Doc Severinsen sits in his cramped, cozy, unpretentious office, wearing a slightly toned-down version of his usual outrageous getup: blue jeans, sneakers and a 1960s-inspired sunshine tie with garish yellow sunshine spikes surrounding blazing red circles over a blue-and-green plaid flannel shirt.
”I put this on on purpose,” he says, smiling. On this dark, chilly, rain-soaked Los Angeles day, the bandleader of ”The Tonight Show” says he needed something to cheer himself up.
But as he allows himself to take a stroll down ”Tonight`s” memory lane, you get the feeling that Severinsen is going to need a lot more cheering in the days to come.
After 30 years (24 of them as Johnny Carson`s music director and celebrated court jester), the much-heralded trumpet player, along with the rest of the band, is facing that most bittersweet of show business traditions: closing night.
”We all knew it was coming,” Severinsen says quietly, ”but it still comes as a shock. You say to yourself, `Yeah, I`m ready. It`s time to move on.` But then, when you get the exact date, you say, `Wow, that`s sooner than I expected.”`
The date, May 22, is when Carson will close up shop after three spectacular, unprecedented decades as the undisputed king of late-night TV. Carson will return periodically to the small screen for primetime specials.
Carson sidekick Ed McMahon, also leaving, will keep busy as host of the syndicated ”Star Search,” which will expand in September from one night a week to six.
But ”Tonight`s” longtime executive producer, Fred DeCordova, asked by the network to stay on in his job, says he ”wouldn`t be surprised” if he decides to stick around for what will be, for many viewers, an emotionally wrenching transition.
On May 25, comedian and permanent guest host Jay Leno will take over
”The Tonight Show.” Saxophonist Branford Marsalis will be his new bandleader, heading an entirely new group of musicians.
Given the loss of their ”Tonight Show” jobs, it would be a minor miracle if Severinsen and his band could stay together indefinitely. The Grammy Award-winning musicians, most of whom have been playing together for more than 20 years, have already announced plans for a national tour in July. They will also continue to make record albums.
But as the individual musicians take on commitments to play in concerts and studio recordings, they say they expect to be pulled apart. Severinsen, for example, has already signed on as principal pops conductor for the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Phoenix Orchestra.
And so, for the band, the end of May will be the breakup of an American show business institution and the beginning of the breakup of a tightly knit show business family. The 16 regular band members-four trumpeters, three trombonists, five saxophonists, a drummer, a bassist, a pianist and a guitarist-say they will have to fill a great personal void in the years to come.
`The good life`
”It`s an odd feeling,” says the band`s renowned drummer, Ed Shaughnessy. ”Everybody asks you the same thing-`Are you happy or
unhappy?`-and I tell them it`s an odd mixture of feelings. I`ve had what many musicians say is the greatest job in the music business. It`s enabled a lot of us not to be full-time road people, and that`s one of the hardest things for a musician to find: financial security where you don`t have to be away all the time.”
”This has been like home base,” says trumpet player and Rogers Park native Maurie Harris. ”No matter what else you went off and did, you could always come back to this. We all knew it would have to come to an end eventually, but the ratings were always good and we thought Johnny would just go on.”
”For me, it`s meant `Thanks for 30 years of the good life,”` says saxophonist Tommy Newsom, whose fine arrangements have led many to label him a great unsung hero of the music industry, and whose deadpan expression has been the brunt of many Carson jokes.
”A steady paycheck, especially if you`re a musician, is a rare thing,”
Newsom says. ”They`ve asked us why we don`t integrate the band more and one reason is, nobody leaves. Why would they leave?”
`A great team`
Such longevity and cushy circumstances (the union scale for ”Tonight`s” musicians is roughly $65,000 a year, not including substantial outside income from concerts and recording sessions) might lead one to wonder whether they have become even the slightest bit lazy. Not according to DeCordova.
”They`re not just good once in a while, but all the time,” he says.
”There isn`t any kind of music they can`t play. They all realize they have one of the plum jobs of the industry, but I think their continued excellence has to do with the tremendous pride of all the people involved in the show.” ”What stuns me,” says McMahon, ”is that Doc still practices two hours a day. I`ll hear him in his office doing the scales. He told me once, `If I don`t practice every day, I`ll know it. After a couple of days, everybody will know it.`
”The reason they`re so good is just their incredible musicianship. They`ll see a new singer at 3 o`clock, and an hour later, they`ll have a new arrangement down perfectly. An hour after that, they`re on the air, and it`s like they`ve been playing that number for years.”
