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“I know this band and its music very well, having spent many happy hours listening at the Seville. The music embodies the quality that means the most to me in a big band: unrestrained joy, and the ability to lift you off your chair with its power.
Mel Lewis was and still is the state-of-the-art big-band drummer.”
— Bob Florence, composer, arranger, bandleader
The band, perhaps the best of its time, obviously was caught at its zenith....
"Forceful, flowing, full of fire, playing in tune, admirably handling dynamics and shading within each arrangement, it literally blows you away."
—Burt Korall (International Musician)
"Unrestrained joy is exactly what the listener gets on...."
—Jim Bisco (Buffalo Evening News)
"Dream Band has all the right stuff: tight ensemble passages, vigorous solos and sharp arrangements."
— Eric Shepard (Journal-News, Nyack, NY)
“Terry's band is timeless. The best of the hot!”
— Buddy Rich, drummer, bandleader
"I really believe this band should go down as one of the great ensemble bands," Gibbs says. "I think it rates with Basic's band of the Fifties, Woody's Second Herd, Benny Goodman's band with Gene Krupa and Artie Shaw's with Buddy [Rich]."
The reference to Goodman is significant because Gibbs adopted Benny's strategy of having the arrangers weave his vibes in and out of numbers as Goodman's did for his clarinet. "I didn't want to just play a vibes solo and then step back and let the band play," Gibbs explains.
If a direct comparison is to be made of Gibb's exciting band, the inevitable one is to Woody Herman's Second Herd, the celebrated Four Brothers band. And, perhaps, it's not mere coincidence that most of the Gibbs musicians (including the leader) once played for Herman.
"I think you have to give Chubby Jackson a lot of credit for the spirit of the band," Gibbs says. "He always had enthusiasm, and I probably picked up some of that from him." Gibbs wasn't the only cheerleader, though. Not in a band where Frank Rosolino, Joe Maini, and Conte Candoli were constantly shouting encouragement.
- As quoted in the insert notes by Jay Roebuck, a DJ with an LA-based FM Jazz radio station, to Terry Gibbs Dream Band Main Stem Volume Four
Here’s the conclusion of Terry reminiscences about the Dream Band from his autobiography - Good Vibes: A Life in Jazz [2003]
“In 1985, there were some big bands making some noise: Rob McConnell, Frank Capp and the Juggernaut, Bob Florence, and Bill Holman to name a few, had some albums out and were getting a lot of airplay. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to put them out, even though I had something on tape that was already a winner.
Gene Norman heard that I had some unreleased tapes of my big band. He called me and asked if I was interested in putting them out with his record company. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to sell the tapes to anybody but I agreed to meet with him at his office on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. He really flipped out over the sound and the performance of the band and made me a very decent offer for the tapes. I thought about it and told him that if he put out the tapes as a four-record set that I'd be interested.
The reason that I wanted a four-record set was that those were the days of albums and cassettes. If he put out one album at a time, there would only be one or two songs on each side because some of the songs were twelve minutes long. He told me that he could edit and cut the songs so that he could get about twenty minutes of music on each side, which meant cutting a lot of the solos out. Once again, I insisted on a four-record set. I saw his point when he told me that he couldn't make any money by putting them all out at one time. He was right, because he was going to pay me a good amount of money for the tapes but I passed on the deal.
In 1986, Dick Bock, who once owned Pacific Jazz Records, heard about the tapes from Buddy Rich. Dick was now producing for Fantasy Records. One of Dick's fortes was editing tapes. He had a great feel for splicing the tape in the right place so that you'd never know that a four-minute song was once a twelve-minute song. He was a very successful record producer and was very interested in getting me with Fantasy Records. Dick and I had a meeting and I told him the same thing I told Gene Norman about cutting the tapes. He asked me to lend him the tapes so that he could show me what kind of an editing job he could do without ruining the feel of the arrangements and the solos. I made him a cassette of "Opus One." He also asked me not to listen to the original take of "Opus One" for about a month so that I could get the original out of my head.
