Remembering Big Band & Jazz Legend - Harry James

Harry James

He was the best trumpet player during the Big Band Era. Harry James

was known for his technical proficiency, amazing high register, and swinging style.

Harry Haag James was born in Albany, Georgia on March 15, 1916 to Everett R. James, a circus bandleader, and Maybelle Stewart Clark James, a trapeze artist. Both performed with the Mighty Haag Circus. By the age of 8, his father was teaching him how to play the trumpet, and at 12, Harry was playing his trumpet and leading the second band in the Christy Brothers Circus.

Ben Pollack Orchestra

Benny Goodman Orchestra

His first gig was with the Ben Pollack Orchestra, a nationally known band. In 1936, James joined one of the nation’s most popular Swing Bands, The Benny Goodman Orchestra, and performed on the hit recordings of Sing, Sing, Sing and One O’Clock Jump.

Frank Sinatra

Harry James & His Music Makers

Three years later he was ready to go out with his own band; Harry James and His Music Makers. They took to the stage in Philadelphia and swung the crowd. Shortly thereafter he hired then unknown Frank Sinatra as a vocalist for the group. James also helped launch the career of female Big Band singer, Helen Forrest

Harry James

Playing for the Crowds

In 1941, James changed the sound of the band from the fast-paced Swing music to Sweet music, which had strings and was more in the style of ballads.  The results were immediate; in April 1941 his self-written instrumental Music Makers was in the Top 10, followed by Lament to Love in August. The week of December 7, 1941, You Made Me Love You was in the Top 5, the record that would make him a star. 

You Made Me Love You  - Harry James and His Music Makers with Helen Forrest on vocals.

Opening from the movie “Private Buckaroo” 1942

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMaCoxOGXPM

By 1942, his band was second to Glenn Miller’s as the most successful recording artist of the year. When Miller went into the Armed Forces, he handed over the reigns to the popular Chesterfield Time Radio Program to James and his Band. 

Harry James & His Trumpet

Harry James and His Music Makers had 40 hit singles including Ain’t She Sweet, Cry Me a River, Flight of the Bumblebee, and (Up a) Lazy River. James was one of the most popular Big Band leaders during the early 40’s, but disbanded the group at the end of 1946 due to a lack of income and the waning interest in Big Band music.  But he continued to perform and appeared in numerous Hollywood movies.

Harry James Show

Harry James

In 1947, James formed a jazz group also known as Harry James and His Music Makers. By 1951, he had his own television show, The Harry James Show.

The James Family

Betty Grable

James was married four times, most notably to WW II pin-up girl Betty Grable on July 5, 1943. Their marriage lasted for over 20 years and they had two children.

Harry James

James played his trumpet in the jazz style until the early 80’s. Diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1983, he continued to perform.  He made his last appearance on stage nine days before his death.

Harry James died on July 5, 1983 while on tour in Las Vegas.  He was 67 years old. He is interred at Bunkers Eden Vale Cemetery in the Chapel of Eternal Peace in Las Vegas.

Harry Haag James

Regarding his eminent death, James said, "Let it just be said that I went up to do a one-nighter with Archangel Gabriel."

~ Joy

Amelia Earhart - The Search Continues

Amelia Earhart

She was known as the "Queen of the Air" and the most famous woman of her generation. Amelia Earhart was the first woman be flown across the Atlantic Ocean in 1928, and then became the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic five years later, in 1932. But Earhart was not content if she couldn’t take on a challenge and spread her wings.  

Amelia Being Welcomed

In 1936, Amelia planned a trip where she would fly around the world. Her first attempt in March 1937 barely got off the ground, but on May 21, 1937 Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, set off to make history.

Fred Noonan & Amelia Earhart

The first 21 days of the flight went without too many hitches until Earhart became ill with dysentery, but the pair arrived safely in Lae, New Guinea on June 29^th.

Route from New Guinea to Howland Island

After a short break for repairs and rest, they set off on the next leg of the trip on the morning on July 2nd, heading for Howland Island, a tiny isle in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This 18-hour flight would be the most difficult and longest section of the entire “Around the World Flight" consisting of 2,200 miles over the Pacific. 
They were never seen again.

U.S. Cutter Itasca

After almost 20 hours in the air, Earhart radioed the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Itasca, waiting for her off the coast of Howland Island, "KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you but cannot see you...gas is running low..."

About an hour later Itasca received her final message, "We are in a line position of 157- 337. Will report on 6210 kilocycles. Wait, listen on 6210 kilocycles. We are running North and South."

U.S. Ships Search the Ocean

Once it was realized that the pair were missing, the U.S. Navy began a massive search across the ocean. After two weeks of intensive searching, the world received the grim news that Earhart, Noonan, and the Lockheed Electra had vanished.  They were never found.

President Roosevelt

Two theories have continually circulated over the years regarding Amelia Earhart’s disappearance. The first claimed that the “Around the World Flight" was actually a cover for Earhart who was a spy, commissioned by President Franklin Roosevelt to perform surveillance on the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean.  Theorists claimed that her plane had been brought down in the Pacific.

The second theory suggested that Earhart and Noonan survived the crash but were taken prisoners by the Japanese.  Evidence was never found to support either assumption.

