Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Donny Thompson talks to local jazz artists and features their music. The Jazz Outreach Initiative is here to help you discover your own personal joy for jazz.
Announcer
0:00:00
This is a KUNV Studios original program.
Wesley Knight
0:00:04
The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz & More, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Donny Thompson
0:00:18
You're listening to 91.5 KUNV Jazz & More, and this program is underwritten by the Augustinus trattoria a small local family-owned Italian restaurant at the corner of West Flamingo and Buffalo specializing in classic always scratch Italian favorites Handmade pastas and desserts for more information go to the Augustinus LV calm In the studio today, I'm excited to welcome trumpeter, producer, and composer Dale Thompson. Dale produced the multi-platinum albums in The Christmas Mood from the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and I thought this being the holiday season, we'd swing in the holidays.
Donny Thompson
0:01:01
See what I did there, Dale?
Dale Thompson
0:01:02
Yes.
Donny Thompson
0:01:02
With a few songs from these iconic records. Welcome, Dale Thompson, to the Joy of Jazz.
Dale Thompson
0:01:07
Well, thank you very much, Donnie. I really appreciate being invited, and it's always fun to talk about these recordings. We made them so long ago, yet they're still being played.
Donny Thompson
0:01:18
We're going to listen to a couple of songs as well coming up. Of course, you and I know each other more recently from your role as volunteer director of Jazz Outreach Initiative's Jazz Roots Program. That's the one, of course, if the folks out there haven't heard. Jazz Outreach Initiative gives music instruments to needy children, and our donors pay for the year's worth of private lessons.
Donny Thompson
0:01:38
So a lot of non-profits out there are no strangers to giving instruments, but I think that JOI or Jazz Outreach Initiative might be one of the only, or perhaps the only one that actually pays for the music lessons that go with it. So Dale, I appreciate all the volunteer work that you do to help support that program.
Dale Thompson
0:01:53
Thank you, Donny. It's my pleasure. In fact, I've been involved in helping beginning musicians for quite a long time in my professional career outside of my playing as being a national sales manager with Yamaha and VP of sales with Guitar Center. So that's all we ever did was deal with beginning musicians.
Donny Thompson
0:02:14
That's great and that gets me to the next point that I want to make. In addition to your fascinating history as a musician, composer and arranger, tell us a little bit about how you got your start and what your journey was leading into the
Dale Thompson
0:02:25
Glenn Miller Orchestra. Sure. I started when I was 11 years old. I started playing in school band. I wanted to play trumpet and I did and fortunately there was a trumpet in my family. My brother, older brother, had tried playing trumpet at one time and didn't go very far. I think a
Dale Thompson
0:02:44
couple months. So we had a trumpet in the attic. So my father said, well we got a trumpet here if you wanted to take lessons, go ahead. I started in school. Long story short, it really took off with me. I just loved playing trumpet and I practiced a lot. I started when I was 11.
