[Dixielandjazz] Tommy Dorsey

[Steve Voce]

I had sent these stories about Tommy Dorsey told to me by various musicians to our West Coast jazz group.
It was in reference to Buddy De Franco, Dorsey's clarinettist for many years.
But I think they'd be at home here. I hope so. The musicians who told them to me included De Franco (most),
Sid Cooper (Dorsey's alto player), Johnny Mince and Bud Freeman.

Steve Voce


As a bandleader, Tommy Dorsey inspired respect in the musicians that he
liked and real fear in those that he didn't. He was a good if ruthless
businessman, and probably the toughest of all the name bandleaders.

Everyone who ever worked for him has a collection of stories about
him, and they are usually distinguished by Tommy's apparent ruthlessness
  and cruelty.

After the opening remarks by some of the musicians, the raconteurs retain a casual

anonymity through which their identities occasionally emerge.

Johnny Mince: 'Tommy Dorsey set me up for everything that happened in my life. So how can I be ungrateful'?'



Buddy de Franco: 'When I left his band to work in Los Angeles Tommy had me blacklisted

in that city and I worked one job, a Sunday afternoon jam session, in six months. He could

do that to you in New York, too. Then he phones you up and asks if you're readv to come back in the band.'



Phil Wilson: 'Good god, for the style of ballad playing and singing on the horn he set the

standard. Trombone players who come to me to study want to be able
to play ballads like Tommy Dorsey. I'll probably ruffle some feathers
here, but there are only two trombone players who I can think of who've
made as much imprint with ballad playing as Tommy did, and that's Urbie
Green and Bill Watrous. I can't think of anyone who has surpassed
Tommy.'



After the recreated Glenn Miner band played the Southport Theatre they left behind a

drawing on the dressing room wall which showed a plane, presumably carrying Glenn

Miner, crashing into the English Channel. The plane had been struck
by lightning, and the arm that held the thunderbolt bore the legend
“TD”.



'He could he very cruel if he didn't like somebody. He'd get mad at Dave Tough

occasionally. Dave was a very learned man and that frightened Tommy. Tommy didn't read

books. Tommy started the theme song one night before Dave was ready
and Dave dropped his cymbals. Tommy got very upset and started yelling
at Dave right there on the stand. He

would always bawl people out on the stand. He went completely crazy
one night I remember. He used to give us all kinds of cues when we had
this radio show. One night we got all messed up and the band just
fizzled out. This was on a major radio show. He just went completely out
  of his mind and started firing people right there.'



'When I first joined the Dorsey Brothers band we were making a broadcast one night and

Tommy had gone through a list of what we were to play beforehand.
When the broadcast started I was sitting between Skeets Herfurt and Jack
  Stacy in the sax section. On about the third tune, suddenly I'm playing
  something that hasn't got anything to do with what the rest of the band
  is doing. Tommy is getting so mad, and Skeets and Jack were trying to
help me find my part and also keep playing, and the music fell all over
the floor. While we were on the air!'



'Afterwards I came out of the dressing room and heard this outrageous voice bawling Skeets

and Jack out. Tommy was ranting at them as if it was their fault. He
  didn't holler at me because he didn't want to lose me after I had just
joined the band. To make it worse I couldn't believe that anyone would
use a voice that exaggerated unless they were joking, so I started
laughing.'





'It was marvellous in that band. Later I left to join Goodman after Jess Stacy Dave Tough

persuaded me to, but that a mistake. With Tommy I was never a section man, only a

soloist. Dave Tough an inspiration. He played your horn for you. Tommy, who could be

a very difficult man, was always good to me.

If Tommy liked a man's playing, the man could away with murder. Especially if the man were

a big drinker. because, although he had become a teetotaller, Tommy
had been a wild drinker, and he always forgave people who drank. We were
  all pretty good drinkers, although I was never a heavy drinker and at
that time Dave Tough I actually stopped for a couple of

years. Tommy's philosophy was that being a success at anything was easy. All you had to do

was stop drinking.



'Pee Wee Irwin came to work very drunk one time. His music was. strewn all over

bandstand, and he was asleep in his chair The manager at the time, Pinky someone or

other, wasn't interested in music and said to Tommy “Why don't You fire the, of a bitch?"

Pee Wee was sitting there, passed out, in front of him and Tommy says can't fire him, he plays too good.”



'We were playing a black theatre where the excellent pit band had great musicians in it

like Chu Berry. They had this marvellous arrangement of Irving Berlin's Marie with a

band vocal. We asked if we could borrow it and Paul Weston, Carmen Mastren an I jigged

it around a bit and finally we recorded it. Of course, it became the big hit that put Tommy on

the map, but it was purely the coincidence of us having played that black theatre.

