TOMMY DORSEY AND HIS ORCHESTRA: THE EARLY YEARS 1935 ‑ 1939
©2003 MICHAEL P. ZIRPOLO
He was known as “The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing”. He was not sentimental, nor was he always a gentleman. He was a superb trombonist and an extraordinary bandleader. He directed top-flight bands from 1935 to 1956, and he stocked them with some of the finest jazz musicians. He worked with some of the greatest arrangers in the history of big band jazz, and American popular music. He featured vocalists as much or more than he featured jazz, and in the process launched the careers of numerous outstanding singers, one of whom became legendary. Still, the jazz contingent in his bands always received much of his and the public’s attention.
He had a love-hate relationship with his brother, with the love part of the equation eventually winning out. He made “raiding” of other bands a fine art, and in the process stole some great musicians from rival bandleaders. Yet if a musician in his band whom he liked tried to quit, he could become physically violent. He demanded, often in the most profane manner, the utmost effort from his musicians at all times, but he drove himself even harder to achieve musical perfection. He had a colossal ego; nevertheless, he unstintingly featured, recognized, and praised dozens of jazz soloists, arrangers, and singers who worked for him over the years. He was frequently before the cameras in Hollywood, and even had his own musical biography presented years before those for Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. He was the prototype for the V-J Day bandleader in the movie New York, New York, and for the bandleader who woke up with a horse’s head in his bed in The Godfather. He was all of these things and much, much more.
He was Tommy Dorsey.
Of all the giants of the Swing Era, only Tommy Dorsey, or TD as he was known in his salad days, has yet been the subject of a full-scale biography, or bio-discography. This is soon to be remedied by Peter J. Levinson, who has already written biographies of Harry James, and one-time TD arranger and trombonist Nelson Riddle. We anxiously await publication of Mr. Levinson’s TD biography.
My focus in this article is on the early years of the Tommy Dorsey orchestra, from its inception in late 1935 to late 1939, and the advent of arranger Sy Oliver. Recently I came upon notes I had made after having talked with the tenor saxophonist Bud Freeman, and the clarinetist Johnny Mince, both of whom were extremely valuable members of the pre-World War II Tommy Dorsey orchestra, and both of whom were distinguished jazz soloists. These conversations took place at the 1986 Conneaut Lake Jazz Festival, where both Freeman and Mince appeared, and played together, along with their bandmate from the 1935-37 Ray Noble orchestra, guitarist George Van Eps. On the Saturday afternoon break, I spoke with Johnny Mince first, in the balmy summer air, at a patio table on the lawn outside the Conneaut Lake Hotel. As Johnny excused himself (“If I’m going to be ready to play tonight, I’ve got to take a nap!”), Bud Freeman exited the hotel to take a stroll. He informed me that he had just completed his nap. I walked along the boardwalk at the side of the lake with Bud, then around Conneaut Lake Park. We then settled onto a park bench watching children enjoy the amusement park rides as we talked. In 1986 Mince was 74 years old, and still playing splendidly. Freeman, also playing very well, was then 80.
Lawrence “Bud” Freeman was born in Chicago on April 13, 1906. In the early 1920s, he was a part of the so-called “Austin High Gang” of white teenagers who embraced jazz, and dedicated their musical careers to the then new and exotic music. From his earliest days in Chicago, he was closely associated with the drummer Dave Tough. Freeman worked in many commercial bands in the late 20s and early 30s, including those of Art Kassel, Roger Wolfe Kahn, and Red Nichols. He also worked in the jazz influenced bands of Ben Pollack, Joe Haymes, and Ray Noble, before joining Tommy Dorsey’s band in April of 1936. After leaving Dorsey in April, 1938, he spent several months in Benny Goodman’s band, before embarking on a career as a soloist in the jazz field which would span the next five decades. As a tenor saxophonist, Freeman was a rugged individualist. His light tenor saxophone sound predated Lester Young’s sound by many years. His playing, always rhythmically robust, was vivid and imaginative.
Bud Freeman was always small of stature, and by the time I talked with him, he appeared to be an octogenarian elf. He was a marvelous raconteur and he had a highly developed sense of irony. I always had the feeling, when talking with him, or listening to him talk between tunes on the bandstand, that, music aside, his greatest interest was in John Barrymore, because he frequently sounded just like the great actor. Bud Freeman died on March 15, 1991.
Like Bud Freeman, Johnny Mince was from the Chicago area, being born in Chicago Heights, Illinois on July 8, 1912 as John Henry Muenzenberger. His name-band career began in the very early 30s when he joined one of the numerous bands Joe Haymes put together, worked with, achieved a high level of musicianship with, then sold to someone else. The edition of the Joe Haymes bands Johnny joined was taken over by movie star and wannabe musician Buddy Rogers in 1933. Johnny and trumpeter Pee Wee Erwin, among other band members, went with Rogers and remained until the band broke up. Eventually, Johnny became a member of the Ray Noble band, which had been put together for Noble by Glenn Miller. His stint with Noble ended in early 1937, when he joined Tommy Dorsey. He left Dorsey in early 1941, was soon thereafter drafted, and then spent World War II touring with Irving Berlin’s This Is The Army show. Upon his discharge, he joined the CBS network in New York, being assigned to the Arthur Godfrey radio show. He spent most of the next twenty plus years on Godfrey’s daily CBS radio (and sometimes TV) shows, along with such notable musicians as pianist Dick Hyman, trombonists Lou McGarity and Buddy Morrow, bassist Gene Traxler, and later Gene’s son Ronnie on drums, and Remo Palmieri on guitar. By the end of the Godfrey run, Johnny and clarinetist-saxist Andy Fitzgerald alternated as band members. After Godfrey retired around 1970, Johnny resumed working with many of the same mainstream jazz musicians he had worked with prior to World War II. He also became a frequent and welcome guest at jazz parties and festivals in the U.S. and in Europe.
When I talked with Johnny, he still had a full head of mostly brown hair, and a ready smile that revealed front teeth which, like those of Benny Goodman, were worn down by gripping a clarinet mouthpiece for six decades. He had a very good memory and easily recalled musicians and notable performances from his past. He expressed himself with an almost childlike enthusiasm, and this applied equally to his verbal and instrumental storytelling. Johnny’s clarinet playing in 1986 was every bit as stimulating as it had been in his youth, when he was Tommy Dorsey’s first star clarinetist.
Johnny had moved to Boca Raton, Florida by 1986, and told me that he enjoyed playing his clarinet in his Catholic Church liturgical group as much as he enjoyed playing jazz. Johnny died on December 30, 1994.
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The early years of the Dorsey saga have all too often been dismissed as producing little more than “Mickey Mouse” music, devoid of jazz content or other distinction. This criticism is unfair for a number of reasons. As we will see later in this article in the comments of both Bud Freeman and Johnny Mince, this band’s jazz quotient was not vastly lower than that of most other swing bands. What has somewhat corroborated to the “Mickey Mouse” criticism, and distorted history’s view of this band, however, is the incredible number of RCA Victor recordings the Dorsey band and Clambake Seven made from September 26, 1935, TD’s first recording session, to July 20, 1939, when they recorded Sy Oliver’s first TD arrangement, “Stomp It Off”, 283! For reasons that have never been explained, TD’s band recorded during this time far more commercial records than any other major band. (By comparison, Benny Goodman, who during this same time led the nation’s top swing band, recorded 193 sides, and these included all of the BG small group recordings.) It appears that the Dorsey band recorded much more of its dance hall repertoire of current pop ephemera than any other band. These include literally dozens of forgettable Tin Pan Alley “plug tunes” that are arranged and performed competently, but often without inspiration. Nevertheless, all along during this period, the Dorsey band still produced top grade jazz, sometimes under the most unlikely circumstances.
