On this day in 1962, things were really swinging at Disneyland when the “Cavalcade of Big Bands” struck up the bands for the first time. For each night, seven nights a week, the original Magic Kingdom would feature the biggest of the big-name big bands, all hired by Disneyland talent booker Sonny Anderson. The big bands for the inaugural Cavalcade included Tex Beneke, Charlie Barnet, Ray Eberle & the Modernaires with Paula Kelley and Count Basie (pictured above), who remained a fan favorite at Disneyland throughout the years, particularly when performing his versions of “One O’Clock Jump” and “April In Paris.” Stan Freese succeeded Sonny and remains in that role today. Stan recently told us the fate of the big bands at Disneyland. “We realized that the leaders themselves were gone and we were getting ghost bands, as they call it,” he said. “That is, they would be playing the music from that band’s book, but it would be local guys and a local front man. Oftentimes, each band would use a lot of the same local L.A. musicians, so when you were looking up there it sounded like the correct band but week after week it had a lot of the same guys in it from L.A. Great players, but we went, ‘Hey, why are we paying this much money?’ So they said, ‘Stan, why don’t YOU put something together?’ So I did. I put our own Disney big band together and I fronted it. When I finally left the Disneyland band and became responsible for talent booking, I went out and started hiring local big bands from the West Coast that were all great to come in. Today I have people like Stompy Jones from San Francisco that comes down. That’s a swing band. I have Doc Anello and his Big Band. I have Swingtown and the Tim Gill All-Stars. There are enough good big bands on the west coast, L.A. and Orange County working still that I’m able to bring them in.” Due to changes in times and audience taste, the big bands only perform on Saturdays at Disneyland, but just like the sixties, when they’re performing, Disneyland certainly becomes the Magic Swingdom.
