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| A man and his (signature) horn. |
My favorite story about either of the Dorsey Brothers is the one about their famous split. From their Wikipedia page:
“The band performed live mainly in the New England area, with acrimony between the brothers steadily building up, until a definitive falling out between Tommy and Jimmy over the tempo of ‘I'll Never Say Never Again Again’ in May 1935, after which Tommy walked off the stage.”
That brotherly feud didn’t formally end for 18 years. Over tempo. Related, because I placed this chapter in the late 1930s/1940s, I decided to write about each Dorsey as they played and functioned for all those years, i.e., separately. From what I gather, Jimmy, the older brother and the subject of this post, was the nicer of the two. Then again, I’ve only really read his side so far.
James Francis Dorsey was born in 1904 in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. His father worked as a coal miner at the time of his birth, but moved to teaching music at local schools and leading his own marching band shortly after. Both Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey played, and well, from a very young age, as demonstrated by the fact Jimmy started playing in his dad’s band by age seven. He started on trumpet and had the chops to play with a New York-based group called J. Carson McGee’s King Trumpeters by age nine, but he switched to the instrument that made him famous, the alto saxophone, by the time he turned 11. (Just to note it, he played clarinet as well, using the Albert system.)
It's fair to call both brothers precocious: as early as 1920, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey formed a third of their first band together, the Dorsey’s Novelty Six, a name they later changed to Dorsey’s Wild Canaries. They had some success with this group, even landed some airtime on the radio as “one of the first jazz bands to broadcast.” [Ed. - I can’t document it, but that doesn’t sound right.] With so much experience under their belts, and at such a young age, both Dorseys moved to New York to work as professional, full-time musicians.
Neither of them struggled for work. They played live, worked recording sessions, and did radio work throughout the 1920s, a lot of that time with decade’s best (e.g., the Paul Whiteman Orchestra). Jimmy, at least, played every orchestra of the 1920s I’ve ever heard of; he even recorded “the iconic 1927 jazz standard” “Singin’ the Blues” with the Frankie Trumbauer opposite the half-legendary Bix Beiderbecke. Before long, the Dorseys, some friends, peers and competitor built on what they learned playing in the ever-expanding orchestras of the late 1920s/early 1930s to create (white, mainstream) popular music’s next big thing. To name one early partner, Glenn Miller co-wrote, arranged and played trombone on a couple of collaborations with the Dorseys at the tail-end of the 1920s - e.g., “Annie's Cousin Fanny,” “Tomorrow’s Another Day,” and “Dese Dem Dose.”
While they kept playing in other orchestras - Jimmy Dorsey’s Wikipedia page has him playing in Nathaniel Shilkret’s Orchestra as late as 1937 - the Dorsey Brothers officially formed the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra in 1927. Now, the timeline gets pretty loose between the official forming of the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra and their 1935 split; the few sources I found mention a handful of songs, and only one said something about “[making] their formal debut [in] 1934 when they became the residents at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York.” They continued working with Miller, who doubled as the orchestra’s trombonist and a songwriter/collaborator on songs like “The Spell of the Blues” and “My Kinda Love.” The vocalist on both of those was the same who carried the Dorseys’ first song to break into the Top 10, “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)”: Bing Crosby (who, and I can’t emphasize this enough, was massive).
When they break happened, Jimmy held onto the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra name for several months, hoping that his brother would come back. When he didn’t, Jimmy changed the name to Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra and carried on as the house band for Bing Crosby’s (again) massive national broadcast, Bing Crosby’s Kraft Musical Hall. Though Bing crowded the spotlight, Dorsey felt like he had a high enough profile to strike out on his own and, after two years with Crosby (this is 1937), he did. And things went fine. He filled the hole left by Crosby with Bob Eberly, “considered to be the best in the business,” apparently, and paired him in duets with a woman named Helen O’Connell…and I can’t remember the last time I read so many variations of “the girl next door.” To their credit, they did something I didn’t pick up by casual listening:
“Many of the Eberly-O'Connell recordings were arranged in an unusual 3-section ‘a-b-c’ format. This format was reportedly developed at the insistence of a record producer (then called an A&R executive) who wanted to feature both singers and the full band in a single 3-minute 78 rpm recording. Eberly sang the first minute, usually as a slow romantic ballad, the next minute featured the full band backing Jimmy's saxophone, and the last minute was sung by O'Connell in a more up-tempo style, sometimes with lyrics in Spanish.”