What is little remembered today is how the music business operated in the mid and late 30s. The role played by the music publishers and song pluggers then in getting their clients’ tunes played, recorded, and broadcast by major bands has been obscured by the passage of six plus decades. The direct and very profitable relationship between composers and publishers of music (often the same person) had been institutionalized by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).[i] ASCAP gathered royalties for composers based on the number of performances a given copyrighted tune received where a profit was made.
There are three kinds of royalties. First, those derived from the actual sales of sheet music. This is now much less important as a source of revenue than it was in the first half of the twentieth century. Second is mechanical royalties. These come from sale of albums, CDs, or the like. When a “unit”is sold, a royalty is paid to the owner (usually a publisher) of each copyrighted tune on it. The publisher then pays the composer whatever he is due, based on the proportional share of the copyright he owns. Third is airplay or performance royalties. When copyrighted music is played on radio, televison, or in a movie, an airplay royalty is paid through a performing rights society, such as ASCAP (or BMI, Broadcast Music, Inc.).
Bandleaders occupied a critical place in the scheme of promotion of new music. The salesmen of music industry were the song pluggers. Their job was to get new music played. Suffice it to say, they put a lot of pressure on bandleaders to play their clients’ songs. The doyen of Swing Era journalists, George T. Simon, explained it this way: “Song pluggers...wooed bandleaders with such varied gifts as liquor, theater and baseball tickets, clothes, women, jewelry, resort vacations, musical arrangements for their bands, and just plain money.”[ii] The “payola” scandal of the late 50s was still twenty years into the future. I do not mean to suggest that Tommy Dorsey was any more susceptible to these blandishments than any other bandleader. I am simply reporting what pressures were then being applied to him.
Also, these same pressures were put on recording executives, and the one who supervised the vast majority of the RCA Victor records made by TD in the late 30s was Eli Oberstein. Oberstein was a self-styled “hitmaker”. In reality, he functioned as little more than a funnel through which new music flowed to Victor’s stable of bands and then onto the various RCA record labels. Anyone, even a chimpanzee, could have probably had as much success as Oberstein had in “making hits” given the musical talent, production, and distribution network at his disposal. Indeed, when Oberstein left RCA for a time to run his own labels, including Varsity, Royale, and Elite, he had little success. Oberstein played a large role in Bunny Berigan’s recording career at Victor, and sadly for Bunny, he was allowed far too few chances to let his band display its real character on RCA Victor records. Instead, dismal pop tunes fill the Berigan-Victor discography. Later, Oberstein had a run-in with Artie Shaw, one of RCA’s biggest money makers, who left the Victor label in anger rather than record the plug tunes foisted on him by Oberstein.[iii] All of RCA’s recording artists, indeed all recording artists, were subject to the same pressures to play whatever tunes were then being touted and promoted.
Also, the Dorsey band was a frequent guest on the RCA Magic Key network radio program broadcast on NBC. RCA was then the parent company of Victor Records, and the purpose of its sponsorship of this program was to promote the sale of Victor records. In addition, RCA owned NBC. This was still another tentacle of the music business as it then existed. TD’s band played the very same tunes it recorded for Victor on the Magic Key programs on which it appeared. So did other Victor bands. Also Tommy’s band often appeared on NBC radio from remote locations on a sustaining, that is unsponsored, basis. It was all quite incestuous.
But in 1935, no bandleader had the power to buck the music business establishment. And Tommy Dorsey then just starting out, wanted with every fiber of his being to become a successful bandleader. Those who were close to TD then, and later, have related that he would have done almost anything to succeed. Bud Freeman put it this way: “His determination to succeed was frightening.” Johnny Mince said, “You didn’t want to get in the way when Tommy wanted to do something. He’d run you over.”
There was also the sibling rivalry factor. Bud Freeman had some illuminating insights regarding Tommy’s relationship with his older brother Jimmy. “You’ve got to remember that Tommy was Jimmy’s younger brother. For many years, Jimmy got Tommy jobs in bands where Jimmy was already playing. And Jimmy got him a lot of jobs, not that he didn’t have the talent to hold them, because he certainly did. But Tommy resented being Jimmy’s kid brother. Also, Jimmy was regarded far and wide as not only a great saxophonist and clarinetist, but as a fine jazz artist. Even though Tommy was an excellent trombonist, in those early years, he didn’t have the reputation Jimmy had. Tommy resented this too. It was inevitable that Tommy would break with Jimmy. Remember, when Tommy left the Dorsey Brothers’ band, that band became Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra. Tommy had no band. He had to start from nothing. He was a very angry young man when he started as a bandleader, and he was absolutely driven not only to have a good band, but to have a better and more successful band than Jimmy. Although I didn’t really have any problems with Tommy, except for a few minor blow-offs, he could be absolutely vicious with any musician he thought was slacking. He would tell them ‘you’re stealing from me’.”
“Tommy’s trombone playing was always excellent, of course, though I thought he could be a little stiff at times. He played adequate jazz, though he seemed to always be denying that he could play any jazz at all. And his straight trombone playing just kept getting better and better while I was with him. When I left in 1938, his playing of ballads and melodies was unbelievably good, and he kept it at that level for many years. Until he died, in fact.”
“I joined Tommy about April 1, 1936. This was no April fool, but a helluva an experience for me. Tommy’s band was just starting to find itself then. My very close friend Dave Tough talked me into joining. I had been with Ray Noble’s band. Of all the big bands I played in, I enjoyed my time with Tommy most. He was insane and vile, at times, but I liked him.”
By the end of 1936, Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra were, musically, a group to be reckoned with. Still, success was slow in coming. After initially breaking with his brother Jimmy, rather dramatically, by stomping off the bandstand at Glen Island Casino very early in the summer season of 1935, then completing the gig under protest, Tommy had had to scuffle for about a year and a half.
It took a lot of guts for Tommy to walk away from the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra. He and Jimmy had formed the band early in 1934, and had built its personnel and library of arrangements painstakingly for over a year. They barnstormed, doing a lot of one‑nighters, hoping to promote themselves into something big. They finally got a break by being booked into Glen Island Casino for the summer 1935 season. Glen Island was the site of some major radio exposure for the Casa Loma band in the early 30s, and would launch Glenn Miller's fame in the summer of 1939 via almost nightly broadcasts.
Tommy had stood in front of the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra for complex reasons best known to the brothers. It now seems clear that Tommy projected a jovial warmth to audiences, and an ease at being the intermediary between the band and its audience, that Jimmy did not then have, and never really acquired. Tommy was a personality aside from being a musician. Jimmy’s personality, in reality warmer and sweeter than Tommy’s, just did not project. Jimmy frequently appeared ill-at-ease in front of a band. So Tommy became the front-man for the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra. Jimmy, it seems, took delight in goading Tommy about the fact that, as front‑man, he was becoming a "star". Whatever the case, Jimmy knew exactly which buttons to push to cause his temperamental brother to explode. One night, May 30, 1935, to be exact, Jimmy, from the sax section, questioned, with just the right amount of sarcasm, a tempo Tommy had set for the tune “I'll Never Say Never Again”. Tommy simply took his trombone and left Glen Island Casino, and the band he had worked so hard to build. It would be about three years before he would exchange a civil word with his brother, even though he worked out much of the rest of the Glen Island engagement to avoid a lawsuit for breach of contract. The contract the brothers had signed stipulated that both Dorsey brothers would be present with the band throughout the Glen Island residency. During the Glen Island gig, it was clear that Tommy would be leaving the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra. What was not clear is what he would do after he left.
