Tommy Dorsey Article
BY FRANK ROBERTS CORRESPONDENT
The Virginian-Pilot, May 30, 2006

Crowd jumped and jived,
but there was no reason to wail at big-band dance

    “Opus One” was the Tommy Dorsey standard that got the dance and concert started Sunday at the Cavalier Hotel Beach Club in Virginia Beach.

    The sky was clear and the ocean breeze was pleasant when the music began at 7 p.m. Darkness and coolness set in, but most of the approximately 750 people who came out to swing stayed with it.

    Why not? They are bigband enthusiasts, and there is not enough big-band music making the rounds.

    Buddy Morrow did not make it. The advertisements said it would be the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra conducted by Morrow, who has led the orchestra for several decades. He is not in good health, though. His substitute, who also played with Dorsey, was Daryl “Flea” Campbell, 81, from Calabash, N.C.

    Ordinarily, Campbell sits back in the trumpet section. Up front, he proved to be an affable link between orchestra and audience.

    His sense of humor helped. At one time he announced: “Keeping in tradition with the Dorsey brothers, we’re going to have a fistfight,” a reference to the animosity between Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey.

    Everything was friendly during the three-hour concert as the 65-and-older crowd mingled with the younger people who make up a recreational dance group called Swing Virginia.

    Watching those youngsters jive dancing had a lot to do with the joy of the evening. They brought back memories for the senior citizens who danced like that in the ’30s and ’40s.

    Ilona Weckerly, a 21-yearold Old Dominion University student studying music with an eye toward an opera career, said, “Swing music has a pulse that eats right through to your heart and transports you to a place far from the everyday rut.

    “The dances are so full of

C O NC E R T RE V IE W

What the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra conducted by Daryl “Flea” Campbell, a presentation of the Virginia Arts Festival. When Sunday night. Where the Cavalier Hotel Beach Club in Virginia Beach.

LIFE – no matter the tempo – you can’t help but have fun.” Everyone seemed to.

    If there was one complaint, it was something common to most of today’s resurrected big bands: They veer from their orchestra’s standards. Sunday night, audience members were left hungry for Dorsey hits such as “Quiet Please,” “Well, Git It ” and “Yes, Indeed.”

    What they did hear was well-received – songs such as “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You ” and “I’ll Never Smile Again.” The latter, and quite a few pieces, were sung by Rob Zappulla, an excellent vocalist with Frank Sinatra-like phrasing.

    One of his classiest offerings was “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” which, he said, “is one of the most requested Sinatra songs.”

    There were some sweet, slow dance numbers that enticed most of the crowd to the floor, but the accent was on up-tempo, including a Dixieland version of “That’s A-Plenty,” as it was performed by Tommy Dorsey’s Clambake Seven, the small group within the band that concentrated on that genre.

    George Barnett, 82, a former Suffolk mayor, spent most of his time jiving up a storm with his partner, Bertha Joyner. Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf opened the festivities by saying, “Everybody loves a party.”

    The party, playing to a full house, was so successful, Leigh Mang of the Virginia Arts Festival said a similar big-band night would most likely be scheduled for next year.

    All hepcats will agree: That is excellent news.