Moonlight In Vermont
Stereophonic
The Fabulous Dorseys In Hi-Fi
Back cover painting: Tom Allen
Columbia Records C2L-8/L2 (2-Record Set)
1958
From the inside cover: Not long ago Tommy Dorsey outlined ideas for his next three albums. It was late on a summer night, and he was drinking up the Merritt Parkway from his home in Greenwich to mine in Westport, Conn. talking and driving fast. He had just finished telling me of the prospects of a stock he planned to buy the following day and explaining how the air conditioner in his car worked Now he switched to music and told me that the three kinds of music he wanted in his next three albums were (1) the sweet songs, the ballads that so many people asked him to play on the bandstand at the Statler Hotel, where he and the band were spending six months each year filling the famous Cafe Rouge to capacity, (2) swinging spirituals of the ind he had always had luck with over the years, and (3) an album of original twin tunes by the great arrangers he so much admired. I was beginning to plan the recording session necessary to get all the done when Tommy, with a characteristic laugh, told me they were already recorded. "Come over tomorrow and well play'em," he said as he delivered me at my door.
And it was true. The same great Dorsey band, with brother Jimmy and Buddy Rich and Charlie Shavers and Lee Castle and fourteen more Dorsey-picked sidemen you heard at the Staler and on the Jackie Gleason show, had made enough records for albums of Tommy's three ideas; He couldn't wait to sign a contract with a recording company, so he simply made them and paid for them himself. The recording was doen on the newest of his-fidelity equipment, and the performances were perfect, as you would expect them to be, and Tommy had all the tapes stored in a closet in Greenwich. At that time, we both thought it was only the beginning of a new flock of great albums by the Dorsey band of the 50's, sounding the way a great band can in these days of improved recording techniques. As it turned. out, these are the last records made by the fabulous Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, featuring Jimmy Dorsey. But thanks once more to Tommy's impatience to get things done, they were done, and in this album are the first twenty-four sides.
This think is the lat, the modern chapter pin the Dorsey brother's recording career, which began, after the boys had gained experience with the Scranton Sirens, with such notable groups as Red Nichols' Five Pennies; Paul Whiteman's orchestra, then sporting such stars as Bix Beiderbecke, Eddie Lang and Joe Venuit; Andre Kostelanetz' orchestra, making his earliest records of what was later to become such a popular style; and with pickup groups which included Benny Goodman and many other young jazz players. The Dorsey Brothers orchestra, recording in the 20's and early 30's, seasoned Tommy and Jimmy for leadership in the great swing era of the late 30's when the brothers went their separate ways with orchestras of different sounds, yet similar in that both groups consistently came up with hit records in both the sweet and swing fields. The two brothers continued their two bands into the 40's, but in the 50's they gained each other again to complete their lives together.
The musicians and singers whose careers were helped off made entirely by their experience in the Dorsey bands in long. It includes instrumentalists such as Bud Freeman, Dave Tough, Bunny belgian, Sy Oliver, Ziggy Elman, Buddy Rich, Paul Weston and Charlie Shavers It also includes Jo Stafford and Frank Sinatra, The Tied Pipers and Jack Leonard, Connie Haines and Dick Haymes. And with Brother Jimmy, of course, Glenn Miller, Ray McKinley, and later Jimmy's famous vocalist Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell. All of these an many more learned the musical art from the Dorseys, for both men were disciplined, yet imaginative musicians.
The biography of Tommy and Jimmy, sparkling with tributes and successes, is not unfamiliar to most of us. nor essential to enjoying this album. But the kind of men they were, I believe, is. For the music they played was always consistent with their personalities.
So, perhaps, as ou listen first to the velvet sound of Tommy's trombone on There Are Such Things and This Love Of Mine and Moonlight In Vermont, for example, you'll remember Tommy as a guy whose greatest pleasure seemed to be to feed somebody a good dinner or decorate a pretty guest room for his mother or play with his children. He loved his home and his comfort, and he was proud of them, as he had a right to be. He liked to take friends on a tour of his home, a tour that lasted a couple of hours and more, if he included the grounds around the house. He lied to be liked, and to the gentle people he knew he was a gentle as they. He has been justly called a taskmaster, a tough boss, but he was also a short, a friend, and a father to many, and no one can tell me that the man who played the warmest sound ever heard in American music wasn't the same way himself. He once flew with me to Miami, where he was appearing at the Saxony Hotel on Miami Beach. and when he discovered that I had never been to Florida before, he left business behind to take me from the airport on a long tour of the beach, pointing out landmarks, recalling th shady history of the restaurant, the cat of that hotel. He was interested in everything, and he liked to make everything a little more interesting to other people.
He worried about tother people's troubles, found doctors for them or money or other help. In spite of this squabbles with Jimmy off an don in their careers, he went to Jimmy's aid whenever he was needed and managed, by his own amazing will power, to improve both his own health and his brother's He played great songs with such feeling because such feeling was inside him. It takes more than trombone lessons to sound that way.
And while you listen to Peace Pipe and Do It Yourself and Heaven Help Us – aggressive, impatient, driving music– you'll also remember Tommy as a guy who couldn't wait to get things done, who loved to eat and laugh, who built furniture and spent money and played hard. He started a music publishing company before most bandleaders through of such a thing. He published a music magazine because he didn't like the ones he read. He was about tot open a popcorn factory. He loved baseball and prize fights and steaks, especially if he had a group of friend with him.
Tommy neve thought of himself as a jazz trombonist, but throughout the swinging sides in this album he poles jazz with forcefulness an with the jazzman's spontaneity. He was so perfectly at home as a musician that he could be discussing his latest investment at a table near the bandstand, hear the musical cue for his chorus, stride swiftly to the front of the band and play the first high note of Moonlight In Vermont as if he'd been waiting all evening to play that one note. At fifty-one he outstripped every younger trombone player who tried to play like him, and when he stood with the band snapping his fingers, everybody else played better than he ever thought he could.