Otherwise it might never have happened.





'When I left Tommy I was really sorry, because I made my name in Europe through

the records with Tommy. I got a lot of publicity about joining Benny because he

and Tommy had a fierce altercation about it.

But I did very little recording with Benny and he wasn't about to let me play anyway He liked

to do all the playing. From the point of view of musicality. Tommy
had a far better band than Benny. Tommy wasn't selling jazz whereas
Benny was. We did nine shows a day at one point with Benny. The most I
did with Tommy was five. But can you imagine with Benny, playing O'Clock
  Jump every morning at nine o'clock with a hangover'? To me it was like
working in a

foundry.



'I quit Tommy four times and he fired me three times so I had one up
  on him. He fired me for being late, or I'd miss a day. I was a very
temperamental guy. Tommy would get pissed

off with me and many times we almost came to blows     I'd known him in the days when we

would get into fights in saloons.



'Tommy was a temperamental Irishman, and as I've said, he'd insult you on the

bandstand, but once he got off it, he'd forget all about it. He was a
  street fighter. Once I was ill with 'flu and stayed off for a week. He
thought I was malingering. I called him up on the 'phone when I was
better and told him I was corning in that night. He had Georgie Auld in

as a substitute for me. Lee Castle made a bet with Pee Wee Irwin
that Tommy was going to kick my ass out of there and keep Georgie. but
once I played my first solo Tommy was smiling and he forgot all about
it.



Benny never said anything. He just looked at you. I preferred Tommy's brutal frankness.



Occasionally the guys in the band used to get giddy so he made a rule that there was

to be no laughing the bandstand. Then he said no smiling on the bandstand, and he

brought in a $25 fine for that! That was all he had to say! The next show the whole

hand was doubled over trying to stop laughing!



'At the Capitol Theatre the band came up on a rising stage at the beginning of the show.

If you missed that it meant that had to wait tin the lights went out
  to sneak in from the wings. There was a pretty stiff fine for being
late. We had strings at that time and one night the third chair violin
player was late. Tommy was announcing the next act and they dimmed the
lights and this violin plaver tried to sneak in. As he did Tommy said
“Hold it, let’s have the

house lights on, we have a special guest today. We have Dave here who feels he's a

star and does us a favour by coming in whenever he chooses. Well Dave, you missed

the theme song and Well Git It, so come on out here and play your
part for the folks!" The poor guy had to come out front and scrape away
at the third violin parts.'



'One time when we were at the Strand Theatre he came in and he says "Guys, hock

your car, your valuables. your wife, everything and get in on this deal. There's a

well gonna be drilled down in Texas that I'm in on, and you guys are coming in with me.”

Most of us didn't have any bread to put in it, but one of the trombone players went along

with it. A few months later. dry well, right? The trombone player went for a thousand

bucks. Not only did he lose the thousand. But after a while Tommy fired him!"



.Charlie Shavers could go to sleep on stage sitting right next to Louis Bellson's drum kit.”

(Charhe suffered from sleeping sickness – SV). “Tommy got fed up with it. and one time on a

stage show he whipped out a water pistol and he shot Charhe full of water. The next

show a few other guys got some water pistols and started a water fight. By the third

show the whole stage was flooded.



'Another time. Tommv, got one of the stage hands to wire Charlie's chair to the mains. and

boy did he give him a jolt! So the next show Charlie went to the stand that Tommv left the

trombone on and fined the horn with water.

Tommy used to come in, he'd never warm up, And grab the horn and go
right into the theme. He did it this time and splash, there's half a
gallon of water on the stage. He turned round and Charlie got up and ran
  off stage and Tommy raced after him.”



'It's a winter's night and there's a lot of snow on the ground and we're coming

from a place in Pennsylvania Sterling Bose was in the band, and he had to go  to the

John so he kept on “Tommy Tommy, you've got to stop for me." Tommy said

“No, we’re going right through to New York, it’s just a short way yet.” Sterling,

was after him all the time So finally Tommy had the bus stop, turned on the lights,

told the driver to open the door and pushed Sterling with one finger. He went

right into the snow, trumpet case in his hand.Tommy said “Close the door, let's go,”

and he left him there. We all thought that was rough poor Sterling in the snow,

what the hell's he gonna do?'.' About 20 minutes later there's a car passing our bus

honking at its, and there's Sterling in the back making rude signs at us."



