My uncle was in the Tonight Show band up , retiring after they left NYC to California. Hymie Schertzer, lead alto sax. Good friend Tommy Newson took his chair .Great music
For thirty years, the best big band in the world. It HAD to be! Sparks flew. NBC expected it! Every member a star! And w/ Doc & the one & only Ross Tompkins? How could it not the greatest? And they sure sounded like it!
Oh, absolutely! There was no one before, nor after that had it together like Doc Severinson, and that includes Johnny's previous two music directors, Skitch Henderson and Milton DeLugg.
Gosh... I miss Doc and Tommy and the NBC Orchestra on the Tonight Show! The current "rock group" things they have on late night now just don't have the same class.
I remember when stereo tv and stereo broadcasts came out. We had just bought a stereo tv, but nothing was broadcast in stereo. One night, the two snare pickup notes sounded off the Tonight Show theme, and BAM! It was in stereo!!! It was like night-and-day.....
Christian Falco There is an episode posted on youtube you would like if you havent seen it. Don Rickles is hosting the show, in late 1970's. He starts in right away toying with the band. I think he kisses your dad. It's pretty funny.
Whenever Johnny gave the band a feature, the crowd went wild. My friends & I looked forward to it more than the guests. Nothing like it on the current Tonight show.
Man, we used to get this EVERY night. Doc was fabulous and Tommy Newsom did most of the arrangements. If you can find them, the albums the band recorded in the '80's were extraordinary!
I noticed Conte Candoli at 2nd trumpet. Makes me happy to see him playing; My favorite West Coast trumpet player - absolutely the best. Great Tonight Show Band and I sorely miss groups like this that don't just consist of guitars and drums like on today's night talk shows.
He was grinning. Because he knew he was "America's pianist" for 25 years, undeniably the best! His solo piano albums tell it all. When he sat down to play, he exhausted every possibility that instrument could offer. Should've been a millionaire. Instead, lived in a Burbank condo near the studio, WITH NO PIANO! The guy was a genius, & he just shrugged it off! He is so missed!
Man, Doc & Snooky can really wail at 4:50 - 5:20. Loved those guys and the whole band. Can you believe it - spending time on a 7 minute feature during a talk show!!! Great stuff.
WOW Superb! That show just rocked with these guys! Doc and Snooky were awesome together! You don't know what you've got til its gone. Never see the like of these awesome musicians again.
This music sends chills down my spine, it is so brilliant. I like Paul Shaffer and his band on Letterman, but Doc's Tonight Show Band was the best late night band on television, no doubt. It's appropriate that the greatest late night host ever had the best band ever. What a ball these guys must have had. Long live big band music. Thankfully, there are still some people who keep it alive.
Yes, the tunes are "Two O'Clock Jump" and "Well Git It!". Lots of similarities between tunes here (particularly between Harry James' Two O'Clock Jump and Basie's One O'Clock Jump) and I can see where all the trumpet work would make one think of Bugle Call Rag, but this indeed is "Well Git It!" Nice clarinet solo by Tommy Newsome, as well.
90 minutes later, you'd hear a patriotic poem read by Ronald Reagan, then watch the Indian Head test pattern till 6am. Thanks Johnny, Doc, and the Indian.
I love it to! I bet each guy in the band has 35 + years min. experence, they just finished a GREAT performance, and Johnny says " Oh and they wore their nice suites" ! Classic !
Johnny is wrong, that's not Bugle Call Rag, that's a Tommy Dorsey chart called Well, Get It, there is even a clip on here with Buddy Rich playing it with The Tonight Show Band around this same time.
I'm not sure why they announced the second song as Bugle Call Rag. It's actually Well Git It. Not that I mind! I love this band, the last of the true big bands. Doc marks the end of an era. I'll get as much of his music as I can!
Trumpetking and mikebuddy are correct. The first tune is "One O'Clock Jump" by Count Basie, the second is "Well Git It" as done by Tommy Dorsey. And I would echo mjbari3's sentiments: Doc and the boys were featured all too seldom. But that's probably because guests and bits were scheduled to take up the hour. But I don't remember the band having this much airtime all that often even back when the show was 90 min.
3/20/18 I received this email from Mr. Ron Keihl....... Thank you very much for telling us about your brother! wow how neat! Would love to hear about what that was like to be in the NBC tonight show band. Thanks! pd That Bass Trombone player is my Brother, Ernie Tack, who is 'retired' and still living in California - age 87 !!! . . . and can still play the horn.
Listen to those trombones blast! That trombone in the middle(solo) is playing the make I play. Its called a King 2B, a legendary jazz horn. King still makes it but the older models are more sought after because the brass is of higher quality and more pure, lasts longer. Like many things produced today, the old phrase holds true: "They don't make 'em like they used to".
The second song played by the band, "We'll Get It" was featured in the Mel Brooks' movie "History of the World, Part I" In the Roman Empire segment, when one of the guys says "you wanna dance" and then he says "Lindus." This was the song the guys danced to.
I don't think any commenter has mentioned your dad by name... he is Gil Falco, who not only for years was the lead trombone player on this show, but also did a ton of session work and was highly visible in the band on "Name That Tune" and "Face The Music" for many years. I only went to see the Carson Tonight Show once, but was in awe of the quality of the music that Doc and the boys were pumping out. Great stuff.
I thought the NY Carson show band was even better and swung harder. Doc was in the trumpet section with Clark Terry and Cat Anderson the rhythm section had Grady Tate, Bob Haggart and Bucky Pizzarrelli, trombones included Will Bradley, Urbie Green and Jimmy Cleveland and saxes included Marshall Royal, Al Klink, et al. Big band fans will recognize most as former stars of name bands but with their passing, had settled into the lucrative NY studio scene. Few followed when Carson relocated.
Actually, the second tune wasn't "Bugle Call Rag," but "Well, Git It !" which Sy Oliver wrote for Tommy Dorsey. Both tunes sound so much alike it's easy to get them confused, but they're great songs nonetheless.
Speaking of trumpet duets, like the one in "Well, Git It" (not "Bugle Call Rag", Johnny), in one of Doc Severinsen's earliest featured performances with the Tonight Show Orchestra, he played an exciting duet with Clark Terry on Neal Hefti's tune, '"Terry Time", on August 29, 1963. A few days after Doc’s 93rd birthday, I posted my tape recording of it at: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7jIoN9xTB0E.html
