During my mid-teen years, when I was first forming my life-long appreciation for big band music (while still keeping an eye on the growth of rock and roll) one of my favorites was a tune that Glenn Miller and his orchestra had made into a big hit a number of years earlier. In fact, it was one of the most popular songs among World War II servicemen.
Although there is a version with lyrics, "Tuxedo Junction" is at its best as an instrumental. It starts deceptively slow, but gradually builds momentum with a driving, contagious sound that's impossible to resist. It's a tune that most people identify with Miller's band, but it didn't originate with them. That distinction belongs to the song's composer, Erskine Hawkins, who came out of Alabama in the mid-1930s at the head of an outstanding swing band.
The song's title actually refers to a real place — a location near Birmingham, Alabama, that was at the time the location for a popular jazz club. The distinctive tune helped introduce Hawkins and his band to New York, and before too long became a regular part of other bands' musical programs too. Hawkins' arrangement of "Tuxedo Junction" was a little different than Miller's later version, with a different pace and more trumpet leads — but that's not surprising, given Hawkins' specialty.
Erskine Hawkins was a talented trumpeter who loved walking the tightrope of high notes, and also loved being known as the "20th Century Gabriel". Always musically inclined, he began playing professionally while still in college. His biggest influence was Louis Armstrong, and when he ran into his idol while bouncing through some part time gigs in New York, they formed a lifelong friendship.
Back in Alabama, it didn't take long for young Hawkins to form a talented group and make the leap to New York for good. The band soon found a home at the legendary Savoy Ballroom, and began making dancers - and listeners - happy for a number of years.
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