1944–1945 · Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme

The Canadian Band of the AEF

Captain Robert Farnon’s band, broadcasting to the armies from London

The AEF Programme ran three service bands: Glenn Miller’s American band, the RAF’s, and Canada’s, given to a young arranger from Toronto named Robert Farnon. Farnon went on to be the most admired orchestrator in Britain, and you can hear why here — the writing is denser and stranger than the American band’s, and it swings anyway. It is also the only substantial body of Canadian broadcast music from the war years that survives in performance rather than in memory.

16 recordings · London and northwest Europe

Sixteen surviving broadcast performances by the Canadian Band of the Allied Expeditionary Force under Captain Robert Farnon. Recordings held by the Internet Archive.