Dale Thompson
0:03:05
When I was 12, I started taking private lessons. My teacher wanted me to play in a local community band, so I did. And in order to play and perform in that community band, I had to be a member of the American Federation of Musicians. So I wound up joining the American Federation of Musicians when I was 13. It was March of 1959 I became a member of the American Federation of Musicians. So I wound up playing with local bands, and I'm talking about concert bands, played in bandshells, we played marches, we played Sunday picnics, we did all kinds
Dale Thompson
0:03:42
of things. And then in school, we had a little jazz band and it was made up of not only some high school kids but also some college kids. And we wound up playing at country clubs and we wound up playing at fraternity, sorority houses in the local schools around my home. By the way, I was raised in a little town called Emmaus, Pennsylvania,
Dale Thompson
0:04:04
outside of Allentown. There were a lot of colleges, universities. Lehigh University was right around there, and several others within that vicinity. I wound up playing at a lot of these places. When I was a senior in high school, I didn't know where I wanted to go to college, but I knew I wanted to study music. My sister lived in San Francisco and my sister said why don't you come out here and stay with me and go to school out here. And would you believe it was the only school I applied to for college and I was accepted
Dale Thompson
0:04:40
San Francisco State University and I wound up at the age of 17 flying to San Francisco and started college there and when a music major of course and first thing I thought about is like well where can I work because I thought it would be nice to make a little money and playing and I remember the other students were just kind of laughing at me saying in a town like San Francisco you're not going to work you know you're 17 years old whatever and would you believe the first job I had
Dale Thompson
0:05:11
somebody asked me if I wanted to go and play with a Latin band and it was the Escovedo Latin Jazz Band, Pete & Coke Escovedo and Sheely's dad was Pete Escovedo and they had this Latin band that had four trumpet books but they only paid for three trumpets, right? So the fourth book it was like open and if anybody wanted to come and play and sit in they could. So I went to sit in with the Escovedo Latin Jazz Band on the fourth one but the third trumpet player didn't show
Dale Thompson
0:05:40
up that night. So I wound up playing third trumpet, and I think about three quarters of the night into the set, the third trumpet player showed up, and Pete and Coke Escobedo just looked at him and said, go home. And they turned to me and said, you got the gig. And I was like 18, I think, at the time.
Dale Thompson
0:05:58
So I wound up working with the Escobedo Latin Jazz Band on and off for a little over three years. And also when I was going to college in the summer, I was offered a job up at Lake Tahoe playing a show called Viva La Girls. And it was a Frederick Gapar review. It was a topless review. I was 19 years old and it was like, do you want to play this thing?
Dale Thompson
0:06:20
I said, can I? And they said, well, you wore a shirt though, right?
Donny Thompson
0:06:23
You wore a shirt.
Dale Thompson
0:06:24
Oh, of course. The band wasn't topless. But it was a great show. It was the same show that was playing at the Dunes here in Vegas. It was playing at Nevada Lodge up in North Shore Lake Tahoe. So I played that for two summers. And by the way, Nevada Lodge was right across the street from the Calneva, which was Frank Sinatra's club. And he owned it up through
Dale Thompson
0:06:41
1966, I believe. And I was there in 1965-66. So it was a lot of fun. How did you end up in Vegas. Well here's what happened I was there at Tahoe went back to San Francisco It was between my junior and senior year and I was gonna go back to school and Someone said daily would you like to go on the road with a circus and I had to think about it
Dale Thompson
0:07:03
I said, yeah, why not and I never said no to almost any gig. I love to play So I wound up going on the road with circus for a little over a year and I wound up coming home during a break and I got a call from a guy named Richie Bars and he said, Dale, I heard about you and I heard you're a good trumpet player and I heard you're home for a while and you're not working right now. How would you like to join the Miller Band? And I thought he was talking about the Miller Polka Band from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania or
Dale Thompson
0:07:35
something. I said, sure, you know, why not? Where's the gig? When do I show up?" and whatever. He said, well, I'd like you to fly to Atlanta. And I went, wait a minute, who is this again? And it was the manager of the Glenn Miller Band, so the Glenn Miller Orchestra under the direction of Buddy DeFranco. So I joined that band on my 22nd birthday in 1967. And I was on that band until 63, 73. And then I got a call from a guy named Sam Donahue who was the leader of a house band at a casino in Reno. That was actually Sparks in Nevada, the Nugget. Sam Donahue, by the way, he
Dale Thompson
0:08:11
was the guy who, he had the Navy band when Glenn Miller had the Air Force band and then he went on to help start the Navy School of Music and then when he got out he wound up funding the Tommy Dorsey band for a while with Frank Sinatra Jr. singing. I don't know if you remember when, we're running out of time here, you remember when Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped? He was the leader of that band. Anyway, he asked me to join the band at the Nugget in Sparks, Nevada. I did. Long story short, I worked my way out of that by becoming a union
Dale Thompson
0:08:48
official and as a union official you couldn't work as a professional musician and I wound up working for the I was president of the Reno Musicians Union for about five years six years then I worked for the AFM in Hollywood
Dale Thompson
0:09:18
for a couple years and then I didn't like that so I wanted to do something
Donny Thompson
0:09:26
different and I was a Yamaha artist so I called Yamaha and said you have any
Dale Thompson
0:09:18
Nevada, Arizona, and I wound up moving to Las Vegas. All right, and that's the Yamaha gig. That was the Yamaha gig. But I mean, you can see the evolution in how I got to Las Vegas.
