Patti's After-Party: Jeff Bush of The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra

Related Stories

A Chat With Legendary Keys Player Reese Wynans

It’s been nearly 70 years since the great big band leader Tommy Dorsey passed away, yet the music of that era is not only alive and well, it’s thriving for many reasons, especially because The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra is so incredibly active, both in touring and recording. I had a really special opportunity to speak with Jeff Bush, the Music Director of The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra recently and it was fascinating. It’s not a genre I get to dig into every day, so I learned a lot while being equally entertained. The swing era might be long gone, but the music it brought to the world has never left.

For a little background on Jeff Bush, he’s a native of Western Pennsylvania and began playing music very young. “I got the music bug very early,” he said. “My first instrument was the banjo. I used to really love a show called Hee Haw on TV and I wanted to be Roy Clark. He was great, he was my first hero.” Roy Clark and Buck Owens were a big part of many of our lives back in the day. The show was funny, often corny, but the music was always top notch. Bush remarked, “Lots of good music on that show and even though I don’t do much country these days, those were great musicians.”

From the Hee Haw cornfield, Bush moved on to the trombone which has remained his main instrument to this day. He excelled as a trombonist which allowed him to join some noteworthy bands as a young man. He shared, “It’s funny, growing up I was always a working musician and then I joined the Glenn Miller Orchestra when I was 19. I toured with them for two summers while I was going to college and then I joined Buddy Morrow and The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra when I was about 23 or 24. I got on those bands kind of early and it was a great training ground for me.”

Always learning, Bush spent time studying under jazz trombonist Jiggs Whigham in Berlin. While chatting about Whigham, Bush threw out a fun fact. Whigham, who is still alive and well, along with the late Jack Teagarden and Frank Rosolino, also master trombonists, all share the same birthday, August 20th. Jeff Bush’s birthday doesn’t fall on that day, but he’s not far off, celebrating on August 31st. I never realized great trombone players have a tendency to be born in August, but it seems they do.

He’s had the opportunity to work with so many gifted musicians, so when I asked Bush if there were any that really stood out for him, he had a little trouble, but he managed to pull an answer (or two) out of his hat. “Boy, there’s a lot. I got to stand next to, and work with, the great Benny Golson twice and he was an amazing musician and an amazing gentleman. To stand and play ‘Along Came Betty’ next to him and try to improvise on it next to him, it was intimidating and beautiful. So that’s one that stands out. I have a picture of that in my office and it was great.” Benny Golson was a tenor saxophonist who died in 2024.

I wasn’t too surprised to hear him add that working with Buddy Morrow was a major highlight. He revealed, “Being in the big band world and being around people like band leader Buddy Morrow connected me with people he worked with during the swing era. He left a full scholarship to Julliard to go with Artie Shaw in the late 1930s, so to be under his employ was like being directly connected with the swing era. Every night on the bandstand with him was special. He was the band leader of The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra when I was a sideman and he led the band from 1977 all the way up to his passing in 2010. He literally went to work the night before he passed away.” 

Bush also had the honor of being a member of Harry Connick, Jr.’s band. “I worked for Harry and played lead trombone in his band for two years. It was a great job. I got to travel all over the world and also played on a couple records, I think on the Columbia label. We also did a lot of television. It was just a great job and I’m very grateful for those two years.” 

Why stop now? The list goes on and on, but I started pulling random names from his bio and asking about them. What was working with Paul Anka like? “I got to work with him on the east coast whenever he was in New York City,” he said. “I was never in his traveling party, but I would sit in with him a number of times when he played the casinos and theaters in New York and New Jersey.” 

This is a nifty little tidbit. At one time, Jeff Bush found himself playing shows with some of the cast members of the hit HBO series The Sopranos. He shared, “I worked with the guys who were the actors on The Sopranos. They would do kind of an R-rated Frank Sinatra tribute with a lot of swearing and a lot of fun. There was even a little bit of singing.” The name of that show was Sinatra Meets The Sopranos. He went on to say, “We did some shows in Atlantic City, I think one place we played was The Borgata. We played at the comedy club at Madison Square Garden. I don’t think I can say some of the things they did, but it was funny and outrageous.” As an avid viewer of The Sopranos I asked which actors were involved in the show, to which Bush replied, “That’s where I’m bad. I’m trying to remember, but it was many years ago and many gigs ago. I do remember that one of them sat on my lap though,” he added with a laugh. A Google search revealed some of the cast members to be Michael Imperioli, Steven Schirripa and the late Vincent Pastore.

How about the legendary Frankie Valli? Yes, Bush worked with him a number of times too. Let’s not stop there. Others he’s played with include The Four Tops, The Temptations, Bobby Caldwell and Christina Aguilera, to name a few. In addition to recording with Harry Connick, Jr., he also did one record with Tom Waits. Bush commented that when he performed live with artists like Frankie Valli or Paul Anka, he was always amazed by the number of hit songs they had. “I’d be at one of their gigs and be thinking, ‘Wow! This is his tune too?’ It’s just amazing the amount of hit songs these people had.”

