Joe Garland
Joseph Copeland Garland (August 15, 1903, Norfolk, Virginia – April 21, 1977, Teaneck, New Jersey) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He is best known for writing the tune behind “In the Mood.”
Garland studied music at Shaw University and the Aeolian Conservatory. He began with classical music but joined a jazz band in 1924, Graham Jackson’s Seminole Syncopators, where he made his first recordings.
In the 1920s he worked as a sideman on saxophone and clarinet for musicians including Elmer Snowden, Joe Steele, Henri Saparo, Leon Abbey (a tour of South America), Charlie Skeete, and Jelly Roll Morton. In the 1930s he played with Bobby Neal and the Mills Blue Rhythm Band, serving as both performer and arranger from 1932 to 1936 before Lucky Millinder took over.
The late 1930s and 1940s saw Garland with Edgar Hayes (1937), Don Redman (1938), Louis Armstrong (1939–42), Claude Hopkins and others, and he returned to Armstrong’s band from 1945–47. He also played with Herbie Fields, Hopkins again, and Earl Hines (1948). In the 1950s he moved toward semi-retirement.
Garland wrote several well-known swing hits, including “Serenade To A Savage” for Artie Shaw and “Leap Frog” for Les Brown. He is credited as the composer (with Andy Razaf as lyricist) of Glenn Miller’s famous “In the Mood.” The tune’s main theme had appeared earlier as “Tar Paper Stomp,” credited to Wingy Manone, and was used by other bands in the early 1930s. Garland’s arrangement, which was initially too long for a 78 rpm record, was later shortened and popularized by Glenn Miller. An Edgar Hayes Orchestra recording of a Garland arrangement appeared in 1938, and Garland eventually brought the piece to Miller, who created the best-known version.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 02:01 (CET).