After a month went by, I met with him again at his office in Hollywood. He played me the edited version and even though he took a lot of the solos out, it sounded good. All of the band ensembles were there and that was the highlight of the band. It almost sounded like the original version we recorded in the studio when the band first started, except that this was live and all the fire of all the guys yelling and carrying on was still there.
We took the cassette that Dick put together up to Fantasy Records in Berkeley, California, where we met with Ralph Kaffel, the president of Fantasy. I was surprised when Ralph told me that he had been a big fan of mine for years. Ralph loved what he heard and wanted to buy the master tapes. The money he offered me was not as much as Gene Norman offered, but he gave me some other things that were even more important to me than the money. To start with, Fantasy Records was a major jazz label, so I knew their distribution would be good. I wanted to make sure that every disc jockey in the country was supplied with an album, so I asked Ralph for the use of Fantasy's phone number. Then I called every disc jockey and made sure that they had the album. If they didn't, then one would be sent to them immediately. There was a good feeling between Ralph, Dick, and I, so I made the deal. That turned out to be one of the smartest moves I ever made, because the Dream Band records are now known all over the world.
When the Dream Band albums first came out, it was the biggest success I ever had in my life. There were two jazz radio stations in Los Angeles then: KKGO and KLON. I turned on one station and heard four or five songs in a row from the albums. Then I'd go to the other station to see what was happening, and THEY were playing four or five in a row. This happened all over the country.
When we were at the Seville, Wally Heider worked from his big truck, which was built like a small studio. There was no room to park the truck at the Sundown, so he ad-libbed a studio in the back room.
What Wally did was something I've never seen any recording engineer do. He taped wires on the floor in front of the saxophone section, the trumpet section, and the trombone section. Then he put mikes all over the place. In the back room where he was with his equipment, he had light bulbs set up on the wall. There were four light bulbs on top for the trumpets, three light bulbs underneath for the trombones, and five light bulbs for the saxes. If you looked at the wall it looked just like a band set-up. When somebody had a solo, the moment they stood up. their foot hit a wire and the light bulb went on in the back room where Wally was. He knew exactly who and when somebody was going to play a solo. This was genius to me. That's why the solos sounded right up front. Berrel helped out a lot because he knew the arrangements and every once in a while, he could alert Wally when he thought there was a solo coming up.
Indirectly. I helped make Wally a millionaire. In 1968, I got him a job on the Operation: Entertainment show that I conducted. Wally didn't belong to the union so all he could do was get a balance for the band. Then all the engineer at ABC had to do was make the whole band louder or softer. If he thought the bass was too loud, it was none of his business; he couldn't touch anything. As it turned out, the sound of the show was so good that the president of Filmways came to Wally and offered him a million dollars for his company. Wally traveled with us to all of the shows and on the last show, when we came back to Los Angeles, there was either a Mercedes or a Rolls Royce waiting for him at the airport. Filmways bought that for him to go along with the new job that he had as president of the Wally Heider Studios.
When you recorded those days, everything was two-track. If you were watching the band play and heard the trumpet solo, you'd hear it on the left side. When you heard the tapes, the trumpet was on the left side because that's where Conte sat. When I took the tapes to Fantasy in 1986, I brought them to their young hotshot engineers and they said, "What do you want us to do with it?" I said, "What can you do to make it better?" They said, "Nothing. It's perfect. All we can do is make it a little brighter." It was that good.
Sometimes the band almost looked like a comedy act. When I'd go make an announcement, everybody was talking and carrying on. Once in a while, if anybody had something silly to say, I would play straight man for them. All the guys had their own personalities and I would try to bring it out of them. Even with all the ad-lib talking and carrying on, they knew that when it came to playing the music, they "took care of business," which meant, don't fool with the music. Play the music like it's written and like we rehearsed it. When we were not playing music, if anyone had something stupid to say, they got up and said it. All of that added more spirit and more fun to the band.
