Glenn Miller's induction has brought me unspeakable relief. It's not his music, and certainly Miller himself is not that distasteful to me. At last, however, I shall have peace. No more people are going to ask me, with an irritated edge in their voice, "But why don't you like Glenn Miller?"

A question like that can cause one of three reactions in a swing critic: insanity, high blood pressure, or a shrug. All this is old hat to the boys in the know, but there comes a time when a would-be swing critic wants to get the subject of Glenn Miller off his chest, once and for all.

The whole matter can be answered with a question: "What do you expect from a swing band?" If you expect dance music, the latest pop tunes, and a few rhythmic novelties, Miller's your man. But considering the past achievements of other bands, a critic has the right to expect more than that. Even if your tastes are confined to popular songs, Artie Shaw had infinitely better selection. Miller plugs anything the publishers are behind; Shaw plugged good old tunes if he couldn't find any good new ones.

While we still have records, though, they should serve a better purpose than merely dinning a tune into people's heads. Throwing away Goodman's "Somebody Else Is Taking My Place," once you've tired of the tune, is like turning Beethoven's Fifth in for scrap because you know the ... theme. There's more to Goodman's record than the melody, the words, and Peggy Lee. After a lull of two months, it can be unexpectedly exciting. You can trace this to this arrangement (Eddie Sauter's?), which is distinctly first-rate. If Goodman had played the tune as specified by the publishers, it probably would have died a-borning. As the facts go, the record was Goodman's first hit in ages.

When it comes to arrangements, you can take your choice of simple, like Bob Crosby, complicated like Ellington, or in-between, like Goodman. If you have simple arrangements, you should have simple instrumentation. Only Miller has simple arrangements and lush instrumentation. To make matters worse, they're simple to the point of being banal. Certainly his pop tunes are turned out according to formula. On the rhythmic numbers you get more variety, but usually the interesting parts are cribbed from Ellington. Compare "American Patrol" as interpreted by Miller and by Muggsy Spanier. It's one of Miller's better records beyond a doubt, but its pretentiousness isn't worth peanuts alongside of Spanier's more modest efforts.

Arrangements are only half of the situation; you have to have good soloists in your band, even if they don't take solos. This is amply illustrated by Goodman's band at its peak. At this time he had just about the finest white soloists in the country, but his records concentrate on the arrangements and feature only scattered solos. Yet these records contain the most spirited playing any big white band has put on wax. Miller can only lay claim to Bobby Hackett and possibly Billy May as definitely first rate improvisers, although little of their work with him justifies it. The rest of the men in the band, and that includes Tex Beneke, are all facile soloists with few ideas and little individuality. If Miller devoted a whole record to a Beneke solo, you'd soon find out.

Even if arrangements and soloists were not enough, I'd disqualify Miller purely on the grounds of spirit. The band puts on a good show, waving those horns around on "In the Mood," but Lunceford did it much better, and made better music to boot. The men play crisply and cleanly; there's too much perfection as a matter of fact. But none of it adds up to spirit.