Please suggest artist.

[CMcPherson]

On my last trip to my record store I picked up a record of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra only because I recognized the name. I only vaguely remembered that it may be jazz.
I put it on and I really liked it. I mean really REALLY liked it... a lot.
What style of jazz would that be referred to as? Swing?
Are you able to suggest other artists of the same style?

I know that this may sound funny to you guys but I know almost nothing of music produced before the 60's.

[bfinan11]

1935-38 Tommy Dorsey music is closer to 'orchestral pop' than jazz - similar to much of what was found on Hit of the Week and other records of the era, and on old-time radio.

From 1939 to the musicians' strike, his band played jazz and swing, eventually leaning more toward pop with the rise of Frank Sinatra.

While his career was very short (1936-39), Bunny Berigan is my favorite Swing Era trumpeter and bandleader. There are about 25 or so 78s of his band on Victor, the best selling of which was the 12-inch "I Can't Get Started"/"The Prisoner's Song".

[Curt A]

What is the record title? That will determine the type of music you were listening to.

[gramophone-georg]

On my last trip to my record store I picked up a record of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra only because I recognized the name. I only vaguely remembered that it may be jazz.
I put it on and I really liked it. I mean really REALLY liked it... a lot.
What style of jazz would that be referred to as? Swing?
Are you able to suggest other artists of the same style?

I know that this may sound funny to you guys but I know almost nothing of music produced before the 60's.

Well... that subject will keep you occupied for a very long time, then.

TD is one of my favorite artists for a whole slew of reasons.

He is known for being a top trombonist with amazing breath control that could play the prettiest ballads with seemingly "seamless" solos. He could take a sappy Glenn Miller type song and make it listenable just by the way he played it. But he was much more than that.

TD was also a very able jazz musician with great chops on both trombone and trumpet. In fact, he's my fourth favorite early jazz trumpeter or cornetist after Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong,and Bunny Berigan. I'd consider him tied with Red Nichols... some consider that heresy, LOL.

TD played lots of jazz in the Dorsey Brothers Orchestras with brother Jimmy (who was a fantastic reedsman in his own right although never as driven to perfection as Tommy)but seemed to be the more intellectually curious of the two. Jimmy settled into his "contrasts" style and stayed there milking it for all it was worth- except for a sudden burst at the end with "So Rare"- while Tommy was always evolving. The OKeh sides are just fantastic (1928-30) The Brunswick and Decca sides (1931-35) are more pedestrian but one of the top sidemen and arrangers was Glenn Miller- who was also far more jazz oriented at the time- resulting in some quite jazzy dance tunes.

After the TD/ JD blowup over the tempo on "I'll Never Say Never Again Again" on the bandstand one night in 1935 (great Dorsey Bros. Decca release by the way) Tommy raided Joe Haymes' great jazz band and started his own. One of the first indications of how jazz oriented this band was right from the beginning was a tune called "I Got A Note" that was recorded at the band's second solo session (the actual second studio session was to accompany singer/ tap dancer Eleanor Powell) that became the flip side of the breakthrough hit/ theme song "I'm Gettin' Sentimental Over You" which was, incidentally, a very long TD trombone solo accompanied by the band. THIS was where he got the moniker "The Sentimental Gentleman Of Swing" and thus, I believe, the (undeserved) semi- sappy non jazz reputation.

Anyone who thinks the jazz wasn't there till 1939 is ignoring the many "Clambake 7" discs as well as jazz arrangements of classics like "Song Of India"... just to scratch the surface- barely. Edythe Wright wound up being a really capable jazz vocalist, too, as seen on sides like "You" and "Jammin'".

Jack Leonard, the 'pre- Sinatra', was the main reason for a lot of ballads- he was capable and TD liked to showcase his talent, which was another TD trait. Shortly before Leonard decided to leave when his contract was up and try going solo, legend has it that he had TD listen to a song on the radio in the car driving to a band appearance one night. The song was Harry James' "All Or Nothing At All" and the singer was Frank Sinatra. The rest, as they say, is history.

[gramophone-georg]

Part 2:

Sinatra was also a ballad singer and TD showcased him as such. But, worried that he was ignoring real jazz, he also hired Jimmie Lunceford's arranger- Sy Oliver. Buddy Rich signed on at the same time after Artie Shaw abruptly walked away in 1939, and these two really helped "swing" the band with TD's enthusiastic approval. At the point Oliver and Rich joined, the jazz contingent went from a small Dixieland- like jazz club combo to full time big band swing, although a small sub group known ironically as Tommy Dorsey's Sentimentalists" waxed four jazz sides for Bluebird with Sinatra as jazz vocalist with "scatty" vocal backing from the band a la the earlier Leonard vocal in "Marie" which is a great side in itself.