”It would be a shame to see this band dissolve and everybody go off in different directions,” Shaughnessy says, ”because the reason we sound as good as we do is because this particular band has been playing together for 20 years. It gives cohesiveness; it`s like a great team. And teamwork is what a Big Band is all about.”
Shaughnessy, seated in ”The Tonight Show`s” nearly-empty 500-seat studio at NBC Studios in Burbank, was relaxing after rehearsals. Like most of the band members, he has already lined up a number of personal appearances to keep his calendar filled after the last show. He says he`s grateful to have had his job for so many years.
He`s encouraged by the recent success of singer Harry Connick Jr. as a measure of the public`s renewed love affair with Big Band music. And he says the only reason ”Tonight`s” band has survived as the last of the
traditional, 16-member Big Bands to perform regularly on national TV is Johnny Carson.
”We wouldn`t be here if it wasn`t for Johnny,” Shaughnessy says.
”Because NBC, as is a well-known fact, came to him more than a few times about paring the band down. `Think of the money we could save,` they said.
`How about six people instead of 16?”`
Shaughnessy says Carson`s handling of the attempted cutbacks is one of his favorite memories. ”The way it was told to me was that Johnny said:
`While I`m here, the band is here, because that`s me. That`s the sound I like and that`s what I want.` ”
Says Carson himself: ”I have always been a huge fan of jazz and Big Band music. The Tonight Show Orchestra has helped to keep that Big Band sound and era alive for a lot of people who might otherwise not have been able to enjoy it.”
Carson and McMahon quite obviously enjoy it, seeming to get an adrenaline rush from each new tune during the show`s taping. What many at-home viewers may not realize is that the band plays continuously through every commercial break. With breaks lasting up to two minutes apiece, the stars and the studio audience are treated to at least six full-throttle musical numbers.
The highly charged music pumps additional voltage into a room already pulsing with enormous energy. It changes the feeling of the show from that of a run-of-the-mill taping to a big-ticket concert. Carson watches each number intently, tapping his pencil to the tunes. McMahon drums the rhythm on the couch.
”It gives great energy to the show,” DeCordova says. ”The combination of Johnny, Ed and Doc is one of intermingled importance: all three combine in a remarkable way. And whenever the band plays, the public just loves it.”
Said McMahon: ”I can come in at 5:30 and not feel good, or have a personal problem, or just have something on my mind. But when I hear that band, I`m ready to go.”
”My feelings when I`m playing run the gamut from A to Z,” Severinsen said. ”Sometimes frightened, sometimes frustrated, sometimes joyous. If I make a mistake, I try my best to cover it up.”
”He`s the most motivated guy I`ve ever seen in my life,” Newsom says.
”A perfectionist. He`s just as good as he was 30 years ago, and that`s an amazing thing for a trumpet player. It`s like being an athlete.”
”I call him Tiffany Lips,” says McMahon, laughing.
”I like Doc because he`s kept a high standard of musicality on this show,” Shaughnessy says. ”He`s never let it slip into what used to be known as the old studio routine: Hey, we got a secure job, why try? We try just as hard now on our last days as we did on our first.”
Doc`s dream
It`s hard to imagine that Severinsen, a whirling dervish and ball of fire on the studio floor, is 65. He has been playing the trumpet since he was 7, won national music competitions before he was out of high school and toured with the legendary bands of Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey. But this native of Arlington, Ore., who, as a child, used to sneak into neighbors` homes to get the thrill of blowing a bugle and an E-flat alto horn, credits his late father, an amateur violinist, with giving him the drive and ambition to realize his dreams.
”My father was a fine musician,” Severinsen says. ”When he realized that I was not going to play the violin, that I wanted to play the trumpet, he did everything he could for me. He`d stay up half the night figuring out how to do it and studying the music so he could teach me the next day.”
Severinsen says his father also gave him some great advice. ”My father told me, `Hitch your wagon to a star.` ” To the young trumpet player, that did not mean Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald or Johnny Carson. ”It meant don`t be afraid to look up and set your sights high and have dreams.”
What is Severinsen`s dream now? Despite 30 years on ”Tonight,” a 1987 Grammy, a 1984 Carnegie Hall concert, and his position as principal pops conductor for two big orchestras, Severinsen says, ”To play the trumpet the way I hear it in my head.”
