We Dance to the
Billy May Orchestra

The date June 4 has special significance in my memory because it was on that date in 1953, a Thursday evening, that my future wife and I were graduating from Lehighton High School in Pennsylvania. Our graduating class’s commencement exercises were held on that date in Lehighton’s Upper Park bandshell to the rear of Lehighton’s Municipal Building on Second Street (see right). It was an outdoor ceremony on a beautiful June evening with 120 diplomas being awarded and the traditional speeches by Valedictorian Harrison Hoppes and Salutatorian Nancy Green, outstanding members of our class.

Following the ceremony, we (Mary Jane and I) planned to go to Lakewood Park, an amusement park and theatre in Barnesville, PA, about twenty miles west of our hometown of Lehighton, to dance to the music of the Billy May Orchestra. Other members of our graduating class planned to go to Lakewood as well. The event broke the 1953 Lakewood attendance record as noted in the newspaper article (see below)

Billy May was born Edward William May, Jr. in Pittsburgh, PA on November 10, 1916. He played trumpet in the Glenn Miller band of the 1940’s Big Band era. He also played with the Charlie Barnet band and had his own band in the 1950’s with the hit single "Charmaine". He wrote arrangements for top singers like Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, The Andrews Sisters, and many others. He also composed and arranged music for TV and movies. Many of the arrangements for his band feature a distinctive style sometimes called ’slurping saxes’. Billy May died in San Juan Capistrano, CA, on January 22, 2004, at the age of 87. Click here to read more about Billy May on Wikipedia.

The Billy May Orchestra has special significance in my memory because it was the first big band that I had heard live and in person. I remember being impressed by how much better the band sounded in person compared to what I had heard on the radio or from recordings. In addition, it was the first time I had the opportunity to see a big band drummer in action (I am/was a drummer), so I could observe some of the drumming techniques of a real pro.

Big bands originated in the 1910’s and dominated pop music in the early 1940’s, particularly for the years during and after World War II. A typical big band consisted of sixteen musicians arranged in four sections: four trumpets, four trombones, four saxophones, and four rhythm (drums, piano, bass, and guitar). Individual big bands often distinguished themselves by varying the overall makeup of the band’s sections; for example, substituting a clarinet for a sax in the saxophone section.

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