'We're at the Paramount theatre and we're waiting for the trailers to go off. and we have to

be very quiet down there .. it's total blackness. Tommy comes in and it's April Fool's Day. So

he's passing round a box of candy among the band before we went on. I
  thought watch out for this' He finally got to me. He used to like to
play jokes on me. He said “Johnny . take that one, that's a good one.” I
  took. It, and he went on round the rest of the band. I took my knife
and cut that thing in half. and it's got a garlic in it!

So. I made out like I had eaten it. Now the kit comes up to stage
height. and all you can see is his trombone with this blue light shining
  on it. He played the signature and then turned round to beat out the
first fast number and I'm there spitting as though I'd chewed the
garlic. He was so bent with laughing he could hardly play. Before the
next show I found his trombone and took that garlic and rubbed it as
hard as I could into his mouthpiece. He started the next show and d’you
know he never, even long afterwards, let me know that I got him! He
liked to play the tricks. but you're not supposed to play them on him.'



’Once again we're at the Paramount. Frank Sinatra sat next to the Pied Pipers. in fact

to John Huddleston. John was Jo Stafford's first husband and he was
goosey, hyper ticklish. When Tommy found out he couldn't bear it. he
used to stand behind the guy while he was singing and Tommy would be
cracking his is knuckle. John couldn't stand it. Another time Sinatra
had this huge sponge filled with ice cold water and while John was at
the mike he put it on his chair. When he sat down we heard this huge
scream and he raced right off the

stage.



Sometimes he'd take us out to his palatial home in New Jersey for a nice Sunday or

something. But don't ever go to sleep beside his pool, because he'd have you in, clothes and all.



'’He had a 98ft yacht, with a trombone engraved on all the silverware.

'We took a young trombonist on in Milwaukee and he came back to New
York with us and we played at the Astor. Tornmy heard him play and he
said “Hey kid, did you take lessons?" and the kid said “Yeah,” so Tommy
said “Well. when you go home tomorrow ask your teacher for

\our money back.” He was tough like that. ‘He could spend money. I remember once

when we were in Rochester, Buffalo, he was on a silver kick. We
passed this jewellery store. and it had this big case in the centre of
the store with all the silver, bowls and things, and Tommy looked at it
and said “Isn’t that gorgeous?!

He turned to his manager and said "I'll have from here." and he
walked to the other end of the case, “to here!". It was about 12,000
bucks.'



Tommy didn't drink. but he was sympathetic to those did. He took
back a trumpet player who'd been fired for drinking on condition that
the guy had given up. He still kept coming in loaded, but he sat at the
far .end of the band and Tommy didn't notice for a bit. One night he was
  particularly bad and Tommy couldn't miss it. Tommy bawled him out and
told him to get the hell out and not to come back till he was sober. The
  next night the guy didn't show and when he finally turned up on the
night after that Tommy said "Where the hell were you last night?" The
guy said “Well. you told me not to come back till I was sober. and last
night I wasn't sober.”

Tommy broke up laughing.



'We were playing at the Commodore Hotel one night and I had a couple
  of solos. The kids liked them. They stopped dancing after each one and
gave me a big hand. Tommy told me to take a bow, then to take another
one. Then he came up to me and poked his finger in my chest and snarls
"Don't forget whose band this is!" I thought that was strange because I
would only do things that were helpful to the band, and I was shocked to
  think that he would think I wanted to take over his band.

In fact, when we were at the Paramount he was getting really nasty
and the guys were pretty disgusted. They called a band meeting in the
drugstore under the theatre. They wanted to make the band into a
cooperative and for me to be the front guy. The last thing I wanted to
be was a bandleader . I'd seen all the rows Tommy had. I was as quite
happy to sit there and play, my clarinet and alto parts. Besides. I
thought Tommy would have killed me, and he would have'.



'We're playing in Baltimore at a boxing arena. Our stage was the ring with the ropes taken

down. I'm playing a clarinet feature on Bugle Call Rag. There was a big disturbance in back of

me and someone shouted for Tommy. A drunk had come up the steps at
the side of the ring and was flailing through the trombone section
knocking the stands over. banging the slides and everything. So Tommy,
winks at Frank Sinatra and they both got hold of the guy and wrestled
him to the floor. Tommy picks him up by the legs and Frank gets his
shoulders and they start swinging him. one, two, three. All this time I
can see what's going to happen and I thought my god, they’ re going to
kill the guy in my chorus! They swung him and let go and klunk! He hit
the floor and just lay there. Richie Luseldia was the band boy, and he
was very strong. He came right away and got a headlock on this guy There
  wasn't a cop in the place. even though the crowd was in thousands.
Richie had to hold him while they sent out for the cops to get rid of
him.'