Bob Crosby & His Orchestra

Bob Crosby & His Orchestra
1983
Bob with Bing

Bob leading the Orchestra the night I worked with him

This was a one-shot deal. I include it here because it was a major event in my career and also the most embarrasing! I do not sight read music. In over 38 years of playing live and in studios, there have only been three ocassions during which I wished I could read, and this was one of them.

When Clare Willey called me to ask if I wanted to play with Bob Crosby (yes, Bing's brother), I was very excited about the prospect. I also expressed my reservations knowing this was a big band with written arrangements. Clare told me not to worry, I could always read the chord symbols in the piano book and nobody would know the difference, like I did with his big band. To ease my concerns a bit, I also located every recording I could find by Bob Crosby's band and memorized them. I figured I had it nailed.

The place was The Sun Dome, Sun City, Arizona. The audience, about 2,000. Everybody in black tie. The stage was grand. Bob gave us the downbeat and I started playing. To be fair, I'd bet a years salary that nobody, including the other players in the band (they were all ringers from the Phoenix Musician's Union, Local 586, where I was also a member) knew I wasn't actually playing the bass book. They had never seen it, so how would they know? I wasn't playing clinkers and everything I played fit the music. But three people knew. Me, Clare and Bob Crosby. He glared at me! Three songs into the first show, he snarled, lol! About half way through the show, he stopped the orchestra right in the middle of a song and yelled up at me "Hey bassman! Have you got a book up there?" to which I replied "of course." Then he yelled over the P.A. system loud and clear for EVERYONE to hear, "then play the God damned thing!" Two thousand people laughed. I felt about 2 feet tall.

Clare looked around at me and said "don't listen to him, anyone who would humiliate you publically like that is a jerk. Just keep doing what you're doing, you're doing fine." And that's what I did.

We did two shows that night. After they were over, I walked up to Bob, extended my hand and said that I had really appreciated the opportunity to work with his band, and that it had always been a dream of mine to play with a band the calibur of his. He responded by refusing my hand and saying "You have a sick sense of humor," then turned and walked away.

There was a movie made during the 1950's about the life of jazz trumpeter Red Nichols, which starred Danny Kaye, and was called "The Five Pennies." Bob Crosby was in that film, playing a band leader who was arrogant and rude to Danny. There is a particular scene in which Bob demeans Danny in front of the rest of the orchestra and audience with rude remarks that conclude with: "Shut up, stick that horn in your mouth and blow!" Been there, done that!

One more thing . . . the opening act that evening was a great little quartet fronted by 3 young ladies paying tribute to the Andrews Sisters. The drummer in that quartet? The legendary Hal Blaine . . .