As implied above, the Dorseys started the fitful process of mending their rift before their official reunion. They first came together to record a V-disc toward the end of World War II (literally; March 15, 1945), but then took…what sounds like a major step of working on an actual project - e.g., a 1947 movie titled The Fabulous Dorseys. They played themselves, but it’s not entirely clear how close the biopic cut to the bone:
“The film was a look inside the brothers' lives from practicing as children, to making it big as adults; the brothers played themselves in the film. It also highlighted their struggles leading the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra and showed what their lives were like on the road.”
“The band performed live mainly in the New England area, with acrimony between the brothers steadily building up, until a definitive falling out between Tommy and Jimmy over the tempo of ‘I'll Never Say Never Again Again’ in May 1935, after which Tommy walked off the stage.”
That brotherly feud didn’t formally end for 18 years. Over tempo. Related, because I placed this chapter in the late 1930s/1940s, I decided to write about each Dorsey as they played and functioned for all those years, i.e., separately. From what I gather, Jimmy, the older brother and the subject of this post, was the nicer of the two. Then again, I’ve only really read his side so far.
James Francis Dorsey was born in 1904 in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. His father worked as a coal miner at the time of his birth, but moved to teaching music at local schools and leading his own marching band shortly after. Both Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey played, and well, from a very young age, as demonstrated by the fact Jimmy started playing in his dad’s band by age seven. He started on trumpet and had the chops to play with a New York-based group called J. Carson McGee’s King Trumpeters by age nine, but he switched to the instrument that made him famous, the alto saxophone, by the time he turned 11. (Just to note it, he played clarinet as well, using the Albert system.)
It's fair to call both brothers precocious: as early as 1920, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey formed a third of their first band together, the Dorsey’s Novelty Six, a name they later changed to Dorsey’s Wild Canaries. They had some success with this group, even landed some airtime on the radio as “one of the first jazz bands to broadcast.” [Ed. - I can’t document it, but that doesn’t sound right.] With so much experience under their belts, and at such a young age, both Dorseys moved to New York to work as professional, full-time musicians.
Neither of them struggled for work. They played live, worked recording sessions, and did radio work throughout the 1920s, a lot of that time with decade’s best (e.g., the Paul Whiteman Orchestra). Jimmy, at least, played every orchestra of the 1920s I’ve ever heard of; he even recorded “the iconic 1927 jazz standard” “Singin’ the Blues” with the Frankie Trumbauer opposite the half-legendary Bix Beiderbecke. Before long, the Dorseys, some friends, peers and competitor built on what they learned playing in the ever-expanding orchestras of the late 1920s/early 1930s to create (white, mainstream) popular music’s next big thing. To name one early partner, Glenn Miller co-wrote, arranged and played trombone on a couple of collaborations with the Dorseys at the tail-end of the 1920s - e.g., “Annie's Cousin Fanny,” “Tomorrow’s Another Day,” and “Dese Dem Dose.”
While they kept playing in other orchestras - Jimmy Dorsey’s Wikipedia page has him playing in Nathaniel Shilkret’s Orchestra as late as 1937 - the Dorsey Brothers officially formed the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra in 1927. Now, the timeline gets pretty loose between the official forming of the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra and their 1935 split; the few sources I found mention a handful of songs, and only one said something about “[making] their formal debut [in] 1934 when they became the residents at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York.” They continued working with Miller, who doubled as the orchestra’s trombonist and a songwriter/collaborator on songs like “The Spell of the Blues” and “My Kinda Love.” The vocalist on both of those was the same who carried the Dorseys’ first song to break into the Top 10, “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)”: Bing Crosby (who, and I can’t emphasize this enough, was massive).
