Hotel Pennsylvania during the three years of Miller's great popularity as a major bandleader of the Swing Era. Glenn Miller and his Glenn Miller Orchestra broadcast multiple live radio performances from the Café; some were recorded by RCA Victor. Gray, Shaw's principal orchestrator from 1937–39, was immediately hired by Miller as a staff arranger when Shaw deserted his band; it was during Miller's 1940 engagement at the hotel that Gray wrote the popular instrumental tune that immortalized the Hotel's telephone number. The hotel's telephone number appears in the title of one of his best-known songs, "Pennsylvania 6-5000". Les Brown's band, with its
Glenn Miller 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' should have died." Clarinetist Buddy DeFranco surprised many people when he led the Glenn Miller Orchestra in the late sixties and early seventies. De Franco was already a veteran of bands like Gene Krupa and Tommy Dorsey in the 1940s. He was also a major exponent of modern jazz in the 1950s. He never saw Miller as leading a swinging jazz band, but DeFranco is extremely fond of certain aspects of the Glenn Miller style. "I found that when I opened with the sound of 'Moonlight Serenade', I could look around and see men and women weeping