“Along the Santa Fe Trail” (1940) Glenn Miller/Jerry Gray with Ray Eberle

“Along the Santa Fe Trail”

Composed by Will Grosz (music) and Al Dubin and Edwina Coolidge (lyric); arranged by Jerry Gray.

Recorded by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra for Bluebird on November 8, 1940 in New York.

Glenn Miller, first trombone, directing: R.D. “Mickey” McMickle, first trumpet; John Best, Ray Anthony and Billy May, trumpets; Paul Tanner, Jimmy Priddy and Frankie D’Annolfo, trombones; Hal McIntrye, first alto saxophone; Wilbur Schwartz, alto saxophone and clarinet; Ernesto “Ernie” Caceres, alto and baritone saxophones and clarinet; Al Klink, tenor saxophone and bass clarinet; Gordon “Tex” Beneke, tenor saxophone; J.C. “Chummy” MacGregor, piano; Jack Lathrop, guitar; Herman “Trigger” Alpert, bass; Maurice “Moe” Purtill, drums. Ray Eberle, vocal.

The story:

The feature film Santa Fe Trail was a top-line Warner Brothers production that was made in the last half of 1940. The story has minimal relationship to the history it purports to reflect. In the wake of the massive success of the film Gone With The Wind through the first half of 1940 (produced by Selznick International and M-G-M), Warners, to be competitive, sought to mine the apparently large vein of gold among American movie audiences for epic films that used the years before and during the Civil War as their setting. This film did that, and also provided a vehicle for Warner stars Erroll Flynn and Olivia De Havilland. The story, such as it is, is largely a hodgepodge of historical inaccuracies and insulting racial stereotypes, but it does facilitate lots of screen-time for Mr. Flynn and Ms. De Havilland, who do what boys and girls usually do. Casting decisions, which were driven by which actors Warners had under contract, resulted in sometimes hilarious characterizations – Ronald Reagan as George Custer, and Raymond Massey, who chews the scenery like a hungry tyrranosaurus rex, as John Brown. Nevertheless, despite these absurdities, the film was successful at the box office. Warners had their fingers on the pulse of the 1940 American movie audience. So much for all of that.

But along the way, mixed in with the cliche’-ridden music supplied by Max Steiner (the man was a brilliant composer, but overworked by Warners to an extreme degree), the lovely and sophisticated melody “Along the Santa Fe Trail” emerges. That melody was composed by Will Grosz, not Max Steiner. It was used as a love theme of sorts, behind the billing and cooing of Flynn and De Havilland onscreen, and then at the end, in slam-bam fashion, to clear theaters.

Not a great deal is known today about Will Grosz, except that he was born in Vienna as Wilhelm Grosz (11 August 1894 – 10 December 1939) into a wealthy Jewish family, and became a composer of classical works, a pianist, and a conductor. Shortly after the Nazi takeover in Germany in 1933, Grosz resettled in England. Finding little interest there for his avant garde musical compositions, he applied his talents to creating melodies for popular songs, some of which became international successes. Most of his most popular titles were written with lyricist Jimmy Kennedy. They include: “Harbor Lights,” “Red Sails in the Sunset,” and “Isle of Capri.” The song “Tomorrow Night” was written with Sam Coslow. For these songs he used the name Will Grosz, and later Hugh Williams.

Grosz and his wife apparently visited New York starting in late 1938 with the intention of emigrating to the United States. Their daughter and her half-brother remained in London with relatives. He sent out feelers in the American music business inquiring how he might make a living in the United States as a composer. All the while, war clouds were growing darker in Europe. Eventually, Grosz apparently had obtained a contract to work at Warner Brothers. Unfortunately, the war in Europe started before he could get his children out of England. They would remain there with relatives until 1945. Grosz was beginning to make plans to move to Los Angeles in late 1939 when during a private recital on December 10, 1939 in Forest Hills, New York, while accompanying a trio of ladies in the final scene of Rosenkavelier, he collapsed at the piano with a massive heart attack and died. He was 45 years old.(1)

The music:

The Miller band did not make the first recording of “Along the Santa Fe Trail.” Ray Noble did, on October 5, 1940, with a vocal chorus sung by Larry Stewart. Artie Shaw was playing it on radio broadcasts in October of 1940. It appears that Miller assigned Jerry Gray to write an arrangement on it for his male vocalist, Ray Eberle, sometime in October. The song was first broadcast by the Miller band on November 2, 1940, and then recorded for Bluebird six days later.

On the bandstand of Cafe’ Rouge of Hotel Pennsylvania early 1940: L-R: Frankie D’Annolfo, Legh Knowles, Glenn Miller, Clyde Hurley, Ray Eberle and hidden behind Eberle, Moe Purtill.(*)

What is immediately obvious is that Glenn Miller and Jerry Gray understood what other bandleaders and their arrangers did not – that this song begged for a slow, dreamy tempo. That tempo allowed the sonic delicacies of Gray’s arrangement to be heard and appreciated more clearly, and facilitated an exaltation of Will Grosz’s melody.

The eight-bar introduction is a gem: cup-muted trombones playing softly, blended with a bass clarinet played by Al Klink, and then two B-flat clarinets, probably played by Willie Schwartz and Ernie Caceres, chime in. The rest of the brass, cup-muted trumpets and trombones, with Mickey McMickle’s very distinctive Harmon-muted lead trumpet quite prominent, complete the sequence. This is a very creative use of the instruments of a classic big band. More importantly, this introduction evokes a quiet, crepuscular mood perfectly. (Above left: Trumpeter Mickey McMickle takes a solo using a Harmon mute at a Miller band dance date. The trombones behind him are being played by L-R: Glenn Miller, Frankie D’Annolfo, Jimmy Priddy and Paul Tanner.)

The main melody is presented as the first chorus begins with the signature Miller reed sound. That sonority is garnished by the sound of the cup-muted brass led by McMickle’s Harmon-muted trumpet. After sixteen bars, arranger Gray, instead of having the band play the secondary bridge melody, has the ensemble play what amounts to a lengthy modulation into Ray Eberle’s vocal chorus. Once again, Gray deploys the muted brass and two clarinets (do I hear a B-flat clarinet (Schwartz) and a bass clarinet (Klink)? …in a perfectly balanced way. (At right: master arranger Jerry Gray in 1941.)

Eberle’s vocal on the basically descending primary melody is professionally delivered, though he is less effective and resonant in his higher register than he is in the lower reaches of his range. The accompaniment he receives from the band is superb: the clarinet duo wraps his vocal in warmth. Eberle does sing the song’s bridge melody, but here his background is the muted brass, an effective sonic contrast to the clarinets. The final eight bars of this chorus return Eberle to the main melody for eight bars, accompanied as before by the smoothly descending clarinets.

Glenn Miller introduced Ray Eberle to audiences as “the young man in the romance department.” Here is why.

The finale is as creative as the introduction: as the listener is lulled by the softly played muted brass, a burst of sound from the five reeds and a final descent by them brings this performance to a close.

The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.

Notes and links:

(*) The source images of Glenn Miller and Ray Eberle that appear in this post come from the the collection of images that can be accessed here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/glennmillerarchivecolorado/media

Any coloration that appears was added by me.

(1) The summary of the life of Will Grosz was extracted from the Wikipedia post on him. More information about him can be found using this link: