Sure, I'd love to, but that's a problem. By some cruel trick of fate, lots of the best TD stuff from that era has never been reissued or was reissued decades ago on LP and never again, plus issued among his many other recordings of other eras. All his bands were good, but the 1940 - 1942 (on record) and then his wartime band, plus a fair amount of good stuff from 1946 is his 'best' material.kitkat wrote:John, could you give us some tips about which albums can at least help us collect a good chunk of 1940-1942 Tommy Dorsey stuff?
Thanks!
His band in the 30s is very fine with lots of pop dance numbers and Jazz and Swing numbers featuring good, hot men like Bunny Berigan, but the 40-42 band just brings all the best elements together.
He totally re-vamped his band as he realized he had fallen behind the 'newer guys' like Shaw and Miller and even Goodman. So he dumped many of his sidemen, all his vocalists and brought in Sy Oliver to be the chief arranger for his band. Night and day difference between 1939 and 1940. You wouldn't know it is the same band.
So.....later today let me try and look over what is on CD these days. Maybe some stuff has come out that I don't even know about.
There was a TD/Sy Oliver CD on Victor that had a lot of good stuff on it. I think someone told me it was cut-out.
I made cassette copies of all my TD 78s when I got rid of them, so I am lucky.
Another good CD from him from that exact era is all live broadcasts which feature his pop and rhythm singer, Connie Haines (Still alive and active in Florida! She turned 21 while with Dorsey.) She was very bouncy and light and had a great personality and vibrant singing style, yet is now almost completely forgotten - she has 2 web sites, though. Yeah...look for that one on line b/c it has quite a few rhythm and hot jump tunes, almost all medium to uptempo. Good sound quality on that CD.
Dorsey was very dancer conscious as much of his audience was high school, college and young adult. Even his ballad performances frequently had a kick to them with some roof blasting ensemble work or a hot solo to wrap up the disc.
Ummmm...there was a 2 LP set on RCA that I am pretty sure made it out onto CD - all live stuff and just about all of it from 40 - 43.
Later!