Let’s not forget Broadway musicals, he did those too. Hit shows such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, South Pacific and How the Grinch Stole Christmas were just a few he’s played in the orchestra pit for. We talked a bit about South Pacific. “I subbed on South Pacific a bunch and it was really amazing. They had the complete original orchestration up at Lincoln Center, the whole thing. They didn’t cut anything down and to hear all those string parts and all the woodwinds, that’s a rarity because all these things get reduced for money purposes. They ran the full thing and it was an amazing sound.” 

“I’ll take Jingles for $400 Alex.” Just another of his many talents, Jeff Bush also wrote a jingle for Jeopardy! That’s been one of my mother’s favorite shows for years, so I had to ask about it. Bush explained, “Oh yeah, a long time ago when I worked for the Cab Calloway Orchestra they used the whole band and we did a jingle for Jeopardy! I believe they were radio spots. My parents watched the show and I remember my dad telling me he heard the jingle on the radio in the Pittsburgh market. We recorded the jingle in New York, but I don’t think I ever heard it there.”

Speaking of Pittsburgh, in addition to all of the other hats Bush wears, he also serves as Coordinator of Jazz Studies at Duquesne University. At the time we spoke on the phone, Bush mentioned, “Our semester is about to fire up here.” He was having ensemble auditions that weekend and was looking forward to the first day of classes. When I said it was apparent that he was really busy and probably not bored, he laughed and responded, “No, definitely not bored, but thankful.”

Is there anything that he feels like he hasn’t done yet, but would like to? Not really. He elaborated, “Well, I’m doing it right now leading the great Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and having a big band. I won’t lie, it’s a lot of work to get the band to the bandstand, but when we finally get there and everyone and everything’s in place, that’s kind of what I’m going after right now. It’s a lot of fun and very rewarding. I have a big birthday at the end of the month and I’ve been lucky to be able to do what I love at this point in my life.”

Do musicians have favorite musicians? Yes they do, and often it’s many of them. As far as trombonists, Jeff Bush obviously counts the late Tommy Dorsey among his top picks. Giving me a short list, he shared, “There’s the great Frank Rosolino out of Detroit, Michigan. I just recorded a project of his material that’s hopefully going to be out by the end of the year. He’s one of my heroes. I also love Jack Teagarden and the great Carl Fontana. Those are some personal favorites and big influences for sure.”

Aside from jazz, you might be surprised with some other kinds of music Bush enjoys. “I love a lot of Brazilian music. I like a good polka. I like a good song from any era, and that might stretch the ears of some big band fans a little bit. Anything with a groove. There are some R & B things where I’m like, ‘Yeah, that feels good, that sounds good,’ some genres that are disparate from the big band genre.”

We’ve covered most of the bases to get a good foundation about Jeff Bush and now it’s time for the main event. Sentimental Over You is the new album from The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and it’s out now. I asked Bush how songs were chosen for the project, as The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra’s catalog is enormous. He replied, “The catalog is huge indeed and the Dorsey archive could be massive. As the Music Director, I had a strong hand in picking the songs, but with our management partners we looked over each song and thought about what would make sense both programming-wise and difficulty-wise. We also added a couple of new things that folks wouldn’t expect. We tried to get a good balance for the record.” 

One of the songs that’s included on the track list is “When The Saints Go Marching In,” an African-American folk hymn that’s widely-known all over the world. Jeff Bush explained how the song landed on the album. “It’s a public domain song and I wrote the arrangement on it. We kind of wanted to add an element of traditional jazz or Dixieland music because Tommy Dorsey carried a small band within his big band called the Clambake Seven. They’d play New Orleans jazz. So I wrote the arrangement for the big band, but we could put some Dixieland jazz on there and close our performances with that one. It’s becoming an audience favorite.” Hopefully people who have seen the live shows and heard the band’s version of “When The Saints Go Marching In” will be happy to see it on the album. Here’s the full track list:

Sentimental Over You Track Listing

01 I’m Getting Sentimental Over You

02 Opus One

03 The Minor Goes Muggin’

04 Yes Indeed

05 Song Of India

06 Taking A Chance On Love

07 Birmingham Bounce

08 Flagler Drive

09 Marie

10 I’ll Never Smile Again

11 Quiet Please

12 Mr. Sandman

13 Little White Lies

14 Summertime

15 When The Saints Go Marching In 

To purchase / stream Sentimental Over You click HERE.

Sometimes during the making of a record, things happen. Great things, mundane things or downright catastrophic things. As far as creating Sentimental Over You, most everything went smoothly, but there were just a couple of hiccups. I’ll let Jeff Bush fill you in. “The recording process was great, the musicians were great, the studio was great. It’s stressful to get all that together and my wife was helping out with it. She slipped and fell at a restaurant the night before and she hurt herself. I also got a real nasty cold while we were doing all that and I had to go back and overdub my vocals. Other than those two things the record went off so well. I was so proud of all the musicians. They showed up and took care of business. I couldn’t have asked for anything more from the band and the studio. Post-production in Florida went great, Hindsight (the record label) has been great, so behind the scenes couldn’t have gone any better honestly.”

