[Dixielandjazz] "Living in a great big Way - Tommy Dorsey

[Steve barbone]

on 1/4/06 5:40 PM, Roger Wade at rwade1947 at comcast.net wrote:

> Hi Steve and Ron (and listmates),
> 
> I have always enjoyed Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven sides.  I think
> he plays a great jazz trombone, with both technique and imagination,
> especially on the sides with hot trumpeter Yank Lawson.
> 
> Roger Wade

Hi Roger, Ron and Listmates:

I too enjoy listening to Dorsey. Just that I do not hear him as a great jazz
trombonist. He himself may well have shared that view if the following from
a radio program in NYC circa 1978 (as reported by Richard Sudhalter) is to
be believed: 

==== QUOTED
Together on a New York radio program in 1978, former Dorsey sidemen Pee Wee
Erwin, Carmen Mastren, and Johnny Mince discussed their former boss at
length and with candor. How was Tommy rated as a jazz trombonist? Mastren
laughed: "He rated himself. He used to tell me; ' I never played anything
original in my life. Everything I play is Miff Mole.'"
==== END QUOTE

Erwin went on to discuss his superb technique and column of air etc. . . and
then said: "all that tremendous technique on trombone probably limited his
true jazz feeling."  (my note: We've heard that before technique vs. feel)

He then went on to laud Dorsey's Jazz trumpet playing (which if you have
listened to it is far more jazz explosive than his trombone work): "On
trumpet he had real limitations, and as a consequence he'd play rhythmic as
all get out. Punchy, a good brand of jazz. And he blew hard."

Then Sudhalter's quote: "There's every indication that Tommy Dorsey, ever
the pragmatist, understood the great potential of his trombone mastery and
manipulated it in the interests of professional success. But if he is to be
evaluated accurately as a hot music figure, both sides of his fractured
musical personality must be known and appreciated."

Actually Sudhalter feels that Dorsey is underrated as a jazz trombonist and
that he received short shrift from most other jazz critics and writers who
do not hear him as much of a jazz trombonist.

I guess it is in the ear of the listener. Gunther Schuller downplayed Dorsey
as a Jazz Trombonist claiming that his work was mostly a matter of ballad
phrasing and breath control. Sudhalter is a little kinder and hears him as a
jazz trombonist.

By the same token, in a book about important white jazzmen, Sudhalter while
analyzing many, many jazz solos, of many different jazz players does not see
fit to analyze any of Tommy's at all.

Bear in mind that all of the above does not mean TD will not be enjoyable as
"jazz" to some listeners. The bottom line is what Louis Armstrong said a
half century ago in answer to the eternal question 'What is jazz'? Said
Pops, "Jazz is what YOU are." And so it depends upon how, and for what, you
listen. And we all have different ears.

Cheers,
Steve

PS. I like the Clambake 7 too, but think Cutty Cutshall or Miff Mole on
trombone would have improved the band. Just one man's opinion.