Scuttling a successful band in the middle of a prime engagement did not exactly enhance Tommy's employment possibilities as a bandleader. Booking agents and ballroom owners were leery enough, with good reason often, of the unpredictable comings and goings of musicians. But the biggest obstacle to Tommy resuming his career as a bandleader was that he had no band to lead.
Or did he? In the liner notes to The Complete Tommy Dorsey, Vol I/1935, RCA Bluebird AXM2-5521 (1976), writer Mort Goode interviewed a number of musicians who in mid-1935 were members of the Joe Haymes band. They all reported that after Tommy walked out of the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra, he went to Walled Lake, Michigan, where the Haymes band was then playing a location job, and took over the Haymes band on what turned out to be an interim basis. He evidently worked with the band at that location, began to add new arrangements to its book, and began to rehearse the men. He then returned with them to New York to an engagement at the French Casino. This must have been in late July or early August, 1935.
Almost immediately, Tommy was threatened with a breach of contract lawsuit because he and Jimmy had signed a contract with Glen Island Casino which required them both to be present with the band throughout the Glen Island residency. Tommy’s absence throughout June and July, though irksome to the Glen Island operators, was not really damaging to them because the band had continued to do good business, and Tommy, being in Michigan, was not a competitive threat. But after he returned to New York with a band that was at least ostensibly competing with the Dorsey band at nearby Glen Island, they moved to require Tommy to honor his contract with them. Tommy had no choice but to acquiesce. He then returned to work in sullen silence, one hour a night, with his brother to complete the Glen Island residency, which ended on September 21.
After one abortive attempt by the brothers’ agent Cork O'Keefe to reconcile them in August, 1935, which instead resulted only in Tommy returning on a limited basis to Glen Island to complete the engagement, the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra became Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra when the Glen Island gig ended. They then headed to Hollywood to back Bing Crosby on the Kraft Music Hall, a network radio program that Crosby brilliantly used to promote his movie and recording careers to even greater heights. With Crosby, Jimmy’s future looked decidedly bright. For Tommy, the future was far less promising, though he at least had a band to lead.
It is interesting to review the recording activity of the Dorsey Brothers’ band during the period from May 30, 1935, when Tommy walked off the Glen Island Casino bandstand, until he made his first Victor records as “Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra” on September 26, 1935. While he had been present on the Brothers’ May 27, 1935 Decca session (the first to present the band’s new boy singer Bob Eberle, later changed to Eberly), he was not with the band, still billed as the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra, at its August 1, and September 11th sessions. He was present at the August 14, 1935 session where the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra backed Bing Crosby. It can be safely assumed that Cork O’Keefe’s diplomacy was required to bring this off.[iv] The next Decca session, on September 19, 1935 was billed as “Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra”, with Tommy’s chair being filled by Bobby Byrne.
It is also interesting to note that the Joe Haymes band recorded in New York for American Record Corp. (ARC) on August 12, 1935, without Tommy participating. They also did a Thesaurus transcription session on September 4th, again without Tommy. There is some confusion surrounding two other Thesaurus dates recorded by the Haymes band around this same time. What is not known is whether the band that recorded these was the same band that Tommy took over, or an entirely new Haymes band. There is no doubt that by December 19, 1935, Joe Haymes was again recording for ARC with an almost entirely new band.
It seems, therefore, that by late September, Tommy finally took over the Joe Haymes band completely. It appears that Haymes had continued to stay with the band upon its return to New York to act as its deputy leader, pending a final divorce of Tommy from the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra. They had been playing at New York’s McAlpin Hotel, without much success. Nevertheless, amongst the dozen or so musicians who eventually became members of Tommy’s band, there were some who were very good. Lead alto saxist Noni (Ernani) Bernadi, was also an arranger. He sketched the simple and effective background for Tommy's trombone on “I'm Getting Sentimental Over You”, which of course was Tommy’s theme song, and is now one of the sacred relics of the swing era. It was initially recorded for RCA Victor on September 26, 1935, but was not issued. The classic recording we all know was made on October 18, 1935. Then there was bassist Gene Traxler. Standing several inches over six feet, and exuding an air of serenity, his plangent bass tones would anchor the Dorsey ensemble for the next four and a half tumultuous years. There was also a good jazz trumpeter, Sterling Bose. Also making the move were saxophonist Clyde Rounds, clarinetist Sid Stoneburn, and trombonist Dave Jacobs. Jacobs would remain with TD off and on for many years. Trombonist/arranger Ben Pickering also joined TD.
Probably most significant to the musical future of the Dorsey band, however, was a Dartmouth graduate, Phi Beta Kappa, named Paul Wetstein. Wetstein had joined the Haymes band at the McAlpin Hotel. As Paul Weston, he would write far more arrangements, many of them classics, for the Tommy Dorsey band, than any of the other numerous and talented orchestrators who would come into Tommy's employ before World War II.
With this nucleus, and a few additions, Tommy felt the band was at least passably ready to make some records. W.T. "Ed" Kirkeby, who was then an A and R man at RCA Victor, and who, since May of 1935, had been guiding Fats Waller's career at Victor, knew Tommy from years earlier when he had recorded with him in a group called The California Ramblers. Kirkeby used his pull at Victor to help Tommy secure his first RCA Victor record contract. (The Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra, Cork O’Keefe, Bing Crosby, Bing’s brother Bob and his band, and later Jimmy Dorsey, were all either contracted to Jack and Dave Kapp’s Decca Records, or were otherwise affiliated with Decca.) Tommy also broke with the Rockwell-O’Keefe Booking Agency and Cork O’Keefe, who represented his brother (and the other above said artists), and signed with MCA, the agency that had recently taken on Benny Goodman, in an effort to establish a foothold in the new “swing” market. By the time TD severed his relationship with MCA some 15 years later, he had threatened everyone at MCA at least once, and, according to Bud Freeman, had on one occasion taken a fire axe into MCA President Jules Stein’s office and calmly stated he was going to reduce Mr. Stein’s desk to firewood. He also had made MCA millions of dollars in commissions and fees.
The recording session of September 26 was TD’s first for Victor. The band, certainly not yet distinctive, played with spirit and remarkable precision. As George T. Simon so aptly put it: "Tommy, who was soon to achieve fame as The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing, was a fighter ‑ often a very belligerent one ‑ with a sharp mind, an acid tongue, and intense pride. He had complete confidence in himself."[v] But still, Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra had a lot of dues to pay.
In the waning months of 1935, Tommy continued to push to improve the personnel of his band. He seemed to like to acquire musicians in groups from other bands. Later, when the individual players in big bands were known to the general public, this ploy became known as "raiding". From the beginning, Tommy raided other bands with great panache.
From the Bert Block band, a local New York outfit, he took, in early 1936, the handsome and personable vocalist Jack Leonard, and trumpeters Odd Stordahl and Joe Bauer. Stordahl, as Axel Stordahl, developed a very deft touch as an arranger of ballads with Tommy, and later worked very closely and successfully with Frank Sinatra. Leonard, Bauer, and Stordahl also sang together as The Three Esquires. As such, they would make at least one major contribution to the TD legend: their recording of “Once In A While” ( 07/21/37).
At the start of 1936, Tommy began the process of musical chairs that would cause literally dozens of musicians to pass through his band in the two or three years to follow. His goal was not only to make the band musically stronger in a technical academic sense, but of course to make it capable of swinging and playing good jazz.