And then, just a few years ago, "The brother," as Tommy called him, joined the band, adding his delicate obligatos to Tommy's solos, leading the reed section, sailing on alto saxophone and clarinet on the swinging tunes they played, Jimmy was loved by everyone who knew him, and everybody in show business knew him. He as quiet, the more reserved brother, generous and warm and understanding. And he played the two kinds of music Tommy played, flawlessly and with so much success that his name was at the top of the best-selling record lists when he died. Jimmy was a friend of Jackie Gleason's, and when Gleason suggested the brothers unite for a summer replacement for his potiphar television show, the Dorsey brothers were back on the same bandstand again. Jimmy joined Tommy's band and brought to it a success few dance bands have enjoyed in this decade. Jimmy, at the older brother, was a much the musical stylist as Tommy, and while most of the arrangements in this albums are in Tommy's band style, Jimmy's playing is as always unique and exciting. Their musical roots are the same" jazz with a flavor of Dixieland and sweet music with a lyricism that needs no lyric to create the mood of the song.
The Ballads
The number of hits by Tommy Dorsey over his long career has been about equally divided between sweet and swing songs. and so this album off his newest music is divided that way to please veery Dorsey fan. And despite th many other stars who have helped to make Dorsey ballads immortals it has belays been that opening trombone chorus soaring above the reeds that set couples to dancing and sighing. Tommy know how, better than anyone else, to set a romantic scene, and he enjoyed doing it for all who would listen. He wanted a new, beautifully played albums of these nostalgic standards, and he proved one. And the finals touch of perfection to these ballads is Jimmy. This for millions of us in the Dorsey magic, multiplied by twelve as follows:
Nevada
Yesterdays
It Started All Over Again
I Dream Of You
This Love Of Mine
Rain
Do Do Do
I Should Care
Moonlight In Vermont
There Are Such Things
Autumn In New York
Melancholy Serenade
Most of the ballads, such as I Dream Of You, There Are Such Things, This Love Of Mine, I Should Care, and It Stated All Over Gain have been identified with Tommy for years. But Jerome Kern's Yesterdays, Vernon Duke's Autumn In New York, and Gershwin's Do Do Do suit the style and the mood. Neil Hefti's arrangement of Moonlight In Vermont completes the ballad portion of the set.
The Spirituals
Another of Tommy's album ideas grew out of his fondness for swinging arrangements of spirituals. No other band has played spirituals so often and with such success as the Dorsey band, although no American music seems a more logical choice for big-band sorting. for this part of the plan Tommy called Dean Kincaid to write original compositions based upon spiritual. dean, who contributed such past Dorsey success as Hawaiian War Chant and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, wrote six numbers for the slab, including We've Crossed The Widest River, How Far Is It To Jordan, This Is What Gabriel Says, Judgement Is Coming, Where Is That Rock And Heaven Help Us. Wagon Wheels, A Sy Oliver arrangement, although not a spiritual as such, provides an effective transition for the ballad portion of the album to the spiritual portion. It was one of Tommy's favorites too, particularly where the key change occurs at this final trombone entrance. Buddy Rich is the featured drummer on all of the spirituals except Wagon Wheels, which stars Cliff Lehman, and This Is What Gabriel Says, where Louis Bellson in the drummer. On the latter Charlie Shaver is the trumpet soloist.
The Swing Set
And when it came to swing Tony admired Count Basie above all others. He proved it by trading arrangements and arrangers with Basie, by going to hear him whenever the two were in the same town, and by taking as his third idea a set of Basie-like original composition by Ernie Wilkins, who has written so many great numbers for Basie. You'll recognize the Basie touch in many of these sides. You'll also recognize the Dorsey drive sparking his great band. Flagler Drive honors Tommy's Greenwich, Connecticut, address.
Ernie Wilkin's swinging numbers for the Dorsey band Are:
Peace Pipe
Skirts And Sweaters
DO It Yourself
Flagler Drive
Stereophonic
On most of the spirituals and swing numbers Jimmy's choruses are a feature, along with Tommy's virile trombone.
Tommy Dorsey died in his sleep at his Greenwich home in November, 1956. Six months later Jimmy followed him after a long illness. The Dorsey band, under the able direction of Warren Covington, continues to play for dancers everywhere, and these, the last records the brothers made, attest to the vitality and modern sound the Dorsey band of the 50s' has. In paying tribute to Tommy, among a host of his friends, Jackie Gleason said, "Tommy Dorsey symbolized an era in poplar music. He was the Pied Piper of the jazz-swing era, and to millions of popular music devotees – and professional musicians – he was a key factor in the band business."
– Irving Townsend
From Billboard - April 21, 1958: Before the tragic deaths of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey last year they had recorded scores of sides with the Dorsey Brothers band. Columbia bought these tapes and has now released 24 of the sides, beautifully packaged in a twin-set LP album. It contains12 sweet standards, seven swinging spirituals, and five original swing items, all featuring Tommy's melodious trombone and Jimmy's great sax work. Dorsey-styled arrangements, performances, and sound are all fine. For nostalgia set should easily become one of the strong sellers of the year.
Nevada
Yesterdays
It Started All Over Again
I Dream Of You
This Love Of Mine
Rain
Wagon Wheels
We've Crossed The Widest River
Peace Pipe
How Far Is It To Jordan
This Is What Gabriel Says
Judgement Is Coming
Do Do Do
I Should Care
Moonlight In Vermont
There Are Such Things
Autumn In New York
Melancholy Serenade
Flagler Drive
Skirts And Sweaters
Do It Yourself
Where Is That Rock
Heaven Help Us
Stereophonic
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