Then in July 2012, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) performed an underwater search with a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) off the Nikumaroro Island (formerly Gardner Island) coast. They identified a small man-made debris field at a depth of about 200 feet. 

TIGHAR has made over 10 expeditions for the Earhart Project since its inception 27 years ago. The group has recovered and verified several artifacts that suggest Earhart and Noonan may have ended up on the tiny uninhabited atoll known then as Gardner Island, about 350 miles southeast of their intended destination, Howland Island.

Items Found On Island

Other clues that they may have landed there include a woman’s shoe, a Benedictine bottle, 1930’s medicine bottles, an empty sextant box, and the remains of campfires, along with over a dozen human bones belonging to a white female approximately 5 feet 7 inches tall; all were discovered on the island in 1940.  The description of the remains profiles Earhart but the bones have since been lost.

TIGHAR Sonar Photo

In March, TIGHAR released sonar images off the island’s coast that shows a straight, unbroken anomaly about 22 feet in length that could be the fuselage of the Lockheed Electra, resting in about 600 feet of water. TIGHAR missed the area by only a few hundred feet when using the ROV last year.

Gardner Island

New Zealand Air Force

And just three days ago a set of 43 original photos taken in December 1938 were released from the New Zealand Air Force Museum that potentially show aircraft debris and places human activity had occurred on Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro Island) where it is believed the Lockheed plane crashed. Did Earhart and Noonan survive a crash and live as castaways on the island, waiting for a rescue that never came?  TIGHAR will travel to New Zealand next month to investigate the newly discovered photos. 

TIGHAR has projected that it will take $3,000,000 to put together another expedition that can begin to verify and answer the questions that continue to arise. Only time will tell what truly happened to Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, but after 76 years it seems that the time has come to discover the truth.

~ Joy

Remembering a Circus Tragedy

One more week before the hand brace comes off - so here is a post from 2011 about the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus Tragedy, which happened 95 years ago this week.

Showmen’s Rest is the nations’ most well known cemetery for circus artists and performers.  It was created in 1916 when the Showmen’s League of America purchased a plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois for the burial of circus performers, circus hands and circus artists.  Five white elephant statues circle the plot, trunks lowered as a sign of mourning.  Burials were far between for the first two years, until that fateful morning in June when circus history was changed forever.

Wreck of the Hagenbeck-Wallace
Circus Train

It was around 4 A.M. on June 22, 1918, near Ivanhoe, Indiana when the 26-car Hagenbeck-Wallace circus train stopped to cool an overheated wheel-bearing box.  Although warning lights had been set out to signal that the train had stopped on the tracks, it was struck at full speed from behind by an empty troop train.  Three of the train cars, with sleeping circus workers in them, were destroyed by fire. Eighty-six performers, circus hands and roustabouts were killed as a result of the crash and fire. Many others injured. Fifty-six of the victims were buried at Woodlawn Cemetery at Showmen’s Rest.  The Showmen’s League of America donated the plots for the showmen’s burials.

Grave Stone for Jennie Ward Todd

Jennie Ward Todd

Among those buried were Jennie Ward Todd of the “Flying Wards.”  And the “Great Dieckx Brothers,” Arthur Dieckx and Max Nietzborn.

Row of Graves

Forty of the markers are engraved as “Unknown”  - “Unknown Female, number 48” or “Unknown Male, number 29”, and the date June 22, 1918.

4 Horses Driver & Baldy

Two performers were buried under their show names, ‘Baldy’ and ‘Smiley,’ as their real names were never known.  A few stones are marked only with the person’s job descriptions such as 4 Horse Driver, June 22, 1918.  Contrary to popular myth, NO animals were hurt or killed in the train crash.

The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus was the second largest circus in the U.S. at the time.  Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey held the number one position.  Many Hagenbeck-Wallace show posters included the line “Presenting The Most Novel Elephant Acts Ever Seen.” 

Circus performers from around the country arrived to help Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus keep to their performing schedule for that season. All told, the circus only missed one performance, the night of June 22, 1918 when they were to appear in Hammond, Indiana. 

Mt Olivet Cemetery
in Hugo, Oklahoma

There are a few other ‘Showmen’s Rest Cemeteries’ in the U.S. – one is in Miami, Florida, at Southern Memorial Park.  This is the largest of the Showmen’s Rest Cemeteries, founded in 1952.  Another is located at the ‘winter home of the circus’, Hugo, Oklahoma at Mt Olivet Cemetery.  And another is located in Tampa, Florida near downtown.

International Clown Week

It is true that performers and actors never want to “leave the boards” of the stage, and at Showmen’s Rest, in Woodlawn Cemetery, that desire is understood.  Each year, International Clown Week http://performforthelove.com/showmensrest/ is held in early August.  A private memorial is held during the week for the circus performers buried there.  Then, on a Sunday afternoon, circus artists from across the world perform for the public at Showmen’s Rest. The events include circus acts, death-defying feats, family entertainment and general “clowning around,” as hundreds of clowns take part each year.  The event is billed as “a loving and festive remembrance of circus artists past.”

Showmen's Rest, Woodlawn Cemetery

As a theatre performer I can tell you, this is one of the most fitting and touching tributes any performer could ask for.  The old adage, “The show must go on…” is something every true performer believes. It is wonderful to see that it still does……at Showmen’s Rest.

~  Joy