Early in 1936 trumpeters Andy Ferretti and Sterling Bose left. Ferretti, who was a highly regarded lead trumpeter, went to Bob Crosby's band. In the next few years, he would return many times to the Dorsey fold. Bose, a capable jazz player, went to Ray Noble's band. Their replacements were Sam Skolnick on lead and Maxie Kaminsky on jazz trumpet. Maxie made some very good records with TD, including “Rhythm Saved the World” (03/27/36), with the Clambake Seven, a dixie-oriented band within the band, and “Royal Garden Blues” (04/03/36) and “Keepin' Out of Mischief Now” (11/24/36), with the band. In his long career, Max was sadly underrated by the critics. Nevertheless, he always kept good musical company, and played good jazz.
There was a major shakeup in the sax section too. Ultimately, Freddie Stulce, a Southern Methodist University. graduate from Dallas, ended up playing lead alto. He also arranged. He would remain a part of the Tommy Dorsey sound, through some rough weather, until the early months of World War II. Joe Dixon, (real name Giuseppe Ischia) a good young clarinetist from Boston came in to play some jazz.[vi] Most significantly, saxist Bud Freeman, one of the legendary free spirits of jazz, and a vivid instrumental voice, anchored the jazz tenor duties. Bud arrived around April 1, 1936. He had been in the Haymes band in 1934, but then had joined Ray Noble's band at the Rainbow Room atop the then-RCA Building in Rockefeller Center in New York. In the Noble band, Freeman had worked with Johnny Mince and trumpeter George “Pee Wee” Erwin, both of whom would follow him into the Dorsey band. He had also worked with Glenn Miller, about whom he told me some very funny stories, all of which centered around Glenn’s drinking. Bud's close friend Dave Tough had joined TD in March on drums. In time, guitarist Carmen Mastren would also come aboard. He too could arrange. For good measure, Tommy also often employed the services of arranger Dick Jones, who was the band’s pianist from late 1935 to early 1937. No doubt, by mid‑1936, Tommy Dorsey had developed a very good all-around band. That had been precisely his goal.
In assessing the strengths of the Dorsey band, several amazing facts emerge. First, no doubt to facilitate the versatility Tommy strove for, he regularly utilized no less than five arrangers: Weston, Stordahl, Mastren, Stulce, and Jones. The TD book also had arrangements from outsiders like Benny Carter, and Fletcher Henderson. Most bandleaders relied on one chief arranger, and maybe used one or two others, occasionally buying a novelty or swing original from an outside arranger. Second, Tommy had an equally impressive squadron of singers: Edythe Wright and Jack Leonard, both of whom were featured; Joe Bauer and Axel Stordahl, Leonard's cohorts as The Three Esquires; and random vocals from other band members. Edythe, who had been with the band from its first recording session, was capable of delivering the up tempo items and novelties, with both the band and the Clambake Seven. She also sang ballads. Jack became the crooner of romantic ballads. Both singers were good looking, talented, and effective. Third, the Clambake Seven, playing basically two‑beat semi‑dixie, semi‑swing on mostly novelty tunes, existed on record from at least December 1935, when it recorded “The Music Goes 'Round and Around” (12/09/35) and “One Night In Monte Carlo” (12/21/35). Presumably, it appeared in person from about the same time. (The Benny Goodman trio would not appear publicly until mid‑1936. Maybe TD was the originator of the band‑within‑a‑ band concept!) Last, but very important, was the fact that there was considerable jazz solo strength. Tommy, of course, was an acknowledged virtuoso on trombone, who was an excellent ballad player and an effective jazz soloist. Freeman was a highly individual and swinging tenor saxophonist. Kaminsky was strong on trumpet, and the young Joe Dixon projected plenty of excitement on clarinet. With Dave Tough on drums, the band was guaranteed to swing.
So it was through 1936. In April of that year, they opened at the Blue Room of Hotel Lincoln in New York, and were on the air over CBS on a sustaining basis. As these broadcasts show, the band was beginning to really click. Still, there were many one-night stands after the Blue Room gig. The next major location job the band had was an eight-week engagement, with broadcasts, emanating from the Texas Centennial in Dallas. Tommy's band also replaced Fred Waring for the summer on the Ford Sunday Hour radio show. In addition, the band played various dance jobs in and around Dallas.
After the Texas tour, the band played one-nighters all the way back to New York. There they participated in a remarkable recording session on October 18, cutting an incredible nine sides that day. In that era, four sides per session was considered good, and if six were made, it was extraordinary. But nine? Amazing. Among the tunes: Paul Weston's charts on “After You've Gone”, “Sleep”, and “Maple Leaf Rag”.
In spite of all this activity, Tommy wanted to push the band ahead ever farther, ever faster. His eyes were always focused on those ahead of him, particularly on Benny Goodman. BG and his band had spent the last two months of 1935 and the first five of 1936 at one location, the Congress Hotel in Chicago. While there, they had broadcast for NBC's Elgin Review. After a couple of months in New York, they went to Hollywood to be featured in a movie The Big Broadcast of 1937. While there, they played at the Palomar Ballroom at three times the price they had gotten the summer before. Then they got a choice spot on the Camel Caravan CBS network radio program. By October, 1936, they were back in New York at another top location, the Hotel Pennsylvania, where they would stay for seven months.
Tommy saw the unprecedented success of Benny Goodman’s strongly jazz-oriented band, and realized that a prime reason for it was because Benny had spent over a year featured on sponsored network radio programs. Tommy's first plunge into commercial network radio was an ill‑fated program sponsored by The Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company. It starred comedian Jack Pearl. After limping along for a time, it became apparent that Pearl was not going to be successful on this program. But Brown and Williamson liked the idea of pitting their Raleigh and Kool cigarettes and Tommy Dorsey and his band, against Camels and Benny Goodman. So it was.
As 1936 closed, the future for Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra, both musically and commercially, looked bright. With the Raleigh‑Kool show in the bag, Tommy sought to make some ear-grabbing records to make the public really take notice. The logical choice to help him in this pursuit was Bunny Berigan. Bunny was, simply put, a unique trumpet player. His magnificent performances while a member of Benny Goodman's band in the summer of 1935 had a lot to do with Goodman's subsequent success. Since then, Bunny had been happily freelancing as the most in-demand trumpeter in New York. In addition to making records with his own small group that also appeared on 52nd Street, Berigan backed others on record, and appeared frequently on network radio, particularly CBS's Saturday Night Swing Club. He was becoming well known to a national radio audience. He was also thinking of assembling his own big band, and had numerous important people behind him pushing.
Tommy and Bunny were good friends. Tommy idolized the good-looking, easy-going Berigan because of his amazing jazz ability, and his superb all-around musicianship. According to Bud Freeman: “Bunny could read any music placed before him, transpose it at sight, and play it correctly the first time he saw it. And, in addition to playing great jazz, he was one of the best first trumpet players there ever was.” Tommy had befriended Bunny on one of his (Berigan's) first trips to New York as a kid in the late 20s. Even then Bunny had been recognized as an exceptional talent. They had often worked together, and when they had, it had been mutually enjoyable personally and professionally. Tommy talked Bunny into working with his band in and around New York. TD’s ploy was that Bunny could learn how to run a big band from him. Tommy also promised Berigan that his manager, Arthur Michaud, would help Bunny assemble and run his own band. Dorsey, who had several important RCA record dates to make, would have the services of one of the greatest trumpeters then playing, at least for a short time.
The first Dorsey‑Berigan recording session came on January 7, 1937. Of notable interest from that date is Will Hudson's tune “Mr. Ghost Goes To Town”. The next session, on January 19, produced “Buy My Violets” and “Melody in F”, among others. The precision and verve of the brass is particularly evident on “On A Little Bamboo Bridge”. Clearly, the idea of adding Bunny's trumpet to TD’s band was proving to be a good one. The big payoff was to come at the January 29 session, however.
