At the absolute peak of his fame, with more top 10 hits than Elvis and the Beatles combined and earning the equivalent of nearly $400,000 a week, Glenn Miller walked away from his empire. Officially deferred from the draft at 38, he volunteered for World War II, only to vanish forever in a mysterious flight over the freezing English Channel.

This episode explores how Miller engineered the defining sound of the big band era, why he abandoned unimaginable success to modernize military music, and the enduring mystery of his disappearance. From milking cows to buy his first trombone to flying into a wall of fog in December 1944, we trace a story of relentless persistence, artistic genius, and ultimate sacrifice.

• He failed his college harmony class, then went on to define the harmonic sound of a generation with a clarinet-led reed sta ...