Ken Miller

When America enters World War II, jazz is part of the arsenal. Bandleaders like Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw enlist, taking their swing to the troops overseas. Many black Americans, segregated at home and in uniform, find themselves fighting for liberties their own country denies them. In a Harlem club called Minton's Playhouse, a small band of young musicians, led by Dizzy Gillespie and the saxophonist Charlie Parker, has discovered a new way of playing - fast, intricate, exhilarating, and sometimes chaotic. The sound will soon be called "bebop" and once Americans hear it, jazz will never be the same.
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Length: 01:57:51
Posted: 1/2/2008

When America enters World War II, jazz is part of the arsenal. Bandleaders like Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw enlist, taking their swing to the troops overseas. Many black Americans, segregated at home and in uniform, find themselves fighting for liberties their own country denies them. In a Harlem club called Minton's Playhouse, a small band of young musicians, led by Dizzy Gillespie and the saxophonist Charlie Parker, has discovered a new way of playing - fast, intricate, exhilarating, and sometimes chaotic. The sound will soon be called "bebop" and once Americans hear it, jazz will never be the same.
Paid | Amazon Video on Demand
Length: 01:56:00
Posted: 9/14/2009

Episode 6: By December 1944, Americans have become weary of the war. In the Pacific, American progress has been slow and costly, with each island more fiercely defended than the last. In Europe, no one is prepared for the massive counterattack Hitler launches on December 16 in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxemburg. Tom Galloway of Mobile, Burnett Miller of Sacramento and Ray Leopold of Waterbury are among the Americans caught up in the Battle of the Bulge. Back home, Katharine Phillips of Mobile and Burt Wilson of Sacramento are shocked to see newspaper headlines showing the Germans on the offensive and wonder, "Are we losing now that we're this close?" Meanwhile, at Santo Tomas Camp in Manila, thousands of internees, including Sascha Weinzheimer of Sacramento, are starving, desperately trying to hold on to life long enough to be liberated. At Yalta, Allied leaders agree on a plan that includes massive bombing raids aimed at German oil facilities, defense factories, roads, railw
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Length: 01:57:01
Posted: 12/18/2009

Episode 7: In spring 1945, although the numbers of dead and wounded have more than doubled since D-Day, the people of Mobile, Sacramento, Waterbury and Luverne understand all too well that there will be more bad news from the battlefield before the war can end. That March, President Franklin Roosevelt warns in a newsreel that the final battle with Japan could stretch on for years. In the Pacific, Eugene Sledge of Mobile is again forced to enter what he calls "the abyss" in the battle for Okinawa - the gateway to Japan. Glenn Frazier of Alabama, one of 168,000 Allied prisoners of war still in Japanese hands, celebrates the arrival of carrier planes overhead, but despairs of getting out of Japan alive. In mid-April, Americans are shocked by President Roosevelt's death; many do not even know the name of their new president, Harry Truman. Meanwhile, as Allied forces rapidly push across Germany from the east and west, American and British troops, including Burnett Miller of Sacramento, Dwai
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Length: 02:05:01
Posted: 12/18/2009