Glenn Miller Trombone - Clarinda, IA - Musical Instruments on Waymarking.com

Big Band leader Glenn Miller was born in the small town of Clarinda, Iowa. The house in which he was born (in 1904) and spent the first few years of his life, has been restored to its 1904 appearance and is now part of the Glenn Miller Museum. The house is open for tours and the museum contains artifacts chronicling the life and career of the famous trombonist. Among those artifacts is this trombone, one of only four that are known to have been used by Glenn Miller.

Glenn Miller formed his first band while still in high school. Enamored with the sound of the swing band era of the 1920s and 30s, he led several bands with varying degrees of success. By the late 1930s, Miller had perfected a certain sound and the band he formed in 1939 dominated the Billboard charts (and jukeboxes) across America for years. His version of “Chattanooga Choo Choo” sold over a million copies and has the distinction of becoming the first ever ‘gold’ record issued by RCA. That gold record, incidentally, is also on display at this museum.

A bit of a jack of all trades, Miller excelled in football in school and was an avid golfer (he once shot a hole-in-one at Pinehurst in North Carolina). When World War II broke out, he gave up his band and enlisted in the Army. Assigned to the task of communications and fund raising, Captain Miller led a band performing mostly in the U.S. but eventually in England. Glenn Miller died when the plane that was carrying him from England to France disappeared over the English Channel in late 1944. His remains were never found.

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