The Tonight from Steve Allen, Jack Paar to Jay Leno.

[JSngry]

True. Although, Freddie Hubbard sat in one night. Paul tried to play up the Indy connection, but Dave didn't seem too thrilled.

[7/4]

Tisziji Muñoz played in the Schaefer band on Letterman once.

[DukeCity]

I often have expressed the desire to see some kind of DVD collection of the many jazz artists and other great musical performances from the earlier years of the show. There were also some very funny moments- interviews (Buddy Rich was always a good guest) and other things, like the "Stump The Band" bits and the times when Johnny would give Doc or Tommy Newsome (RIP, Tommy) a hard time.

Extremely unlikely to happen. On that syndicated "Best of Carson" series that was on several years ago, they edited out all band performances, including the original theme song, to avoid having to pay any residuals to guys in the band.

[Free For All]

[GA Russell]

I saw Benny Goodman on with Carson once.

I remember that Benny cracked a joke about Selmer, but I don't remember what they were talking about.

[Hardbopjazz]

With Conan O'Brien taking over I wonder if he will have jazz guest like Allen and Carson use to have.

[fasstrack]

I'm surprised Buddy Rich was only fleetingly mentioned. He was a Carson favorite, and they had great chemistry. I remember Rich sitting down at the desk and Carson started the interview by saying 'now you're one of the best drummers in the music world', to which Rich replied 'no, I'm the best'. Cracked everyone up. There's also a video online of them playing two drum sets. Carson was an amateur drummer and a class act on his show to keep a big band. I really miss that show generally. I liked Leno's standup but he's no Carson. No one could be and it's over, I guess. Conan O'Brien? Please..........

When Leno took over Branford tried to do the right thing and have good players get national exposure by playing on the breaks and they would be on for a minute or so and he'd introduce them. But they killed it, apparently.

Jim Hall came on with his young group toward the end of Carson's tenure. Played, I think, Skylark and an original. That was nice, indeed.

Edited April 4, 2009 by fasstrack

[Hardbopjazz]

I have a poor audio copy of when Art Blakey and the Jazz messengers appeared on the Tonight Show. I guess this perofrmance was beofre video. Hank Mobely is in the band.

Edited April 4, 2009 by Hardbopjazz

[fasstrack]

I think I'm confused and it was Jerry Lewis Rich played the drum duet with.

Or maybe I had anchovies and dreamt it........

[AllenLowe]

anybody mention Bud Powell? I have an audio CD of his appearance on the tonight show -

[DMP]

Not much jazz on Letterman, although Stan Getz was on (playing a Kenny Barron number), and various people have sat in with the band (Gary Burton, McCoy Tyner). On Carson, Paul Schaefer (on organ) played Oliver Nelson's arrangement of "Taste of Honey" with the Tonight show band (the arrangement on Lloyd Mayer's United Artist album) - Schaefer refered to Nelson as "the great Oliver Nelson," something like that.

[fasstrack]

...McCoy Tyner.

Shaffer referred to him as a 'personal guru'. Not sure if he's a typical show-biz rat being insincere or he meant it and meant well. Perhaps a bit of both. Anyway it was to promote the relaunching of Blue Note around '85. I remember Letterman telling McCoy to 'stick around' and touching his leg. McCoy looked understandably uncomfortable as hell........

[JSngry]

Diana Krall was on Letterman last night, w/Bob Hurst, Jeff Hamilton, and a guy who looked but didn't play like Eric Clapton on guitar. I guess that was Gerald Wilson's son Anthony. Any wya, they played "Corcovado", extremely competently but somewhat...hollowly, save for Wilson's voicings, which were extremely tasty, and Dave, never even a slight "jazz" fan was seemingly thrilled beyond belief. And then Elvis Costello came out from back stage and punched him out for coming on to his wife.

Well, ok, that last thing didn't happen. But the rest of it did.

[DMP]

Letterman did seemed to be genuinely knocked out by Krall's performance. And so was Regis, a couple of days ago. There's nothing like a quiet, 3 minute performance of "Quiet Nights" to get you pumped up.