Donny Thompson
0:09:26
Yeah. So you brought a few great recordings, by the way. Of course, I've listened to these for the past few years as well. I've had them since you graciously gave those recordings to me as well. Which one are we going to listen to first from the Glenn Miller Orchestra's In the Christmas Mood album?
Dale Thompson
0:09:39
Yeah, the title tune is from the first one and the title tune is called In the Christmas Mood. It's a song that I wrote and it was while I was training for Yamaha and I gave it to John LaBarber, a ranger, who arranged the title, Dune Called, in the Christmas mood. A story about it, what I wanted was it to be very authentic Glenn Miller. And if you ever heard a Glenn Miller arrangement of something like Chattanooga Choo Choo, what it does is it starts off with the band playing a full chorus, going into a vocal chorus,
Dale Thompson
0:10:25
and then after the vocal there's like a shout chorus with just a band again and that's what we did with In the Christmas Mood and at the end the shout chorus at the end on In the Christmas Mood is actually We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Excellent. So we're going to take a listen to In the Christmas Mood, the title track from the album by the Glenn Miller Orchestra's In
Donny Thompson
0:10:42
the Christmas Mood.
Music
0:10:45
Oh, Oh, yeah Yeah the The band was set to go The time was right for dancing We came to play the holiday It really was quite a show
Music
0:11:20
But we're sure you know The folks at home are waiting We'd like to stay until it's day But man, we gotta go Here's a melody that we play
Music
0:12:56
For the Christmas season
Music
0:12:59
Hope you're here again next year Happy holidays So here's our final tune A riff that's syncopated From us to you, us, Wayne and you We're in the Christmas mood
Music
0:13:16
So here's a final tune A riff that's syncopated from us to you When you're wearing the Christmas blues That was In The Christmas Mood from the album In The Christmas Mood from the Glenn Rimmler Orchestra. Welcome back to Jazz Outreach Initiative's The Joy of Jazz, underwritten by DiAgostino's
Music
0:13:53
Trattoria.
Donny Thompson
0:13:54
This is your host, Donnie Thompson, and if you're joining us just now, we're visiting with Dale Thompson listening to some Christmas music from the Glenn Miller Orchestra's albums In the Christmas Mood. These were multi-platinum selling albums and obviously you're still out there
Dale Thompson
0:14:38
on sale, right? Yeah, all told, to date, these three recordings together have sold in excess of four and a half million copies. That's amazing. So that explains the
Donny Thompson
0:14:49
Rolls-Royce you have out in the parking lot, right?
Dale Thompson
0:14:51
I wish. I wish.
Donny Thompson
0:14:53
Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about your time with the actual Glenn Miller Orchestra. There were some incredible musicians sitting around you in that band, weren't there?
Dale Thompson
0:15:01
Yeah. Well, first of all, the leader, Buddy DeFranco, world's greatest jazz clarinet player, and what an excellent musician. And all of the musicians that were on the Glenn Miller band band. We're primarily there because Buddy was the leader. He was such a perfectionist and what he wanted us to do was be an authentic Glenn Miller orchestra. Through the years when Tex Benneke had the band, they turned the band more into a Glenn Miller sounding band playing pop tunes. They did like a Tijuana Brass album or In the Mod album and things like that.
Dale Thompson
0:15:38
But we wanted to get back to the tradition of playing Glenn Miller music. So we went into the archives in New York and got some real authentic music that Glenn Miller band actually played from like 39 through 44. And we listened to them and we decided we wanted to play exactly like the original band. And I think we did a good job doing it. Being with the band, the band traveled a lot.