Some time before that, the Dorsey band had been playing what Carmen Mastren termed "half and half shows" at Nixon's Grand Theatre in Philadelphia. “Half and half” refers to the fact that one band on the bill was black, the other white. The black band was called Doc Wheeler and his Sunset Royal Serenaders. They were a swinging, exciting band, and one of their specialty numbers was an Irving Berlin tune written in 1928 as a waltz entitled “Marie”. As they performed it, it was in 4/4 time, and began instrumentally. Later in the arrangement, the whole band sang the lyric. The Dorsey brain trust took note of this, and somehow Tommy acquired the Wheeler chart. After input from Tommy, Axel Stordahl, Paul Weston, and Freddie Stulce, who cobbled it all together, the finished product emerged with Jack Leonard singing, the band chanting behind him, and solos from Bunny, Tommy, and Bud. The “Marie” arrangement became so popular that it produced many progeny over years like “Who?”, “Yearning”, “Sweet Sue”, “Blue Moon”, “East of the Sun”, to name only the most obvious ones. Most of the “Marie” knock-offs were arranged by Paul Weston. Bunny's solo was later transcribed and voiced for four trumpets and played in that fashion by TD’s trumpet section. “Marie” became what Tommy had been hoping for ‑ the flashpoint from which the band would achieve national recognition. After “Marie”, there would be no more scuffling for Tommy Dorsey. And to boot, on the flip side of “Marie” was another colossal TD hit, “Song of India”. The chart on “Song of India” was another group effort, this time between Carmen Mastren, Bud, Tommy, and trombonist E.W. “Red” Bone, then a TD band member, who assembled the pieces.
Berigan finished his stint with TD recording two more superb solos on Carmen Mastren's chart of “Liebestraum”, and Red Bone's sketch of “Mendelssohn's Spring Song” on February 18, 1937. Tommy couldn't have wished for things to have turned out better. The road ahead was now wide open. After eighteen months of hard work, he had positioned himself to achieve success on a national level.
As always, personnel matters had to be attended to so that the band would be as strong as possible. Berigan's departure to form his own big band created a void that simply could not be filled. Trumpeter George "Pee Wee" Erwin was undaunted by the challenge though. A formidable improviser with good tone, ideas, and exceptional range, Pee Wee had been Bunny's virtual back‑up in New York for a number of years. He was young, not quite twenty‑four when he joined TD in March, but experienced. He had worked with Joe Haymes, Ray Noble and Benny Goodman. He would fit perfectly into Tommy's scheme.
Veteran jazz trombonist Les Jenkins had come aboard the previous fall when the band returned to New York. He was a laid-back fellow from Oklahoma whose playing Tommy never got tired of listening to. Unfortunately for Les, Tommy gave him little to do on records or broadcasts, preferring instead to feature him late at night on dance jobs when a weary TD wanted to rest his chops.
Andy Ferretti once again returned on first trumpet to assure a crackling brass section, replacing Steve Lipkins who'd left to be the deputy lead trumpet in Berigan’s new band. Joe Dixon also left to join Bunny, so Tommy drafted Johnny Mince on clarinet out of Ray Noble's band. Finally, big Mike Doty came in on lead alto, moving Freddie Stulce over to another alto chair. So bolstered, the band forged ahead. (It should be noted that in the last twenty years, numerous off-the-air recordings of the TD band from 1936-8 have been released in various formats. Most notable was a six-LP set of Raleigh-Kool broadcasts on the Sunbeam label. They show a band that was capable of swinging mightily, which featured excellent jazz solos from Bud Freeman, Johnny Mince, Pee Wee Erwin, and...Tommy Dorsey.)
It is interesting to note that Tommy had been using a somewhat unusual four-man sax section consisting of three altos and one tenor. One of the altos doubled on clarinet The tenor in question, Bud Freeman's, was light toned. The net result was a rather light-sounding sax section. Most other bands, notably Benny Goodman's, then featured two altos and two tenors. The result was a more robust-sounding sax section, especially if there was a firm lead, which Goodman palpably had in Hymie Shertzer, and a big- toned tenor, which Benny certainly had in Vido Musso. Even that setup produced a somewhat light sound, which was initially given ballast by the use of a baritone in lieu of one of the tenors, as typified by Duke Ellington’s saxophones in the late 30s, or by using a baritone in place of an alto. It was not until the 1940-41 period that the five-man sax section of two altos, two tenors, and a baritone became standard. All of this wasn't lost on Tommy, for his use of a five-man reed section of three altos, or two altos and a clarinet, and two tenors, without a baritone (led by Hymie Schertzer) lay in the not too distant future.
On March 3, 1937, Benny Goodman began a historic two-week engagement at the Paramount Theatre in New York. The "Paramount Riots" that greeted the baffled "King of Swing" set off an avalanche of publicity launching the "Swing Era" as a nationwide pop culture phenomenon. From that point onward, big bands capable of generating any excitement at all were greeted by large and enthusiastic audiences. The top jazz-oriented swing bands suddenly became hot properties on radio, records, in person, and in the movies. The whole process simply compounded, escalating to a peak shortly after the entry of the U.S. into World War II.
TD's fixation with Benny Goodman's success likewise compounded with each new BG plateau. He would tell Paul Weston and Axel Stordahl to go over to the Pennsylvania Hotel and check out the Goodman band. Their report was always the same: Goodman's band was principally a rhythm band, a jump band. Benny played hot rhythmic clarinet. His soloists, like Harry James, Ziggy Elman, and Vido Musso, were flashy and exciting. Gene Krupa, their drummer, was a tremendous showman. The kids lapped it up. Benny was doing exactly what he had always done. In fact, since the departure of the sexy songstress Helen Ward in late 1936, Benny had virtually abandoned ballads.
Very well then. Tommy would heave a sigh of relief, and go on doing exactly what he had been doing: creating fine music in many moods.
On April 15, 1937, the band recorded “Stop, Look, and Listen”, a holdover from the Dorsey Brothers’ Band. Tommy, Pee Wee, Johnny, Bud and the band give Glenn Miller’s chart a spirited reading with inspired solos. Dave Tough makes it all happen with his highly individual drumming. “Is This Gonna Be My Lucky Summer?” showcases Edythe and the Clambake Seven. It was cut on June 12. Other Clambake specials, “The Lady Is A Tramp” and “Josephine”, were recorded on September 11.
The full band was equally busy in the recording studios: Paul Weston's fine chart on “Night and Day” (the modulating intro is very unusual) and Axel's on “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” were made on July 20, 1937. The latter has a superb solo by Bud Freeman on tenor sax. A few weeks prior, on May 26, the band had got down some swinging jazz on Deane Kincaide's chart on “Beale Street Blues”. This pungent arrangement whetted Tommy's appetite for more of Kincaide's sounds. But Deane, because of his tremendous ability to translate "authentic" small group traditional jazz sounds to a big band, was much in demand, and of course, very independent. He had become a cornerstone in the swinging structure of the Bob Crosby band, which had specialized in making trad jazz with a big band. His Crosby arranging cohorts, Matty Matlock and Bob Haggart, were likewise adept at this style of orchestration.
In the spring of 1937, after two years with Crosby, Deane signed on with the embryonic Woody Herman band. As always, when Tommy wanted something or somebody he would do almost anything to get them. Tommy wooed Deane mercilessly. But Deane was not yet ready, so Woody Herman's gain was TD's loss. This was particularly galling to Tommy because Woody's band was just starting, while his was established. He certainly could have paid Deane more. Whatever, Tommy had to wait. As Bud Freeman and Pee Wee Erwin turned Deane’s “Beale Street Blues” into a personal tour‑de‑force, blowing chorus after chorus on it, leaving audiences screaming for more, Tommy bided his time, and focused his considerable energies elsewhere.
