer boss. Though fans were ex­tremely loyal to Miller, crit­ics and those in the music trade felt that Beneke was mis­us­ing the late band­leader’s name for his own ad­van­tage. Beneke and Haynes kept slowly push­ing and by Oc­to­ber 1947 felt con­fi­dent enough that book­ers were will­ing to ac­cept the Beneke name on its own. They an­nounced that start­ing Feb­ru­ary 2, 1948, the band would drop Miller’s name from its tag. By this time, aside from Beneke, there was only one other mem­ber who had played with Miller. The band’s name on Vic­tor record la­bels had be­come “Tex Beneke and his Or­ches­tra” by the end of 1947.

In Jan­u­ary 1949, Beneke got rid of the band’s ten-​member string sec­tion.^[2] Fans had con­tin­u­ally asked him to drop strings and get back to the Miller ba­sics, though Beneke stated that Miller would have used strings if he were alive, which is why he had kept them. Beneke con­tin­ued to be hemmed in by Miller’s leg­end, hav­ing to heav­ily play Miller stan­dards at every per­for­mance. If he brought in a new bal­lad, it had to be given the fa­mil­iar Miller reed voic­ing. In early 1949, he told Down Beat that the band was going to get more “Miller-​ish,” as all their re­quests were for the Miller style. In an early 1949 in­ter­view, Beneke also said he had held out hope that Miller wasn’t dead and would re­turn but re­cently had come to ac­cept that he wouldn’t.

Though Beneke con­tin­ued to draw crowds, by the end of the 1940s his music and style had lost much of its promise. He began to re­ceive se­ri­ous com­pe­ti­tion on the Miller front in late 1949 from Ralph Flana­gan’s or­ches­tra, which re­leased a se­ries of record­ings in the Miller style, and on the same label, Vic­tor, as Beneke. In re­sponse, in early 1950, Beneke began to re­turn more to Miller’s li­brary. Flana­gan’s live debut in spring 1950, how­ever, drew an ex­cited re­ac­tion from the trade press, who gen­er­ally felt it to be bet­ter than Beneke’s band. Un­like Beneke, Flana­gan avoided cur­rent pop tunes and fo­cused on the dance beat. As one Down Beat re­view wrote about Flana­gan: “It’s one of the very few bands since the war which this re­viewer has lis­tened to for an en­tire evening with sus­tained in­ter­est.” Beneke began to feel the heat, and he took ex­cep­tion with Vic­tor’s han­dling and pro­mo­tion of Flana­gan. He and Haynes asked Vic­tor for re­lease from their con­tract.

Vo­cal­ists

Like most band­lead­ers in the late 1940s, Beneke had trou­ble find­ing and keep­ing vo­cal­ists, and he went through a slew of names. Lane, Malvin, and the Crew Chiefs re­mained with the band through sum­mer 1946. Malvin had left by Oc­to­ber, though, re­placed by Garry Stevens. Lane and the Crew Chiefs left in Oc­to­ber. The Mello-​Larks re­placed the Crew Chiefs, with Mello-​Lark Joan Lorry tem­porar­ily tak­ing over as fe­male vo­cal­ist until Ginny O’Con­nor, pre­vi­ously with Mel Tormé’s Meltones, was hired for the role. O’Con­nor re­tired in spring 1947 to marry Beneke’s pi­anist, Henry Mancini. The Mello-​Larks left in sum­mer 1947, and Beneke re­placed them with his own cre­ation, the Moon­light Ser­e­naders. Stevens stayed with the or­ches­tra into early 1948.

Beneke had a hard time re­plac­ing O’Con­nor, and the fe­male vocal slot was open for quite some time after her de­par­ture. Wilma Ris­ner sang on the or­ches­tra’s On the Beam radio pro­gram in early 1948. By June 1949, Mary Mayo, one of the Moon­light Ser­e­naders, was han­dling fe­male vo­cal­ist chores. A no­tice in Au­gust re­ported that Suzanne Shep­herd had re­placed Claire Sher­win as Beneke’s vo­cal­ist, though Sher­win was likely Claire Chatwin, an­other of the Moon­light Ser­e­naders. Mar­i­lyn Jack­son also sang.

Ron­nie Deauville re­placed Stevens as the male bal­ladeer, but by fall Kirk Wood had come and gone. In late 1948, Beneke re­lied solely on him­self and the Moonl­ght Ser­e­naders for vo­cals, with vocal group mem­ber Bob Mitchell tak­ing bal­lads. Glenn Dou­glas was male vo­cal­ist in mid-​1949. Gregg Lawrence, Buddy Yea­ger, and Bob Shaver sang in 1950. In 1951, Bill Ray­mond was vo­cal­ist, with the Crew Chiefs re­turn­ing to back Beneke on record­ings. Ray Eberle and the Gwen Bari Trio also recorded with the band in sum­mer 1951.

