Magical Musical Night at The Timbers of Shorewood

Bandleader Steve Cooper will present “Big Band Memories,” a 90-minute show of rare films and videos of the Big Band era, at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 28, in the Grand Ballroom at The Timbers of Shorewood retirement community.

The audience will see and hear bands playing in Chicago's Aragon Ballroom and the famous Coconut Grove nightclub in Hollywood.

Rare clips of swing bands include Glenn Miller, Harry James, Bob Crosby, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie and many others. Many sweet bands are also featured - Eddie Howard, Vaughn Monroe Freddy Martin and a rare appearance by Ina Rae Hutton and her All-Girl Orchestra.

For comedy, there are clips with Spike Jones and also comedian Sid Caesar playing a great sax solo with the Benny Goodman band featuring Gene Krupa and a very young Merv Griffin. A young Ronald Reagan also introduces a few of the performers on film.

Cooper will introduce each performer with fascinating "behind the scenes" stories of the bands and singers. He'll also play some big band songs on his trumpet. He claims to know every old song ever written, and the audience can test him and make requests.

Cooper is one of the top musical arrangers in Chicago. He has the ability to listen, just once, to a CD, tape, or record and be able to write every note for every instrument. He grew up near Chicago’s Wrigley Field. At the tender age of 6 he had five piano lessons and was captivated immediately. He found reading music extraordinarily easy.

He mastered the clarinet after he saw Pete Fountain on the Lawrence Welk Show. He mastered the trumpet after he saw the movie, The Five Pennies, about the life of Red Nichols. At Lane Tech High School he played in the marching band, the concert band and the symphony orchestra. In college he learned all the other instruments.

“I’ve had this magical musical life,” he said.

In high school, his small combo became "house band" for 17 years at the famous Como Inn Restaurant. When Cooper was still in college, he played in the Big Bands of Bob Crosby and Sammy Kaye. He played for 25 years with the high society bands of Stanley Paul and Franz Benteler, the two most famous society bands in Chicago.

Cooper even played on the Oprah Winfrey show when Oprah did a program about ballroom dancing. In addition, he has led his ballroom band at the Willowbrook, Glendora House, and Chevy Chase Country Club Ballrooms.

He has played private parties for such stars as Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore, Liza Minnelli, Frank Sinatra Jr., Larry King, Jim Belushi, the Mills Brothers and the casts of TV shows Frasier, Cheers, and Taxi.

Caretakers of the Lawrence Welk sheet music chose Steve Cooper’s band to have access to any of the more than 11,000 arrangements held in the Welk library. Cooper hand-copied hundreds of them, and now is a leader of the Welk tradition in the world of music.

is a rental retirement community. The Timbers provides independent and assisted living apartments and a full schedule of activities and services. Furnished apartments are also available for a short-term stay — a weekend, a week, a month or longer.

This fabulous show is free and open to the public. For more information call Shelly Goggins at 815-609-0669 or visit The Timbers website.