As a side note: In 1941 the band waxed Sy Oliver's composition "Yes, Indeed!" which is not only notable for its heavy hitting jazz/ swing style and its theme of a "negro" revival- it was also one of the very first times (if not THE first) where a black male vocalist (Oliver) was teamed with a white female vocalist (Jo Stafford) singing to each other in "chase" sequences.

After Oliver, Dorsey hired another black jazz powerhouse- Charlie Shavers. Charlie was in large part responsible for the renewed Dorsey sound and revival in 1947 with hits like "At The Fat Man's" and "Sweet Eileen".

Sinatra wasn't really the first big name introduced by Tommy Dorsey who would revolutionize popular music (the rise of Sinatra signaled the eclipse of the "big band" era and the rise of the "singer" era")... he also (along with brother Jimmy) first showcased a kid named Elvis Presley on their "Stage Show" TV broadcast... a full 8 months before Ed Sullivan did. The Brothers didn't have any problems with Elvis' gyrations, either... TD thought he was great and was going to go far. Unfortunately, both brothers passed away not long after.

So there's the Reader's Digest version on TD.

Incidentally, Dorsey was only ever intimidated by one other musician... Jack Teagarden. Victor, legend has it, wanted to do a "split" release with the Dorsey band on one side and Paul Whiteman on the other featuring Tea... Dorsey said "no dice". Tea was the only trombonist TD wouldn't go up against, and I'm thinking that may be why TD stuck more to ballad playing- he had a real fear of not being "No. 1!"

Sorry for the long windedness. Go find some Artie Shaw records, or Glenn Miller from his jazz phase (1935 Blue Columbia, 1937-8 Vocalion/ Brunswick, 1938 "Staff" Bluebird)... if you can. Oh, then there's early pre 1932 Hal Kemp, and Bunny Berigan's early Vocalion stuff. And... and... and...

Stick with me... I'll ruin your life with this stuff!

[CMcPherson]

Well DAMN...! I've just been schooled!!

What is the record title? That will determine the type of music you were listening to.

Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra
Night and day 25657-A
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes 25657-B

Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra
Song of India 25523-A
Marie (Irving Berlin) 25523-B

Perry Como
Marrying for Love 20-3922-A
The Best Thing For You 20-3922-B

I picked these up only because I've actually heard of the artist. Otherwise, I've been buying titles that sounded cool.
I'm well steeped in every facet of 60-80 rock, funk and punk in all of its variations and dabble in bluegrass and ol' timey but I'm totally shooting in the dark with this stuff.
I'm very excited to realize that there is a whole era of music that is worth listening to.

[gramophone-georg]

You're going to start seeing how one era of music basically blends with and was heavily influenced by music of the previous eras... aside from the fact that the great bandleaders of the Swing Era regularly played modernized swing versions of stuff they played as sidemen with the likes of Ben Selvin, Paul Whiteman, Irving Mills, Roger Wolfe Kahn, etc., you have tunes like "Dream A Little Dream Of Me" popularized by the Mamas and the Papas in the '60s that was written in 1931 and first recorded by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra (yes, that Ozzie Nelson!) and also by the Dorsey Brothers as 'The Travelers' that same year.

Then you have "Blue Moon", that "50s" Doo Wop hit that was actually recorded in July 1961 and became a big hit for the Marcels. It is a Rogers and Hart tune that was penned in 1934 and recorded by Benny Goodman's pre- fame Columbia band that year with an early Helen Ward vocal, among others.

"Blueberry Hill"? The huge Fats Domino hit? It was first #1 in 1940 by Glenn Miller's orchestra with Ray Eberle vocals.

Sinatra? Sinatra owed everything to Tommy Dorsey... his phrasing, his breath control. He even had to buy the same brand of tooth powder Tommy used. Till the end of his singing career he kept modernizing the same tunes he first sang with Dorsey- and a few of those go back to what Dorsey played with the likes of Goldkette, Whiteman, and Selvin, as well as the California Ramblers in the Twenties.

And so on.

You want rap? Try Ted Lewis from the early 1920s. If those fingernail on chalkboard annoying "incidental singing" passages aren't a rap prototype I don't have ears.

Then there's boogie woogie "rockabilly" in big band form. We're back to Tommy Dorsey's "Boogie Woogie" recording of 1938 which to my ear has formative riffs and rhythms of rockabilly.

Bop? Look not only to the guys like Gillespie and Parker who were working with this idiom in the mid 40s but back beyond that- to Benny Goodman who hired Charlie Christian in the early 40s... but if you want the first bop records as a developed idiom look to Artie Shaw's Gramercy 5 records of the 1940-41 era... specifically the two sider "Summit Ridge Drive" / "Cross Your Heart". Incidentally, "Summit" was a Shaw composition- he was one of the first rather prolific musician- songwriters in an era when writing was considered its own profession. Incidentally, his compositions were quite big hits for him, but hardly any other bands of the era put out contemporaneous "covers" of them. Shaw was also the first to incorporate string sections into serious jazz... and the only guy to my knowledge who ever incorporated a harpsichord into the jazz idiom.

