After ‘Tonight,’ colorful band leader Doc Severinsen is busier than ever

David Renzi

Monday, Feb. 10, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

When he reigned on "The Tonight Show," Johnny Carson once said that his orchestra would stay as long as he was the host. When he retired in 1992, after nearly 30 years, the orchestra went with him.

Carson's departure put an end to one of the most coveted big-band jobs. His musicians enjoyed the fruits of steady and lucrative work, and the opportunity to play the music they liked without the rigors of the road.

That was then, this is now.

"I'm busier than I've ever been in my life and loving every minute of it," says Doc Severinsen, the band's flamboyant leader and dandy dresser. "I've never been this busy, ever."

Between guest appearances with symphonies across the country, guest-conducting four symphony orchestras and touring with his jazz group and the former "Tonight Show" band, now known as Doc Severinsen and His Big Band, he's on the road 45 weeks a year.

Which is the way it ought to be, he says.

"If you're a musician and you think you're never gonna go on the road again, your career is probably not doing well. Because being a musician, or an actor, or any of those things, our careers are a movable feast. It can't be avoided, and I don't see any reason to avoid it.

"What are you gonna do? Settle in a nice, little community with a picket fence and shop at Safeway every day and have a career?"

Tuesday night brings him to Las Vegas for a concert with his band, which includes drummer Ed Shaughnessy, saxophonist Bill Perkins, pianist Ross Tompkins, bassist Joel Di Bartolo and trumpeters Snooky Young and Conte Candoli -- "Tonight Show" alums all.

Severinsen, who will turn 70 in July, joined the band in 1962 and became the leader in 1965. When the curtain dropped on their "Tonight" jobs a few years ago, they weren't out of work for long.

"We already had a tour booked," he says. "About two days later, we went on a nearly one-month tour with the band."

Of the new "Tonight Show" band, a reduced version of the original with a penchant for rock, Severinsen says they don't get to play enough. Which means at least one thing hasn't changed.

"Those are not performance venues, let's face it. You're there to provide a little background music for this and that, and that's one of the reasons why I kept a whole other career going on while I was on 'The Tonight Show.'

"Johnny warned me, 'You've done this show long enough. You know what it is.' But it's still the best gig I ever had. It was amazing what it did for me and for all the guys in the band, for that matter."

Early Vegas gigs

At the same time, Severinsen was one of the few members that regularly traveled. In addition to performing with symphonies and his own jazz group on weekends, he played here 12 weeks a year for years, commuting back and forth between "The Tonight Show" and the showroom.

His first Las Vegas engagements found him leading a sextet in the Sands lounge. Later, he fronted something called Brother and Sister and the New Generation Brass.

"I don't even want to think about it," he says.

He was also an opening act for Carson when the latter appeared here regularly.

"I would come out with the (house) band and play some trumpet solos, and kid around with the audience. It was a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Then, later on, I had a show with a 30-piece orchestra and three singers, and it was spectacular. Wayne Newton produced it. I learned a helluva lot from Wayne Newton about how to operate on a stage."

Severinsen's last hotel performance (to the best of his knowledge) was six years ago at Bally's.

"I have no desire to renew any of that," he says. "Then again, I don't think they're waiting on pins and needles for me to make a triumphant return. If I could come in with a roaring big band and real talented people and do what we wanted to do, or a symphony orchestra and put on a great show, then it would appeal to me."

Instrumental designs

He speaks to Carson intermittently and reports that the former late-night king is doing well. "His health is wonderful, and he's happy as a clam doing all kinds of things that he likes to do."

Severinsen is as famous for the ostentatious attire that made him a ready target for Carson's barbs as his trumpet playing, "and in some places a lot more so. Some people come to see what I'm going to wear, then I'll haul out the horn and they'll say, 'I didn't know you could play trumpet.'"

He has the clothing made in LA "by a guy who used (to make clothes) for Elvis, Kenny Rogers and Lionel Ritchie. I still get things."

Severinsen is as concerned about his trumpets as his appearance. In fact, he assists in the design of his instruments.

"I'm not a designer, I just guess a lot. I tell my partner what I want it to sound like and what I'm looking for. I try to take an esoteric concept and put it into metal. A lot of it is trial and error."

He was moved to take an active role in the process "because I just got tired of trying to find an old trumpet I could fix up and hold together long enough to play a few months on."

It had come to that for Severinsen, who contends that "they stopped making horns that were any good. I was working for one of those companies and they wouldn't listen to anything I said. Finally, I asked the guy (Dick Akright) I was working with, 'We both know what we're doing, we could make a horn ourselves. Wanna try just to see if we're right?' He said sure. Six weeks later we had three really good horns."

Severinsen christened them "Bel Canto."

"I had been working for six years for this company and was never able to get a damn thing done. I found out that the guys who didn't know what they were doing we're getting in the way of the guys who did."

Sounds like he's entitled to blow his own horn.