With the success of the Raleigh‑Kool radio show, Tommy and the band made New York City their base of operations in 1937. They played at the Commodore Hotel and the Pennsylvania Roof. And they checked into RCA Victor's 24th Street recording studios very frequently. They made no less than twenty‑two separate recording dates in 1937, many of them doubles, with a session for the band and then one for the Clambake Seven. In all they recorded an astonishing ninety‑nine separate tunes for RCA Victor in 1937. By comparison, Benny Goodman recorded a mere forty‑five. Tommy was truly taking care of business ‑ his way.
Bud Freeman explained: “Tommy expected a lot from his musicians. Everything you had, in fact, and more. He would drain a musician dry, and then be hostile if you told him you wanted to quit. When I quit and went to Benny Goodman’s band, I thought he was going to assassinate me. But very soon, I realized that Benny, in his own peculiar way, was just as crazy as Tommy. Both would rehearse a band meticulously, taking as long as necessary to get it just right. But when Tommy got to that point, he would move on to something else. Benny would keep on rehearsing the same tune again, and again, and again. It drove us all nuts, and it dampened my enthusiasm for Benny’s band. It only took about six or seven months for me to flee from Benny’s rehearsing insanity. Also, Benny began featuring me less and less. It became boring.”
“I thought Tommy’s band was very good while I was there. He always had several good soloists, and of course the great Dave Tough on drums! The problem that I detected was that he relied too much on the arranging of Paul Weston. Paul was then a very bright young man who had graduated from Dartmouth, Phi Beta Kappa, not that he would ever admit it. He was very modest and soft spoken.”
“Paul’s real last name is Wetstein, which I assumed was German-Jewish. As time passed, I noticed that for a Jew, Paul seemed awfully un-Jewish, not observing the Jewish holy days and so forth. So one day I asked him why he wasn’t observing Yom Kippur. He said, ‘Well Bud, it’s because I’m Catholic.’
“Paul was a wonderful arranger, capable for writing excellent jazz arrangements. Some of my favorites of the ones he did for Tommy were: ‘After You’ve Gone’, ‘Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now’, and ‘Royal Garden Blues’. I used to drive him mad by phrasing my part a tiny bit looser than the other saxophones. Anyway, Tommy attached himself to Paul, and he had him write hundreds of arrangements, mostly on pop tunes and ballads for Jack Leonard and Edythe Wright to sing. Many of these were recorded. I don’t think any band made more records than Tommy’s did while I was with him. How Paul had any creativity left after that, I don’t know. So, one day Tommy and I were talking, and I said: ‘Gee, Tommy, why don’t you get some help for Paul? We could really use some more jazz arrangements.’ The band was very successful by then, but getting pretty commercial, and stale. He said, ‘Well, who do you recommend?’ We had an arrangement by Deane Kincaide on ‘Beale Street Blues’ that I really liked, and I said, ‘Why don’t you get some more from Deane Kincaide.’ He said, ‘Deane’s in too tight with Gil Roden. Gil’s boys really play in his style, he only went with Woody (Herman) to get more money from Gil’, and let it drop. Soon after this, I quit and went to Benny Goodman.”
“Then one day I was listening to the radio and I heard this boogie woogie thing that sounded pretty good. The announcer identified the tune as ‘Boogie Woogie’ by Tommy Dorsey. I called Freddy Stulce and asked him who arranged ‘Boogie Woogie’. He said Deane Kincaide, and I laughed. Soon Deane was in Tommy’s band playing saxophone and creating a string of fine jazz arrangements. These slowly began to change the character of the band, all for the better. ‘Boogie Woogie’, by the way, was one of Tommy’s biggest record hits.”
“I liked both Edythe Wright and Jack Leonard. They were both very good looking, and sang adequately. The public loved them both, so Tommy would use them to warm up audiences so that we wouldn’t scare them too badly when we played jazz. Edythe was a very beautiful woman, in a sultry way. I sat behind her every night for two years as she sang. Guys in the audience fantasized about her. Women envied her.”
“It was an open secret that Edythe was Tommy’s lady then. I can understand this, having spent my entire life in the music business. One’s sexuality does not turn off simply because you are away from your wife and family. In fact, just the opposite occurs. Tommy’s wife Toots, who was a sweetheart, did not see things this way. Shortly after I left Tommy’s band, she sued him for divorce. It cost him a bundle. But Tommy was always a ladies’ man.”
“Tommy was so explosive it was at times impossible to deal with him. Most of the guys in the band were much younger than Tommy, and he intimidated them. He tried to do that with me shortly after Dave Tough and I joined. He could be unbelievably vile and crude. One day at a rehearsal he started berating me for something. I quietly began to take my horn apart. He said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m leaving.’ Dave Tough stood up behind his drums and said, ‘If Bud’s leaving, then I’m leaving too.’ Then Tommy immediately became rational again, apologized, and we stayed. He never did that again to either Dave or to me.”
“Axel Stordahl was an arranger in the band. He was young and sweet, and insecure, and Tommy would give him the business. We all knew Axel was very talented. He arranged ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’ for Tommy, and it was a great record. Axel also arranged ‘Once In A While’, which was a big hit for Tommy. Tommy knew Axel was talented too. But he couldn’t resist needling him. Tommy had a sadistic side to his personality. One time, at a rehearsal, Axel was subjected to one of Tommy’s outbursts and left almost in tears. Axel sequestered himself and wouldn’t come back. I was elected to be the mediator between Tommy and Axel. When I went to Axel, he was furious and said he never wanted to see Tommy again, and never wanted me or anyone else to mention Tommy’s name in his presence again. I then went to Tommy, who waved me away, and said, ‘Jeez, I was just kidding. Tell Axel I’m sorry I hurt his feelings. Also tell him that I want to talk to him about a special arrangement I want him to write for Jack Leonard.’ I relayed this message to Axel, who had cooled down, and soon he and Tommy were thicker than thieves again. Axel stayed with Tommy for many years after that, and only left when Sinatra took him when he left Tommy. The rumor then was that Tommy had a contract out on both Sinatra and Axel.”
When I asked Freeman if the Dorsey band played very much jazz, he said: “We played quite a bit of jazz, but this is relative. I’d say when we were playing one nighters and theaters, about one out of four or five tunes would be jazz. Usually up-tempo things. The public wouldn’t accept much more than that.” When I asked Johnny Mince if he thought the dozens of pop tune records made by the Dorsey band from late 1935 to late 1939 accurately reflected what kind of band it was, he laughed: “Oh heavens no. We did that to keep going a lot of the time, and to please the music publishers. Tommy’s idea was to play the game to the hilt. He’d try to please the people at Victor, he’d try to please the publishers. When we got our own radio show, he’d try to please the show’s producers. And, or course, we were pleasing the dancing public all along. They loved us. And no promoter of a dance ever lost money on Tommy’s band. If he signed a contract to receive a guaranteed against a percentage of the gate, and the date didn’t make enough to cover the guarantee, Tommy would let the guy out of the contract and just take a percentage of the gate. In the early years, I saw this happen quite a few times, even when our poor draw was due to the promoter’s incompetence or bad weather. As a result, we got asked back and always did better the second or third time. Tommy bent over backwards to make that band a success.”