When they break happened, Jimmy held onto the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra name for several months, hoping that his brother would come back. When he didn’t, Jimmy changed the name to Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra and carried on as the house band for Bing Crosby’s (again) massive national broadcast, Bing Crosby’s Kraft Musical Hall. Though Bing crowded the spotlight, Dorsey felt like he had a high enough profile to strike out on his own and, after two years with Crosby (this is 1937), he did. And things went fine. He filled the hole left by Crosby with Bob Eberly, “considered to be the best in the business,” apparently, and paired him in duets with a woman named Helen O’Connell…and I can’t remember the last time I read so many variations of “the girl next door.” To their credit, they did something I didn’t pick up by casual listening:
“Many of the Eberly-O'Connell recordings were arranged in an unusual 3-section ‘a-b-c’ format. This format was reportedly developed at the insistence of a record producer (then called an A&R executive) who wanted to feature both singers and the full band in a single 3-minute 78 rpm recording. Eberly sang the first minute, usually as a slow romantic ballad, the next minute featured the full band backing Jimmy's saxophone, and the last minute was sung by O'Connell in a more up-tempo style, sometimes with lyrics in Spanish.”
As implied above, the Dorseys started the fitful process of mending their rift before their official reunion. They first came together to record a V-disc toward the end of World War II (literally; March 15, 1945), but then took…what sounds like a major step of working on an actual project - e.g., a 1947 movie titled The Fabulous Dorseys. They played themselves, but it’s not entirely clear how close the biopic cut to the bone:
“The film was a look inside the brothers' lives from practicing as children, to making it big as adults; the brothers played themselves in the film. It also highlighted their struggles leading the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra and showed what their lives were like on the road.”
The Dorsey Brothers’ story has a happy, if abrupt ending. They reunited in full in 1953, with Jimmy joining Tommy’s orchestra as a “co-leader” and a featured soloist. A guest appearance on Jackie Gleason’s CBS TV show in December of the same year led to an opportunity to headline a spin-off of their own. That program, Stage Show, aired from 1954 to 1956 and, as if passing the baton to the next generation of (again, white, mainstream) popular music, the Dorseys had Elvis Presley on their show five times. They didn’t have long to see where Elvis, et. al., took things from there.
Tommy Dorsey choked in his sleep sometime in 1956. Jimmy, reportedly heartbroken by his brother’s death, didn’t carry on much longer. He was diagnosed with throat cancer around the same time he assumed leadership of the band and died of the same June 12, 1957. I found no mention of this, but have to think he got some kind of kick out of watching one more hit, “So Rare,” climb one stop short of the top of Billboard’s charts on his way to the beyond.
About the Sampler
I’m confident that great and thorough sources cover both Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey’s careers, but the Internet doesn’t give many shits about them, never mind anything firm and definitive to help me build a really great and representative sampler. The songs linked to above count as bonus tracks because, “Singin’ the Blues” and “So Rare” aside, I didn’t put any of them on the sampler. Near as I can tell, all of them come from that anonymous, yet productive gap in Jimmy Dorsey’s career that runs from 1937 to 1953. Outside a couple hits I found listed at the bottom of Jimmy Dorsey’s Wikipedia page, most of the rest comes from a Spotify compilation excitingly titled, Jimmy Dorsey - Best Recordings. Due to the largely random compilation, I’ll just list them for anyone who wants to hear them, with parentheticals where appropriate:
“A You’re Adorable” (square), “Amapola” (one of his big hits), “Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing” (square), “Bali Hai” (awesome), “ “Begin the Beguine,” “Besame Mucho” (another hit), “Our Love,” “The Breeze and I” (hit), “All This and Heaven Too,” “I Hear a Rhapsody,” “Green Eyes,” “My Sister and I,” “ Maria Elena” (hit), "Blue Champagne,” “Tangerine” (another hit), “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old” (kinda funny; World War II-themed)), “Star Eyes,” “Always in My Heart,” “Deep Purple” (think this one's obvious), “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” “The Masquerade Is Over,” “Six Lessons from Madame la Zonga” (same theme as the Arthur Murray song), and “Only a Rose.”