Dale Thompson
0:16:05
I was offered jobs with Woody Herman or Harry James or Stan Kenton. And every time I thought about going with a different band, I always talked about, well, what's the difference and why would I do it? And all the musicians on the road said the same thing. We play the same tunes in the same order night after night. It's only the venues we play and how much we get paid. And the Glenn Miller Orchestra, every Sunday night we
Dale Thompson
0:16:32
got paid and it was a check from the Chase Manhattan Bank. And we played private parties and conventions every night of the week. All you could drink, all you could eat every night. And we toured the world. Every year we went to Europe, every year we went to Asia. And every time I thought maybe I should leave the band for a while, it was like, well, we're going to Europe in six months from now, or we're going to Japan in six
Dale Thompson
0:16:56
months from now and stay on the band, you know, so I did. And, um, John Labarbera was one of the arrangers on the band, uh, wrote a lot of music for the Buddy Rich band. And what he used to do is write charts for Buddy on the back of the Glenn Miller bus, and we used to play them for him and record them and send them to Buddy. This is the Glenn Miller band.
Dale Thompson
0:17:17
So the band was just top musicians and most of the musicians that were on the Glenn Miller band just stayed for quite a long time.
Donny Thompson
0:17:23
That's great. Let's take a break and listen to some more of this great music for the holidays. This one is from the same album?
Dale Thompson
0:17:30
Yeah, I think we're going with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Alright, tell us a little, just quickly, about maybe 10 seconds about this song. Well, every song on the album, including this one, and especially this one, has little motifs from the original Glenn Miller band. You can hear little... They call them Easter eggs. Easter eggs, yeah. The doo-wops, doo-wops, or little motifs taken from String of Pearls, or In the Mood, or Tuxedo Junction, and you hear them throughout the arrangement. Yeah, so
Donny Thompson
0:17:57
everybody check out Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from In the Christmas Mood, a Glenn Miller orchestra.
Music
0:18:03
Christmas Mood, the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose. And if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows. All of the other reindeers used to laugh and call him names. They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Music
0:18:54
Santa came to say
0:18:57
Rudolph with your nose so bright Won't you guide my sleigh tonight
Music
0:19:03
Then all the reindeer loved him As they shouted out with glee Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer You've forgotten his story You've forgotten history so
Music
0:19:28
Ha ha! Ha ha! Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer Had a very shiny nose And if you ever saw it You would even say it's glow
Music
0:19:42
All of the other reindeer All up behind her reindeer, used to like a potty made. They never left poor Rudolph, joined in any reindeer games. Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say, Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight? late tonight
Donny Thompson
0:20:17
welcome back to jazz outreach initiatives the joy of jazz underwritten by DiAgostino Strataria. This is your host, Donnie Thompson. If you're just joining us, we're visiting with Dale Thompson, listening to Christmas music from the Glenn Miller Orchestra's In the Christmas Mood album. Dale, I'm interested to know the process of how this music came to be written and recorded for these albums.
Dale Thompson
0:21:30
Well, thank you. First of all, when I was on the band, I always said, you know, the Glenn Miller sound would be very conducive to Christmas music. I could just hear it in my head, you know, all the Christmas tunes played with a Miller sound. And the Glenn Miller band just didn't do it for one reason or another. And when I got off the band, I kept saying, you know, we should have made a Christmas album. We should have done a Christmas album.
Dale Thompson
0:21:53
And I kept saying it over and over again to a lot of people I talked to that I met during the time I was on the band. One of these individuals, his name was Rich Wilhoite, who was an oil guy from Louisville, Kentucky, who said, Dale, I'm tired of hearing you say this. Let's do it. He said, I'll fund it.