“As far as jazz was concerned, we certainly played no less of it than most of the other bands did. Tommy always had jazz musicians in his band for a reason. We were called upon to solo on the pop tunes and on specialties that featured us. We had plenty of opportunity to play jazz. While I was there, Tommy featured Bud Freeman, of course, and later Babe Russin and Don Lodice on tenor sax. He had Pee Wee Erwin, Yank Lawson, Bunny Berigan, and Ziggy Elman on trumpet, and Dave Tough and Buddy Rich on drums. These guys and I wouldn’t have been around very long if we hadn’t had the opportunity to express ourselves.”
If we look at the specialities that featured the jazz side of the band during its very early period of development, we find excellent recordings of “Jada” (04/15/36), “Royal Garden Blues” (04/03/36), “That’s A Plenty” (06/09/36), “After You’ve Gone” (10/18/36), “Maple Leaf Rag” (10/18/36), “Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now” (11/24/36).
Although Bud Freeman and Johnny Mince were together in the TD band from April of 1937, when Johnny joined, to April of 1938, when Bud left, Mince remained with Tommy as featured clarinetist until early 1941, shortly before he was drafted into the Army. In the four years Mince was in the band, its character changed at least three times. Initially, the band was a good dance band that featured ballads, Dixie-styled jazz, and some straight ahead swing. By the end of the 30s, the band was still a good dance band, and it played smooth ballads even better than before, but by then had also evolved into a first-rate swing band. The third change came with the advent of arranger Sy Oliver, drummer Buddy Rich, and the arrival of Frank Sinatra. As Mince so accurately put it: “Girls really liked Jack Leonard, but they went crazy for Frank. We couldn’t understand it. And the band swung before Buddy. But with Buddy, it was like a whole battalion of artillery had arrived. No one, and I mean no one, played faster or louder than Buddy, when he chose to play fast and loud.”
Mince recalled some of Rich’s predecessors as TD drummers:
“There was a drummer named Moe Purtill. He was a very good drummer. When he came into Tommy’s band, he followed Dave Tough. Davey was just about everybody’s favorite drummer because he gave you a solid beat and stayed out of your way. Moe was a heavier player.”
“Almost immediately, Tommy started to tell Moe: ‘Can’t you make it a little lighter?’ This kept going on and on until Moe was hardly playing at all. He was a nervous young kid with a top-flight band, and he wanted to stay there. Finally, Tommy told him: ‘Can’t you make it lighter, like Dave Tough?’ Moe took this, but backstage he was cursing Tommy - ‘If he wants Dave Tough, he can have him. I’m quitting.’ We calmed him down, but eventually he and Tommy came to a parting of the ways, and Dave Tough returned. He was playing great too.”
“In my career I’ve played with many great drummers, including Buddy Rich, of course. But I can say without reservation that the greatest drummer I ever played with was Dave Tough. His feel for time was incredible. No matter what he did, it swung. And he knew how to back soloists and lift a band. He played simply and never threw things off by trying to be flashy. He completely understood jazz rhythm and he applied what he knew perfectly in either a big band or a small group. He was only interested in making whatever group he was playing in sound better.”
“A couple of years ago, the people at RCA sent me tapes of a bunch of records Tommy’s band had made when I was a member. The series they were then producing was called The Complete Tommy Dorsey. They wanted me to listen to these things, then comment. I guess they didn’t realize how many records Tommy made for them because they stopped the series at the recordings we made in early 1939, and never used my comments. Well, there were dozens of tunes we recorded that I hadn’t heard in over 40 years. Two great examples of how wonderful a drummer Dave Tough was are ‘Milenburg Joys’ (01/19/39), and ‘It’s All Yours’(01/19/39).”
“I also was very surprised at how good the band sounded on the session that produced ‘Tin Roof Blues’ and ‘Sweet Sue’ (10/31/38). I checked the personnel and immediately noticed that the first trumpet player on that session was Sammy Shapiro, who was subbing for Charlie Spivak. Sammy played unbelievably great on that session. My god, he came in, looked at the first trumpet book, and just took charge. I worked with Sammy later at CBS where he used the professional name Sammy Spear. He also led the band on Jackie Gleason’s TV show.” Johnny did not mention his own brilliant playing on that session. He leads the clarinets on Dean Kincaide’s arrangement of ‘Tin Roof Blues’, and shares solo honors with TD, Yank Lawson, and “the Bambino” as Tommy sometimes referred to Babe Russin, (according to Mince). On Paul Weston’s ‘Sweet Sue, he plays in front of the TD led four-man trombone team then follows Yank Lawson’s muted trumpet with some exciting clarinet cascades. Again on ‘Cocktails for Two’, there are good solos from all of the above, especially Russin. Perhaps Johnny’s best solo that day was on Stephen Foster’s ‘Old Black Joe’. This is swing clarinet at its best. To top it off, he played smoldering alto sax on Kincaide’s ‘Down Home Rag’.”
“And the saxophone section in Tommy’s band then was tremendous. He had three excellent first alto men in the band, frequently at the same time: Hymie Schertzer, Skeets Herfurt, and Freddie Stulce. Babe Russin had replaced Bud on the jazz tenor chair, and he was playing up a storm. Babe was also an exceptionally fine section man. He and Skeets went to Hollywood after World War II, and for many years were first call guys on their respective instruments. Deane Kincaide and I were the other members of the reed section. I can tell you that playing in that section was an absolute joy, not work.”
“Tommy always had an excellent trumpet section. For most of the time I was there, Andy Ferretti played first trumpet. He was a really great lead man with a brilliant sound. He could swing the whole band from the first trumpet chair. My dear friend Pee Wee Erwin was Tommy’s jazz trumpet in 1937 and 1938. Pee Wee was replaced by Yank Lawson, who was also a wonderful soloist and great stylist. Yank was replaced by Bunny Berigan, after Bunny had lost his own band, in 1940.”
“There was great anticipation before Bunny joined us. We didn’t know what to expect. Bunny was a great trumpet player, but his drinking had gotten him into a lot of trouble. Just weeks before he joined us, he had been in the hospital for a couple of weeks because his joints were so swollen, he couldn’t walk. When he got out, he was using a cane. And he had filed for bankruptcy before that, and his band had broken up just before he joined us. Still, when he arrived, he was playing great, though he looked puffy to me.”
“The grind with Tommy was too much for Bunny to take. Tommy kept after him to play higher and higher, and Bunny drank more and more.”
“But by 1940, Tommy’s band was headed in a completely different musical direction, with Sy Oliver’s arrangements, and Buddy Rich heading up the jazz side, and Frank Sinatra and Tommy’s beautiful ballad trombone heading up the sweet side. When I left in early 1941, Tommy’s band was the blasting-est band in the business, with eight brass, Tommy leading the trombones, and Ziggy Elman leading the trumpets. Even before I left, ‘Hawaiian War Chant’ (another Kincaide arrangement) had been extended to about ten minutes, with long solos for Don Lodice on tenor, me on clarinet, and then Buddy and Ziggy for about the last five minutes.”
Johnny returned to the idea of Tommy’s four-man trombone section. “He expanded from three to four trombones in 1938. No one else was then using four trombones. I think Paul Weston and Axel Stordahl suggested that to him. When Tommy would play solo and then immediately segue into four or eight bars leading that four-trombone section, it was so beautiful it made the hairs stand up on your arms. I just loved that.” TD did precisely what Mince described on “A Room With A View”, also from that great October 31, 1938 session, and on “In The Middle of a Dream” from January 19, 1939. TD’s recording of “Milenberg Joys”, splendidly arranged by Deane Kincaide and magnificently played by the entire band, with inspired solos by Dorsey, Mince, Russin, and Lawson, and superb drumming by Dave Tough, stands as one of the best examples of the exhilarating jazz this band could produce.
