[Hornlip]

I wish Glenn Miller had lived and his music died.

Out of curiosity, isn't this actually an Artie Shaw quote? It sounds like something he might say. He said some nasty things about Goodman, too, IIRC!!

 

[Hornlip]

All countries suffered (among many other and much more serious that this) metal shortages during WW II ( used for the production of weaponry and machines of all sorts toward the war effort ) and that affected the music instrument industry as it for any other industry which was not reckoned to be essential to the war effort.

Indeed production of band instruments was almost halted from 1942 to 1945 as this article shows
http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/News/Newsletter/August2010/WWII.html

and many companies could only survive by getting contracts to provide military bands with instruments. The first few years of the war some companies might have been using some parts in stock but as the time went by it must have been more and more difficult.

That's an interesting short article. It's got a picture of an aircraft altimeter made by Conn; Buescher also had a contract to make altimeters. I'm pretty sure Buescher retained that contract after the war and kept making them until the '50's sometime. Never hear much about the effect of the war on Buescher's production, though it obviously must have. The "400" saxophones were introduced in the early 40's, IIRC, not long before Pearl Harbor. That would put quite a damper on the rollout of their fancy new sax model.