Until I linked to all the songs above, I couldn't even tease out the songs with O'Connell and Eberly on vocals with perfect confidence (but I had my suspicions). As much as I’d like to pass on more than just a bunch of songs, I didn’t see any great story or point of interest to any Jimmy Dorsey song beyond the people with whom he wrote and performed them. That doesn’t make him any different from thousands of musicians who have been good and popular since, but I also don’t want to wrap this up without acknowledging how remarkable one can be just by going to work. To borrow one more line from his Wikipedia page:
“Jimmy Dorsey is considered one of the most important and influential alto saxophone players of the Big Band and Swing era, and also after that era. Jazz saxophonists Lester Young and Charlie Parker both acknowledge him as an important influence on their styles.”
Tommy Dorsey comes next. Till then…
Tommy Dorsey choked in his sleep sometime in 1956. Jimmy, reportedly heartbroken by his brother’s death, didn’t carry on much longer. He was diagnosed with throat cancer around the same time he assumed leadership of the band and died of the same June 12, 1957. I found no mention of this, but have to think he got some kind of kick out of watching one more hit, “So Rare,” climb one stop short of the top of Billboard’s charts on his way to the beyond.
About the Sampler
I’m confident that great and thorough sources cover both Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey’s careers, but the Internet doesn’t give many shits about them, never mind anything firm and definitive to help me build a really great and representative sampler. The songs linked to above count as bonus tracks because, “Singin’ the Blues” and “So Rare” aside, I didn’t put any of them on the sampler. Near as I can tell, all of them come from that anonymous, yet productive gap in Jimmy Dorsey’s career that runs from 1937 to 1953. Outside a couple hits I found listed at the bottom of Jimmy Dorsey’s Wikipedia page, most of the rest comes from a Spotify compilation excitingly titled, Jimmy Dorsey - Best Recordings. Due to the largely random compilation, I’ll just list them for anyone who wants to hear them, with parentheticals where appropriate:
“A You’re Adorable” (square), “Amapola” (one of his big hits), “Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing” (square), “Bali Hai” (awesome), “ “Begin the Beguine,” “Besame Mucho” (another hit), “Our Love,” “The Breeze and I” (hit), “All This and Heaven Too,” “I Hear a Rhapsody,” “Green Eyes,” “My Sister and I,” “ Maria Elena” (hit), "Blue Champagne,” “Tangerine” (another hit), “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old” (kinda funny; World War II-themed)), “Star Eyes,” “Always in My Heart,” “Deep Purple” (think this one's obvious), “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” “The Masquerade Is Over,” “Six Lessons from Madame la Zonga” (same theme as the Arthur Murray song), and “Only a Rose.”
Until I linked to all the songs above, I couldn't even tease out the songs with O'Connell and Eberly on vocals with perfect confidence (but I had my suspicions). As much as I’d like to pass on more than just a bunch of songs, I didn’t see any great story or point of interest to any Jimmy Dorsey song beyond the people with whom he wrote and performed them. That doesn’t make him any different from thousands of musicians who have been good and popular since, but I also don’t want to wrap this up without acknowledging how remarkable one can be just by going to work. To borrow one more line from his Wikipedia page:
“Jimmy Dorsey is considered one of the most important and influential alto saxophone players of the Big Band and Swing era, and also after that era. Jazz saxophonists Lester Young and Charlie Parker both acknowledge him as an important influence on their styles.”
Tommy Dorsey comes next. Till then…
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