Dale Thompson
0:22:10
I'll underwrite it. You do it. So what we did was got permission from the Glenn Miller Estate to call it the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and we got Dave Volpe and John LaBarbera to do all the arranging, and we hired musicians, the prerequisite was that they had to be alumni of the Glenn Miller Orchestra and we got them from all over the world. One guy came from as far as Australia
Dale Thompson
0:22:35
to come play. Two of the musicians that we used on the Christmas recordings were from here in Las Vegas. One was Thompson Nelson, great lead trumpet player. I was playing lead when he joined the band and then when I left the band, he took over. And when we said, for these recordings, who should we get for lead trumpet, there was nobody that we decided to use other than Tom Snelson.
Dale Thompson
0:22:57
We all wanted to use Tom to play lead, great lead trumpet player. Also, Larry O'Brien. Larry was the current leader of the Glenn Miller Orchestra. And we wanted him to play with the band also for these recordings. Larry started here in Las Vegas and then I know he went on the Tommy Dorsey band with Sam Donahue. He was the leader of the Frank Sinatra
Dale Thompson
0:23:21
Jr. Orchestra for many, many years and then he led the Glenn Miller Orchestra for I think somewhere around 15 years. So Larry is a great trombone player, again a local guy from here in Las Vegas and he played lead trombone on all three recordings. We recorded in New York City at NOLA Studios in New York, that's where Sesame Street used to be recorded. I met Igg Bird there. And we did all three of them.
Dale Thompson
0:23:45
We did the first one and it was so popular that three years later we wound up doing the second one and four years later we did the Nutcracker.
Donny Thompson
0:23:51
That's great. So we're going to listen to our final track of the show, but before we introduce it, let's make sure the audience knows where they can find this incredible music if they'd like to explore your catalog more. And I guess before I do that, I want to thank you, Dale Thompson, for donating original charts from the Glenn Miller orchestras in the Christmas Mood albums
Donny Thompson
0:24:08
to the Jazz Vegas Orchestra, an offshoot of Jazz Outreach Initiative. We've played that of course several times now over the past few years since you donated that music generously to us and we really enjoy it. The audience loves it. And if there's anybody out there that's interested, the Jazz Vegas Orchestra is going to be playing some of the music from these albums at VIX this Wednesday at the 18th at 7 o'clock. So if anybody is interested, you're welcome to head over to the VIX website if you want
Donny Thompson
0:24:34
to and make a reservation to hear this incredible music live from a really world-class jazz band. But then YouTube, Spotify, all the streaming platforms, Amazon.
Dale Thompson
0:24:44
iTunes, it used to be you could buy cassettes and CDs in all the Best Buy's and Target and things like that, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, but that just doesn't happen anymore. You can still find, you know, hard copies of CDs online, like Amazon or whatever, but mostly it's the streaming platforms, iTunes, Spotify, things
Donny Thompson
0:25:03
like that. Yeah, everybody, if you're interested, you know where to find it. You've got your cell phones and your car phones and all that stuff going on. So, Dale Thompson, thank you so much and thank you to our listeners for tuning in and of course to our friends here at KUNV 91.5 Jazz and More, especially our producer Wesley Knight who keeps us honest and the whole team. And if you would like to hear more about Jazz Outreach Initiative, the Jazz Vegas Orchestra and its many performances here this year, I think we're going to do up to 30 performances in 2025. Our many youth jazz
Donny Thompson
0:25:31
programs that we have and ways you can participate, you can certainly find us easily at jazzvegas.org. And Dale, give us a quick intro of this last song from the album series before we wrap this up.
Dale Thompson
0:25:42
The last selection we're going to be doing is Santa Claus is Coming to Town. A little bit of story behind this is it was used, asked to be used, as the music behind the trailer to the Little Fockers movie.
Donny Thompson
0:25:57
Wes, in the studio there, that's the Fockers, so don't hit the red button on us. Go ahead, Dale.
Dale Thompson
0:26:02
Here we are, Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Donny Thompson
0:26:04
Santa Claus is Coming to Town from Glen Miller Orchestras in the Christmas Mood
Dale Thompson
0:26:07
arranged by Dave Wolpe.
Music
0:26:10
the the the Oh, I'm a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, so
Music
0:27:17
So, so the the the the
Transcribed with Cockatoo