A number of albums have popped up over the years with this simple premise: What would Glenn Miller's orchestra sound like if the bandleader were alive and had his musicians take on current pop hits? These albums seemed to be particularly popular in the 1960s.
Case in point is If Glenn Miller Played the Hits of Today (1968) by British bandleader Jack Nathan & His Orchestra. It's better than most, probably because of Nathan's roots in the swing era.
Nathan, a pianist, and his orchestra became well known in the U.K. through their frequent broadcasts on the BBC's Music While You Work. The program was begun in 1940 following a British government suggestion that morale in industry would be improved if there were daily broadcasts of cheerful music piped into the factories. There must have been something to officialdom's theory that improved morale would lead to better production because the program lasted in one form or another until 1967.
It was around this time that Nathan fronted a big band (not his regular orchestra) for some LPs for EMI in the U.K. The first was If Glenn Miller Played the Hits of Today, which was issued on Phillips in the U.S. From it comes a version of Lennon/McCartney's Yesterday.
Yesterday
None of Nathan's recorded output appears to have made it to the digital era, so here's another sample of the contents of the above album from the vaults of YouTube.
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