IN THIS ISSUE: i f An interview with TOMMY DORSEY Reviews of BOOKS AND BIG RECORDS to consider BAND ★ A NEW GENERAL KNOWLEDGE BIG BAND ERA TRIVIA QUIZ JUMP ★ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR about NEWSLETTER GLENN MILLER’S secret recordings, TEX BENEKE, HAL MclNTYRE, GLORIA VAN, FREDDY MARTIN, INTERNET LISTENING, and others BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER FIRST-CLASS MAIL Box 52252 U.S. POSTAGE PAID Atlanta, GA 30355 Atlanta, GA Permit No. 2022 BIG BAND JUMP VOLUME 91 - NOW IN OUR 16TH YEAR BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER MARCH-APRIL 2004 TOMMY DORSEY INTERVIEW- Part One, The Early Days The Background There’s never been a Tommy Dorsey interview in this newsletter, not because there’s no interest in Tommy Dorsey, for he certainly led one of the top four bands of the Big Band Era, but because such an interview was never available. BBJ host Don Kennedy interviewed Tommy Dorsey in 1949, but the tape of that conversa­ tion has been lost forever. To the rescue comes author Peter Levinson, who is writing a book about Tommy Dorsey, scheduled to be published in November of 2005 in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of Dorsey’s birth. In his extensive research, Peter Levinson turned up a delightful 1954 Canadian interview conducted by a now unknown announcer, found on one of several cassettes containing various Dorsey radio appearances and early recordings. The content of that interview has been transcribed to form the following, with questions shortened but Dorsey ’ s comments precisely as written, except where passing reference is made to an immedi­ Dorsey in the '40s ate record playback as part of the program. into two parts with the later Tommy Dorsey years to be The Scene presented in the next issue. Nearly every interviewer begins with the “how” and/or “why” of the subject’s Judging from the occasional traffic noise in the back­ interest in music. Our Canadian announcer friend was ground, the announcer conducting the interview had no exception. taken a tape recorder either to Tommy Dorsey’s hotel room or to his appearance location, also taking with The Interview him a list of recordings which were to be inserted at appropriate points when the tape was played back. BBJ: Everyone always wants to know how it all There was no effort on the announcer’s part to just hit started. the highlights; he was determined to hear a story about every significant event from the ’20s on. For that TD: My father was a music teacher and the day we reason, the Dorsey comments yielded a reasonably were born was actually when we got in the detailed story, but by the end of the interview it was music business because we had no choice. It was play evident that Dorsey wanted to wrap it up. or else! Because of the length of the interview, we’ve split it BB J: You played trumpet at one time. VOLUME 91 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER MARCH-APRIL 2004 TD: That’s correct. My first instrument was the trumpet; a very bad job on that. My father kept putting me on different instruments so I finally wound up with a trombone against my wishes. I’m very happy he won out. BBJ: How did the recording career get started? TD: Well, we actually got started doing some things seriously..,.I say seriously because prior to 1934....we had been messing around doing some re­ cording with Okeh Records. Nobody ever bought ‘em, we’d sell maybe four or five hundred o f‘em, but we got going seriously in 1934 when we formed the Dorsey Brothers Band. BBJ: Some of those pre-Dorsey Brothers records in the late ’20s had Bing Crosby on them. TD: We were all refugees from the Whiteman band along about that time. Bing was still with Whiteman then and my brother and I had left. I just told the fellow who was in charge of Okeh Records at the Bix Beiderbecke & Tommy Dorsey (with glasses) in 1924 time that I had an idea we wanted to make some records, and he said, “Come on down.” We got a kick back. One of the men who had faith in the record out of it and waited six months to a year to get paid. If business and kept going all the way through was the you got paid it was alright, and if you didn’t it was late JackKapp. He’s one of the men we should thank alright, too. to this day for the resurrection of the record industry. We made records with Ruth Etting, the Boswell BBJ: Sounds like slim times in the ’20s. Sisters, the Mills Brothers, with Bing and every­ body, and when I say we had to wait six and eight TD: From that department it was. Fortunately we months for our money, we had to because they had to were able to sell some other people a bill of wait until they got the record out and sold some of goods... .hiring us at night in the various theaters. At the them before they could pay us. time we made a lot of those records my brother and I were working the the Capitol Theater. They used to BBJ: How did you find I’M GETTING SENTIMEN­ have a big orchestra in the pit and then a stage band, sort of a dance band to go up on the stage and play the TAL OVER YOU, the tune you came to use as your theme? presentations. We used to go down in the morning, and if we couldn’t go down in the morning we'd go after the last show in the theater and make a lot of those records. TD: Found it in 1932 at a company called Lawrence Music Company. I went over there to get some BBJ: Some people said the record business was tunes for a record session, and a boy named George doomed about then. Bassman was playing piano and as we kept going through the catalog he kept going back to this thing, sort TD: You’re right, because after the stock market of a reprise all the way through and it later developed crash in ’29 the radio came on real strong, that more or that he was the writer of the song. I took a liking to it. less murdered the sale of records. There were only a We had a girl named Jean Faye, I think, who made the few people who believed that records would come original record of the song. 2 VOLUME 91 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER MARCH-APRIL 2004 BBJ: Many of the musicians you The Life o f Tommy Dorsey " writ­ was played with in those days became earning $200 ten by Peter Levinson who pro­ famous. a w ee twelve vided the original tape of this hours a week. interview.lt will be Mr. Levinson’s TD: Well we had quite a gang. third book in his “Portraits of We used to hang out at a place Swing’’ series following publication of the Harry called The Trombone Club. It was listed in the tele­ James ' bio “Trumpet Blues ’’ and a Nelson Riddle phone book as The Trombone Club but it really was a bio titled “September in the Rain. ” speakeasy. They had a bulletin board and we’d go in and get all our messages; Rubinoff or somebody would be looking for us, they’d call The Trombone Club and (LETTERS TO THE EDITOR) leave a message there. Half of the people we worked for didn’t know it was a speakeasy. I don’t think they’d Letters to BIG BAND JUMP or the BBJ NEWS­ have hired us if they discovered where we used to hang out. LETTER may be sent to the address below, or e-mailed to: [email protected]. When you BBJ: There was a lot of radio work for musicians in e-mail, please give your name and address. All those earlier days. letters are answered, but the volume of mail some­ times delays a timely response. TD: Yes. The first thing we did was with Freddy Rich when Columbia Broadcasting first opened its studios at 52nd Street and Madison Avenue; my BBJ NEWSLETTER brother and I were in the house band over there. I think Box 52252 I was earning $200.00 a week for twelve hours a week. Atlanta, GA 30355 We’d never go in before five in the afternoon no matter what the schedule said, because we had recording dates The published letters have been edited for space to do all day long. considerations, but the meaning has been preserved. As evidenced in the interview, Tommy Dorsey Ben Pucci Bandleader Hal McIntyre had had a remarkable memory, indicated by the fol­ San Antonio, TX a drummer named Ralph and lowing story dating back to an event from the a lovely and very good singer early days. It seems one music publisher during named Gloria Van. Is Gloria Van still with us? I’ve the heyday of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra always wondered what happened to those I met as a couldn ’t figure out why Tommy wouldn'tplay his young man working at Tune Town in St. Louis and music on radio broadcasts. The publisher showed Palladium in Hollywood. up regularly, had good melodies and key com­ posers but never could get Tommy to play any of his material. It turned out he had charged Tommy Dorsey seventy-five cents for some sheet music during the Dorsey Brother’s Orchestra days years earlier, rather than give him the music.