When I mentioned the famous TD air check of “Hallelujah” (06/11/40) on which Johnny, Don Lodice, and Bunny all played so brilliantly, Mince recalled it. “Yes, I have that on a set of records at home. I’m very proud of my playing on that, and very proud to have worked with Bunny for those few months. Those of us who knew Bunny were not surprised by his early death. He drank himself to death. Still, it was a tremendous waste of talent. His playing, when he was sober, was sometimes unbelievable.”
I asked Johnny Mince to give me his impressions of some other of his Dorsey bandmates:
Frank Sinatra - “When we first saw Frank we thought Tommy must have been drinking when he hired him. Jack Leonard was tall and good looking. Sinatra was short, very skinny, with a misshapen ear. But from the very first night he sang with us, it was obvious that he was very talented, and that he cast a spell on audiences, especially women. We couldn’t believe it, but we had to because he did it night after night.”
“I don’t think I’m telling any tales out of school here, but Frank idolized Tommy. I think Frank absorbed a lot about music from Tommy. He also absorbed Tommy’s professionalism and attitude. Remember, when Frank’s first daughter was born, he asked Tommy to be her godfather, and Tommy was.”
Jo Stafford - “A tremendous singer. A musicians’ singer. She had it all - range, quality, and pitch. And she exuded warmth, both as a person and as a singer.”
Buddy Rich - “I don’t think anyone in the band really knew Buddy. He was distant. He lived at home in Brooklyn with his parents, so whenever we worked in and around New York, he was gone right after work. But I noticed that he was the same way when we went to Hollywood.”
“As a drummer, he was unbelievable. There will never be another drummer with his technique and speed. But, I’m sorry to say, he could be heavy when playing behind the band or behind a soloist in those years. I think his technique would get in the way sometimes. He was a very hard worker though, and he always tried for the best. Unfortunately, his technique and youthful enthusiasm carried him away sometimes.”
“I saw Buddy and his band a few years ago. He was cordial and gracious. He introduced me to his audience as the man who established the great clarinet tradition in the Tommy Dorsey orchestra. This would have never happened in the Dorsey years. He had mellowed. And his playing was as fantastic as ever, but lighter. He was using the bass drum differently. And he did a feature with brushes that was great. That too would never have happened in the Dorsey band. Buddy clearly had matured both as a man and as a musician.”
Mince also recalled Freddie Stulce. “Freddie was there when I arrived, and he was still there after I left. He probably played every chair in the saxophone section while I was there, but he never played jazz. He was a very good first alto. He was from Texas, and had been raised in a religious home. He witnessed some terrible outbursts by Tommy, and always seemed to be shocked by Tommy’s behavior. Freddie never cursed or used profanity of any kind. He had the patience of Job, but even he had his limit. When Tommy would go too far in his language or behavior, Freddie would let loose with something like: ‘By jinkies, Tommy, that’s just not right.’ And Tommy would laugh, of course, and so would we, and the tension would be broken. Sy Oliver was able to have the same effect on Tommy.”
“Freddie was mostly responsible for the arrangement of ‘Marie’, Tommy’s first big record hit, and a tune we played nightly for the four years I was in the band. Then he arranged ‘I’ll Never Smile Again’ for Sinatra, and it became Frank’s first big hit, and of course, a big money maker for Tommy. Tommy looked upon Freddie as something of a lucky charm, as well as a fine musician.”
After a slight pause, Johnny returned to his recollection of Jack Leonard. “Jack was a great guy, and very popular singer. Some critics have been unkind to him over the years, and I have disagreed with them. They always compare him unfavorably with Sinatra. I don’t think the comparison was that unfavorable, at least not when Frank joined the band. Jack was phrasing over the bar line, like Tommy would play his trombone, long before Frank, and Paul Weston had set the pattern for Jack and Tommy on ballads well before Frank joined the band. To see how good a singer Jack could be, listen to him on ‘Blue Orchids’ (08/03/39), a lovely Hoagy Carmichael song. It was among the recordings RCA sent me, and he’s great on it. That tempo and those intervals were tough. Jack handled them both beautifully.[vii] But Jack was kind of shy in front of the band. Frank, of course, was very confident and outgoing, and very talented too. And then, he had that special something beyond talent. What do they call it today? Charisma? That’s why Frank is the great star he has always been since his days with Tommy, and Jack is a just a pleasant memory.”
As 1939 wound down, many of the musicians who had helped to define the TD sound had left: Ferretti, Lawson, Herfurt, Tough and Erwin moved on, as had vocalists Leonard and Wright. By early 1940 Babe Russin, Gene Traxler, Carmen Mastren, and Howard Smith were also gone. Most significantly, so too were Deane Kincaide and Paul Weston. There were a lot of new faces in the TD band though, and they were being led in a new direction by Tommy and the man who would be his principal arranger for the next few years, Sy Oliver. And then there was the new boy vocalist by the name of Sinatra. But that’s another story.
I asked both Freeman and Mince to give me their impressions about TD himself. Freeman: “He respected good musicianship, and he loved good jazz. Of course, he was a tremendous trombonist, one of the best. He loved to party, and always reached for the check. I frequently have thought that if Tommy had not been a musician, he would have made a fine gangster. He talked that rough talk, and he was always surrounded by various people, his handlers, who almost functioned as his bodyguards. But beneath that gruff exterior, he was a good guy.”
Mince: “With Tommy, work was first and foremost, and nobody worked harder than he did. But when work was done, it was time to have a ball. Tommy slept very little and he had to have people around him. He would invite all the guys in the band and their wives and girlfriends to his house in New Jersey. It was a mansion on a big estate with all of the goodies. He was a fabulous host. He spared nothing to make you feel comfortable. And his kids were always there, Patsy, his daughter, and Skipper, really Thomas, his son. Skipper was pretty spoiled then, in the late 30s when he was about 10. But Tommy always had those kids around him. Many years later, long after Tommy had died, Pee Wee Erwin and I were working one of those jazz parties in Colorado, and while I was on stage playing, I had the strangest feeling. After the first set, a man came up to talk to us, and it was Skipper. He looked like Tommy, talked like Tommy and even walked like him. It was scary. Skipper had grown up to be a real gentleman.”
“Tommy was temperamental, but almost all of his outbursts related to music. He had very high standards. If you did your job, then you were safe. If you fouled up, look out. He and I always got along fine. I liked him.”
ENDNOTES
[i]. ASCAP was founded in 1914 by Victor Herbert and other composers at a meeting at Luchow’s Restaurant in New York City.
[ii]. The Big Bands, 1967, by George T. Simon, Macmillan, page 59.
[iii]. See Downbeat, December 15, 1945.
[iv]. This is the recording session where an in-studio argument between Bing Crosby and Decca’s Jack Kapp was recorded. Crosby was unhappy that his movie studio employer, Paramount, was refusing to allow him to share in royalties on songs sung by him in his movies. See, Bing Crosby, A Pocketful of Dreams, the Early Years, 1903-1940, by Gary Giddens, Little, Brown and Co., 2001.
[v]. The Big Bands, page 159.
[vi]. Bud Freeman gleefully recalled that once when the Dorsey band played Boston: “Mr. Ischia, Joe’s father, came backstage with a couple of jugs of Italian red wine. We all partook, of course, and got bombed. Tommy was very upset because he was on the wagon and couldn’t join us.”
[vii]. Some sources have erroneously credited the arrangement on “Blue Orchids” to Pee Wee Erwin. Paul Weston actually arranged it. The label of Victor 26339 reads: “arranged by Paul Wetstein”.