I want to interject a thought here- I'm not talking so much about who originated these styles, rather, who brought them into the mainstream. I don't think there is REALLY any single 'idiom' of music that just happened that was totally delivered as an adult by one person (Jelly Roll Morton's claims notwithstanding). I also don't buy totally into all the great 'jazz' idioms being only Black inventions. The music biz was integrated a hundred years before everyone else- for all participants it was about the music. Hell, there's a HUGE Klezmer influence in jazz, and especially swing, too. It really is, as Ken Burns put it, "America's music". You could say a lot of it came from Russian Jews, too- because it did... in Jean Goldkette, Benny Goodman, Arthur Arshawsky (aka Artie Shaw), Ted Lewis...

Another aside- Goldkette was a classically trained musician turned band promoter. There were many Goldkette bands touring the country in the 20s. One of them was an outfit called McKinney's Cotton Pickers, fronted by a little guy named Donald Redman. These guys rubbed elbows directly with Beiderbecke and Trumbauer in the Goldkette organization, in fact, when Bix and Tram left to join Whiteman, Redman and the boys from McKinney's got put in with the Goldkette orchestra on later recording sessions. You can hear the Redman/ McKinney's sound on Goldkette's "My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now" and "Bermingham Berta" both of which have that "punch".

One other little piece of Goldkette trivia... a fellow by the name of Steve Brown was the first verifiable person to use a string bass in place of a tuba- by plucking or "slapping" it. This is important because, in my opinion, this is what allowed real Swing to break free from tubas and bass saxes and become its own idiom. Often musical historians credit Fletcher Henderson with first developing Swing, and Redman- McKinney's with bringing it to maturity... but to do so is to completely ignore Goldkette's "Clementine" from 1927, the last recording of the Bix and Tram era. There it is... the Swing idiom, not as a baby or adolescent but as an adult- and Steve Brown is swinging the whole thing on that bass. Who influenced who? Arguably it could go either way but "Clementine" predates the McKinney's records by nearly a year.

It's funny, but when I was in my heyday of buying and selling records on eBay in the early 00s my best repeat customers were modern day musicians and celebrities... quite a few rock and rollers, too. A huge collector was Bowie's producer. I had a (sad but glad) opportunity to buy back a whole bunch of my records from Jeff Healy's ("Angel Eyes") estate after he passed that I sold when I was in a de- cluttering phase and didn't really understand what I was selling.

I guess the biggest piece of advice I can give a beginning collector is to keep an open mind. Stuff that I would just pass by out of hand years ago is stuff I am actively seeking out now. The names Glenn Miller, Kay Kyser, and Guy Lombardo may provoke a gut reaction "yuck" but that's because you just heard the stuff they were famous for. When they were finding their way and experimenting they did some cool sides. Try to find "Solo Hop" or King Porter or any of the Brunswick sides by Glenn Miller, or "Collegiate Fanny" and "Just A Haven" by Kay Kyser from 1929 on Victor. Guy Lombardo? "Waitin' For Katy", "Under The Moon", "The Cannon Ball", I'm More Than Satisfied" on mid 1920s Columbia are good hot ones.

Ted Weems is best remembered for "Oh! Monah!" and spawning Perry Como today but a lot of his 1923-32 Victors are red freakin' hot. Mal Hallett isn't one you'd think of collecting but the mid/ late '20s Columbias are great.

A weird aside about Lombardo- it's not really well known that Guy and Louis Armstrong really admired each other's bands and styles. Listen to Louis' band on "I'm In the Market For You", for example. It's a straight Bogart of Lombardo's!

Ah well, enough rambling. I guess I'd better get some work done!

[Wolfe]

I know that this may sound funny to you guys but I know almost nothing of music produced before the 60's.

If you're really interested in reading more about the pre-rock era, with a TON of x leads to y leads to z musical examples to help light your way, a book called Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll by Larry Birnbaum would be worth picking up.

[CMcPherson]

I know that this may sound funny to you guys but I know almost nothing of music produced before the 60's.

If you're really interested...

Oh man... thanks for the tip!
I really thought that I was a music connoisseur.
I do have a respectable range of musical tastes but I'm genuinely excited to realize that I have a whole segment of early American music that I was ignorant about.

[OrthoFan]

The Tommy Dorsey songs you listed are typical of those issued during the Big Band/Swing era -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_band

-- and were recorded in 1937 -- http://www.78discography.com/vic25500.html (Main page -- http://www.78discography.com )

Wikipedia has a pretty good list of the classic big bands, as well as some contemporary ones --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_big_bands -- ALSO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_A ... andleaders


I've found that YouTube, which seems to have a gazillion songs, is a great place to quickly check out an artist I'm not familiar with.