[fasstrack]

Diana Krall was on Letterman last night, w/Bob Hurst, Jeff Hamilton, and a guy who looked but didn't play like Eric Clapton on guitar. I guess that was Gerald Wilson's son Anthony. Any wya, they played "Corcovado", extremely competently but somewhat...hollowly, save for Wilson's voicings, which were extremely tasty, and Dave, never even a slight "jazz" fan was seemingly thrilled beyond belief. And then Elvis Costello came out from back stage and punched him out for coming on to his wife.

Well, ok, that last thing didn't happen. But the rest of it did.

I hope it was Anthony. He's a hell of a musician (why wouldn't he be?) and did a great job on a duet w/the late Nancy LaMott on P.S. I love you. 'Sings the Lyrics of Johnny Mercer' I think it's called. I'm a big fan of Nancy especially when she sings standards. Edited April 4, 2009 by fasstrack

[aparxa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQJoEAa6aqg

[Don Brown]

I didn't notice any mention of Monk. He appeared on Steve Allen's show with a pickup group that had Hank Mobley on tenor.

[Jim Alfredson]

I saw it on the multiple widescreen flat panel LCD TVs that were on all night during Root Doctor's show at the Green Door (gotta love bars that don't give a fuck if a live band is playing and keep the TV's on even though NOBODY is watching... well, except for me when I got bored... maybe that's why they leave them on?)

Anyway... it was Anthony Wilson. I couldn't hear the audio but it looked remarkably somber and I was afraid the drummer was going to nod off.

I'm not sure what the fascination is with Krall. I have some of her records... they are nice. She's pretty enough. But Dave looked like he was going to cream his pants after the song.

Maybe she's one of those women that, in person, just has that "thing", you know?

[fasstrack]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQJoEAa6aqg

Nice. They held the tempo pretty well until the end. It picked up a hair, I thought. The guitar set it slower than the drummer picked up, I thought. I can relate anyway. I always seem to rush a little on bossas when I play by myself. Those tempos are hard somehow. You have to focus.

I WANT THAT GIG. I'M COMIN' AFTER YOU, WILSON, YOU HEAR ME! GRRRRRR

Seriously, was that Anthony Wilson? Nice job.

[BruceH]

Isn't there audio of Miles Davis w/Trane on The Steve Allen show...I think I've got it on CD somewhere. Wish there were video to go along with it.

Maybe there was. I'll never forget Steve Allen telling this story (on someone else's show) some years ago: A few years after his show ended, realizing that the tapes of his shows contained an invaluable record of 1950's culture - not only all the jazz stars he featured, but people like Lenny Bruce, Jack Kerouac, etc. - he went to NBC to ask if he could buy the tapes from them. The woman he spoke to said she'd check on it; she came back in a while and said, "Oh, we threw all those out. We had to make room in the warehouse."

Think of it - without even asking Steve if he wanted them, those morons threw away one of the greatest treasure troves of music and entertainment in existence!!! I watched all those shows as a teenager and I still get furious when I remember that story.

I heard this story too. What a crime.

[JohnT]

I've heard that there is a CD out there with the following on it from the Chet baker Quintet. Wish I could have seen these line-ups on the "Tonight Show" (I was only 3 years old in 1956):

"Tonight" TV Show

1956

with Chet Baker tp; Phil Urso, ts; Francis Boland, p; Scott LaFaro,b; Lawrence Marable, dr

Intro by Chet into

Extra Mild (P. Urso) 4:37

CTA (J. Heath) 2:58

Imagination

(Burke-Van Heusen) 3:23

"Tonight" TV Show

September 5, 1955

with Chet Baker tp; Phil Urso, ts; Bobby Timmons, p; Jimmy Bond Peter Littman, dr

Jumpin' on a Cliff

(Al Haig) 2:36

I have about everything recorded with Scott LaFaro but I've never heard the tonight show program from 1956 above -- I keep lookin' for it!

[AllenLowe]

they did, indeed, destroy the old tonight show films - though there are extant clips, including a few of Lenny Bruce - also a nice one of Errol Garner in which he plays a long solo introduction during which, if you close your eyes, he sounds uncannily like Cecil Taylor (yeah I know it's the other way around) -

Edited April 4, 2009 by AllenLowe