Of course this conversation never would have happened if it weren’t for the late Tommy Dorsey. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who has never heard of the band leader, whether they’re familiar with his music or not. Dorsey died unexpectedly at age 51 in 1956. At this point in time, his legacy has gone on longer than he was actually alive. I asked Bush if he thought Dorsey’s legacy would have been different had he lived longer and had more time to work in his field. He responded, “That’s hard to say, but I will say that maybe the popularity or the strength of the big band era might have gone in different directions a little bit. At that time, in 1956, he was having a resurgence. Tommy and his brother Jimmy had just completed a television show called Stage Show, which was a summer replacement for The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason. The show aired on Saturday nights and they introduced Elvis Presley for the first time on national television.”

He continued, “They’d signed a multi-year deal to work six months out of the year as a residency at the Café Rouge in New York City and they had that television show, so I think that his passing was unexpected for sure, it was a huge shock. Of course Jimmy passed away just six months after Tommy, so to lose them both was a big blow. In my opinion, I think if he would have survived, the big band era might have continued a bit stronger than it did.”

There’s no doubt it did survive or The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and other similar ones wouldn’t exist, but one can’t help wondering what might have been had the Dorsey brothers not died so young. 

A key player in the original Tommy Dorsey Orchestra was Frank Sinatra and Jeff Bush is a big fan of the Chairman of the Board. His take? “He’s the greatest male singer of all time.” I would bet there are people worldwide who would agree. 

Are you interested in seeing The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra live? You can! A fall tour will be kicking off September 24th in Dewitt, Iowa. According to Jeff Bush they’ll be returning to some cities they’ve played before and they’ve added some new places, including San Francisco and the Pacific Northwest. To view the entire tour schedule click HERE.

Who can you expect to see in the audience if you go? Bush said, “Different age groups, absolutely, but when we’re lucky enough to have someone from the Greatest Generation (people born roughly  from 1901 to 1927) still with us, there are a handful of World War II veterans and they still come out. That’s a huge blessing when they come to the shows. I would put the majority of our folks in the general Baby Boomer generation. What I hear from them, and it’s actually quite poignant, is what I call ‘double nostalgia’ because this wasn’t necessarily their music, they might be coming more from the rock and roll generation, but they heard this music is the house growing up. It’s their parents’ music, so I call these people the ‘double nostalgia.’” They’re remembering this music and they’re remembering their parents. That’s a huge bulk of our audience, but we do get young people. Some people will choose to dress up really nicely and come to our concerts. I’ll see them in the front row. Sometimes they’ll get up and dance and they have a great time.”

He went on, “Then sometimes we’ll do educational things at high schools where we’ll have a clinic. All these young students play a tune with us at the concerts. It’s important to expose the young folks to this music as well. So we do get a variety of people at our shows.” 

After hearing all of this, does anyone believe that Jeff Bush has any free time? It’s difficult to imagine, but every now and then he does manage to find some. “I enjoy playing golf quite a bit. I love to cook and I like to work in my yard and maintain my home. That’s very relaxing to me when I have a minute to do it.”

I always try to squeeze in a random question and since we had enough time, I got one in. The question card read, “If you were completely deaf, but were somehow able to hear for one hour each month, what would you most often want to hear for that hour?” That was a crazy question to ask a musician of all people! I pick them out of a box randomly and sometimes irony takes over. 

Bush replied, “That’s a tough question. Well, honestly, the music that I love is a big part of it, but also all the voices of my family, and hopefully I could get my dog barking. Children laughing when they were younger and even now. Maybe the voices of my family who have passed. That’s probably what I’d spend that hour doing.”

Lastly, because we are Center Stage Magazine, I asked Jeff Bush to tell me about a time in his life where he felt like he was “Center Stage,” career-wise or any other time, it didn’t matter. He started this answer much like the last one. “That’s tough because performing all my life I’ve been on the stage and in the public eye. You kind of get used to that and I say that with humility, because if you ever lose humility, then you better check yourself. When I see someone really enjoying what we do and we’re taking them away from life and maybe even tough times, just for a minute, and helping them feel better via music, that’s when I feel ‘Center Stage.’ It’s not about the spotlight, the footlights, the glamor, the glitz or the money. If I help a human being for a minute, then I’m ‘Center Stage’ and I’m doing my job.”

I don’t think I can end this any better than he did. Great talent means nothing without humility. Making people forget their troubles, even for a couple of hours, that’s a life well-lived. Be sure to keep up with Jeff Bush and The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra on their website and social media. Drop him a line and be sure to tell them Center Stage Magazine sent you, and definitely get to a show!