Helen Lee sang in mid-​1950, but by Sep­tem­ber she had been re­placed by Eydie Gormé. With Gormé, Beneke fi­nally found a sta­ble fe­male vo­cal­ist, and one who im­pressed the crit­ics. Gormé had pre­vi­ously sang with Tommy Tucker but cred­its Beneke with teach­ing her how to per­form. She went on to a very suc­cess­ful ca­reer as a singer in the 1950s and 1960s.

Break with Miller Es­tate

Flana­gan’s rise in pop­u­lar­ity as well as the ap­pear­ance of other Miller im­i­ta­tors caused Beneke to take stock of his sit­u­a­tion, and in De­cem­ber 1950 he made the de­ci­sion to part ways with Haynes and strike out on his own. Haynes was dis­mis­sive, say­ing “Some­body has put big ideas in [Beneke’s] head. He seems to think he can get along on his own with no help from those who gave him his start.” Haynes also took pos­ses­sion of the orig­i­nal Miller li­brary, which com­prised about half of Miller’s total book. Beneke was not wor­ried, ex­plain­ing, “Most of the so-​called ‘orig­i­nal Miller arrange­ments’ have been pub­lished as stocks al­most note for note and can be bought in any music store. That’s ex­actly what I did to re­place some.” Beneke had no im­me­di­ate plans to change the band’s style or for­mat, though he hoped to cre­ate a sound that would be more dis­tinc­tive than the “now-​much-copied” Miller sound, be­liev­ing Miller’s music would have evolved nat­u­rally over the years if Miller had been alive and would not have re­mained sta­tic.

Beneke at­tempted to keep work­ing with Miller’s widow, of­fer­ing her an agree­ment where she would have re­ceived the same per­cent­age as she al­ways had, but she de­clined. Beneke lost the right to use the Miller name, though op­er­a­tors were al­lowed to use the tagline “Music in the Miller Mood” when re­fer­ring to Beneke’s band. Beneke also put pres­sure on RCA Vic­tor and won his early re­lease from the label. He signed with MGM Records in Jan­u­ary 1951, and Mancini began writ­ing new arrange­ments for the or­ches­tra. Beneke switched book­ing agen­cies from Gen­eral Artists Cor­po­ra­tion, who had han­dled Miller, to Gabbe, Lutz and Heller.

In Jan­u­ary 1951, Haynes se­cured a court order to seize prop­erty that had been jointly owned by he and Beneke be­fore the split. The morn­ing after Beneke’s band had fin­ished an en­gage­ment at the Pal­la­dium in Los An­ge­les, a mov­ing van hired by Haynes ar­rived at the club and hauled off music racks, por­tions of the music li­brary, and var­i­ous other props. The fa­mously quiet-​tempered Beneke of­fered no ob­jec­tions, though he felt he had as much right to the prop­erty as did Haynes. Beneke wanted the split to be set­tled peace­fully and had no de­sire to make trou­ble. Haynes also seized other jointly-​owned prop­erty in New York.

In No­vem­ber 1951, Miller’s es­tate de­cided to sell tran­scrip­tions and record­ings taken from air checks of Miller’s 15-​minute Chester­field pro­gram in the early 1940s. Gen­eral Artists Cor­po­ra­tion sued the es­tate, claim­ing con­trac­tual rights to the pro­grams. Beneke, using the same lawyer as GAC, also sued be­cause he hadn’t given per­mis­sion for his name or work to be used in con­nec­tion with the air check record­ings. He had only found out about the sale when the es­tate sent him checks, at a side­man’s scale. Haynes, who was the Miller es­tate’s man­ager, was in charge of sell­ing the tran­scrip­tions.

Though the Miller im­i­ta­tion fad began to fade out by the end of 1951, Beneke con­tin­ued to play Miller songs, as the crowd con­tin­ued to re­quest them, but he also began to branch out in other di­rec­tions. Lack­ing a strong pres­ence in the vocal de­part­ment after Gormé left to go solo in sum­mer 1951, he began to focus more on in­stru­men­tals, many of them with­out the dis­tinc­tive Miller sound. Record sales were poor, how­ever, and Beneke blamed MGM’s lack of pro­mo­tion, re­quest­ing a re­lease from his con­tract with the label. The band signed with Coral in 1953.

Eberle and the Mod­er­naires re­united with Beneke sev­eral times over the years for record­ings in the Miller man­ner. Beneke con­tin­ued lead­ing his or­ches­tra up until the early 1990s. Tex Beneke passed away in 2000 from res­pi­ra­tory fail­ure.

Notes