Tommy Dorsey: Livin' in a Great Big Way--A Biography

by Peter J. Levinson

Swing has never gone out of style. It was the music the Greatest Generation danced to-and went to war to. And no musician evokes the Big Band era more strikingly than Tommy Dorsey, whose soaring trombone play and hit tunes influenced popular music for a generation. Tommy Dorsey (1905-1956) led a rich and complex life. Beginning with his childhood in the coal mining towns of Pennsylvania, we follow the young trombonist's journey to fame and fortune during the jazz age. Tommy, with his brother Jimmy, created one of the most popular bands of the era and played with such giants as Bing Crosby and Glenn Miller. They also launched the career of a skinny young singer named Frank Sinatra. But Tommy's volcanic personality eventually split the band and Tommy went off on his own. Drawing on exhaustive new research and scores of interviews with the musicians who knew him best, Levinson delves into Dorsey's famously eccentric lifestyle and his oversize appetite for drink, women, and perfection. The first biography on Dorsey in more than thirty years, Tommy Dorsey is a dazzling portrait of the Big Band era's brightest star-his tumultuous life, his turbulent times, and the unforgettable music that made him a legend.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, History

384 pages, Hardcover

First published November 18, 1999

About the author

Peter James Levinson was born on July 1, 1934, in Atlantic City and graduated from the University of Virginia, where he began writing about jazz artists and producing jazz concerts. He continued to produce concerts while serving in the Army in Korea. He then took a job as a music publicist with Columbia Records, after a brief stint as a freelance writer.

He eventually started his own publicity firm in New York and later expanded it to Los Angeles.

Mr. Levinson handled publicity for stars including Dave Brubeck, Rosemary Clooney, Stan Getz, Woody Herman, the Modern Jazz Quartet and Mel Tormé. He publicized the hit television series “Dallas” and the film “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), which won an Academy Award for best picture. He helped to orchestrate the campaign to issue a postage stamp honoring Duke Ellington.

In an interview in 2004 with Tom Nolan on the Web site januarymagazine.com, Mr. Levinson said he had never planned to become an author. “I can’t say that I set a path for myself to do this,” he said. “It just occurred to me.”

“If you work as a publicist,” he added, “you’re working not only with artists but with managers and agents and so forth. You get an understanding of what careers are all about.”

Mr. Levinson’s first book was “Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James” (1999), a biography of the trumpeter and bandleader. Mr. Levinson mined his reminiscences from 24 years of knowing James, as well as from 200 interviews with musicians and James’s friends, to paint a portrait that pulled few punches.

“Long before there was sex, drugs and rock and roll, there was sex, alcohol and big-band swing,” People magazine said about the book. “And as this surprisingly absorbing biography suggests, trumpet player Harry James could have been the role model for Mick Jagger.”

Mr. Levinson next wrote “September in the Rain: The Life of Nelson Riddle” (2001), about the arranger known for his work with Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole. Variety praised Mr. Levinson’s detailed description of the artistic and personal relationship between Sinatra and Riddle, again drawing from his experiences with both. But the review also complained that mountains of “mundane detail” got in the way of the Sinatra story.

His next book was “Tommy Dorsey: Livin’ in a Great Big Way” (2005), which told how Sinatra patterned himself after Dorsey, the trombonist and bandleader, in everything from his way of breathing while singing to his wardrobe to his dashing self-assuredness. A fourth book, “Puttin’ on the Ritz: Fred Astaire and the Fine Art of Panache — a Biography,” was published in March, 2009.

Reviews

[Chris D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well researched book that was well balanced. The reader will find out what made Dorsey well respected as a musician and not well liked as a person.

[Matthew Walls]

Excellent book. This was a very fair read of the life of Tommy Dorsey, both good and bad points made clear. The writing style was very good and reading it was easy. What took me a while was that I would come across titles of songs recorded by Tommy, and then I would go and listen to them on Youtube before proceeding further in the book. :-)

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very, very thoroughly researched. I learned far too much about the members of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, but man, do I know his music now!

[Buddy Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice read, especially following George T. Simon's "Big Bands." I recently bought some used vinyl with lots of swing, so the topic was more interesting than it otherwise would have been. The music is great, and this book gives a good idea how it came about, though I never felt I got to know Tommy Dorsey all that well. Seems to me no one did, so they spoke of him as if he were a puzzle. I guess some people are like that. I hadn't realized his similarities to Sinatra and Buddy Rich, really remarkable.

[Cindy Bonner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many interesting personal tidbits. I wish it had been written in a more engaging style, instead of so much focus on the musicological timeline.

[Dan Sendker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tommy Dorsey was an asshole, and biographer Peter Levinson often twists himself into knots trying to defend his horrible behavior towards his wives, and children, brother and most of all, bandmates. While he lets Tommy off the hook more than he should, the reader won't be as easily fooled. That said, Levinson does a phenomenal job covering Dorsey's impressive career. His repeated feuds/reconciliations with his brother Jimmy are woven throughout the book in a very natural way - Jimmy will sometimes disappear for 40, 50 pages before being brought back into the narrative. The middle part of the book also focuses heavily on Tommy Dorsey's mentor/rival relationship with Frank Sinatra. This is probably the strongest part of the book for me. Other relationships with musicians such as Buddy Rich, Bing Crosby, Jo Stafford, Charlie Shavers, and Bunny Berigan are also highlights, while jazz giants like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller are always in the background. We even see the important role that Dorsey played in launching the career of Elvis Presley (now that I'm writing all this, I suppose another valid criticism of the book is that there is a ton of name-dropping, especially in the latter half).

I've been playing Tommy Dorsey's music for 19 years now. This book, which I first read in 2008, gave me a deeper understanding of, and appreciation for, songs like "Song of India," "I'll Never Smile Again," and "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You." The man himself was a trainwreck, but his music has enriched my life for nearly 2 decades, and has enriched American culture since the 1930s. This book captures what was unique about big band music, and was much better than George T. Simon's Glenn Miller biography.

[Patrick Macke · Rating 4 out of 5]

before there was Sinatra, there was Dorsey; flawed, driven, ego-centric, all-business ... what a great era to be alive with that big-band soundtrack

[David Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-researched and a joy to read.

[M.E. Logan]

An era gone by and no one to take his place.

[Jonathan Frankel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice read - covered his career nicely. Not much else to say here.