Throughout the 1930s and 40s, big bands led by conductors like Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington topped the popular music charts.
One of the biggest was the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.
IF YOU GO
The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Sunday, October 12, 7:30 p.m., Riverside Center For the Performing Arts, 95 Riverside Parkway, Fredericksburg, Tickets are $55 here.
Dorsey died in 1956, but fans and musicians have kept his legacy alive. The current iteration of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, under the leadership of trombonist Jeff Bush, will play a concert at The Riverside Center for the Performing Arts on Oct. 12.
Longtime Riverside patron Charlie McDaniel came up with the idea for hosting the orchestra. Decades ago, when the Dorsey band was passing through the Fredericksburg area, McDaniel would hire them and host parties at his home on lower Caroline Street for all his friends. He approached Riverside artistic director Patrick A’Hearn with the idea of bringing the band back to Fredericksburg.
Riverside has been presenting a concert series three or four times a year in addition to its standard fare of musicals and plays.
“I thought if we’re doing a concert series, it should be about all kinds of music,” A’Hearn said. “The big-band swing band era was popular, and I think it’s nostalgic, and even some of the younger people today enjoy it. So I said, ‘Let’s go for it.’”
Trombonist Jeff Bush now leads the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.
Bush became the bandleader just last August, but played in a previous iteration 25 years ago and has a musical and historic interest in the group. Also the coordinator of jazz studies at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Bush is currently working on a book about the history of the band since Dorsey’s death.
As the lead trombonist, he plays Dorsey’s parts in the band and gives the audience some commentary on the history of the band during the show.
“It can’t just be a concert of ‘Hey, remember this song?” Bush said. “That just doesn’t work, so it needs to be a little bit more of a show.”
Frank Sinatra got his start with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in the 1940s. The current band features a former student of Bush, Christian Sesek, singing the Chairman of the Board’s numbers.
“He’s an excellent young singer, certainly in the Frank Sinatra vein,” Bush said. “But he also loves Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Steve Lawrence, Nat Cole, Billy Eckstine — all the great classic crooners.”
Tommy Dorsey’s big band orchestra was popular in the late 1940s.
Fans of Tommy Dorsey will get to hear not only his many classic hits, but also some deep cuts they might not be familiar with. Dorsey had a small group within his band, called The Clambake Seven, that played traditional Dixieland style. Bush includes some of the subgroup’s numbers in the current show.
“We’ll come out and play one Dixieland small group number because Tommy did that throughout his career,” Bush said. “We usually close the show with our new arrangement of ‘When The Saints Go Marching In,’ which features The Clambake Seven but has the whole big band written into the arrangement.
“Certainly we will play ‘I’m Getting Sentimental Over You’. Tommy Dorsey played that at least twice a night, probably more. We begin and end our show with that. People would be disappointed if they didn’t hear things like ‘Opus 1’, ‘Song Of India’, ‘Boogie Woogie’, ‘Sunny Side Of The Street’, ‘Marie’ — we play all of those every night. Those are some of Tommy’s biggest hits.”
To enhance the experience, Riverside is adding a dance floor just below the thrust of the stage for Sunday’s show.
“I think there’s a lot of people who look for places within the Fredericksburg, Stafford County, Spotsy area, there are not many big band kind of evenings where they can go and have a good time like that,” A’Hearn said.
The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra performs at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts Oct. 12. (All photos courtesy Riverside Center for the Performing Arts)