Everybody loved Frank Rosolino. Before I counted off the first song I would say, "Here it is . . ." and snap my fingers. After two or three minutes of this, the audience became part of our act and they'd start saying, "Here it is" also. Then I'd say, "One, two, three . . ." stop, and say, "FRANK! How's your foot? How's your car?" Any question at all. Frank would jump up immediately and start rambling about whatever was going on in his brain. You never knew what he was going to do on stage. I liked that because it added a lot of spirit to the band.
Frank had these little silly things he would do. I'd be ready to tap off the tune, "One, two, three . . ." and before I could get to four he'd stop me. "Hey, T . . .T . . .Terry! Terry!" He did a great imitation of Wally Heider stuttering. I said, "What happened?" and he said, "You know who likes your playing?" I said "No, who?" and he said, "That's what I'm asking YOU! Do you know who likes your playing?"
One time he stood up, threw his music on the floor, and started running on top of it. I said, "Frank, what are you doing?" Frank said, "I'm running over my music." What this did was add more energy to the band. The guys would laugh and the audience would break up too.
Frank was a great yodeler. He would talk for about five minutes, and by the time he got done telling me about what was wrong with his car or his foot, he wound up yodeling. By that time, the band and the audience were in hysterics. That's when I would tap off the band and hit them in the head with our opening song.
Bill Putnam, who owned a recording studio and who was a great engineer, always came into every club the band played. When we got done with our set, Bill came over to me and said, "You know, Terry. I know why your band is so good. You never start out with a first set. You always start out with your third set."
Al Porcino could be the worst and the best for a band; it was all according to what mood he was in. When he was in a good mood, he'd just sit there and play the hell out of his part. But sometimes he could be a big pain in the ass. He always wanted to be a bandleader so he was always trying to tell me how to run my band. He was one of the best lead trumpet players I ever played with. Al and Ray Triscari both played lead and they were both equally as good. But Al was a little more aggressive than Ray, so he sort of took charge of the trumpet section.
Most of the music we played was written for record dates so it was all very high powered. When we recorded, I wanted every tune to be a home run. The club was always packed with celebrities and I wanted to really knock them out. So I picked this set out where every song was like a closing song and we really tore up the place. One home run after another. The next night we had a gang of celebrities again, so I figured I'd play the same set. As I was calling out the numbers, Porcino said, "What are we doing? Playing all FLAG WAVERS?" Then the guys in the trumpet section all said, "What are we playing? All flag wavers? How about our chops?" I'd have to say something silly to get everybody back into the fun we were having.
Vic Schoen wrote a suite for two bands that was recorded with Les Brown and a band that Vic put together for the date. Les was the musical director of The Steve Allen Show at the time that my band was at the Seville. Steve asked me if I would do the suite with my band and Les' band. All the guys in Les' band heard my band play at the club a lot of times and were really afraid to play opposite us. It was almost like we were Mike Tyson in his prime. The only person who wasn't afraid was [trumpeter] John Audino, who later joined my band. They all knew that our band was something else. I never saw and didn't know the music at all, so Les came to me and said, "Terry, do you want me to conduct it for you and show you how it goes?" Al Porcino, who talked very slowly, said. "L-e-s! W-e h-a-v-e o-u-r O-W-N b-a-n-d l-e-a-d-e-r!" And that was it. Even though Al and I used to argue a lot, he had enough respect for me to let Les know that the band was our little family and that we didn't need any help from anybody. It was a great piece of music and it came off great. I think that was the first time that Les ever heard our band, and he was very impressed.
I believed in hitting a home run immediately. In fact, I may have picked that up from Woody Herman. I always started out with a closing tune so that the whole band is standing up at the end of the song. That is, whoever COULD stand up would stand up.
Even though the band knew that Wally was there, they didn't act like it was a record date, which it actually wasn't. Wally was just experimenting with different microphones. He was in the back room and didn't know if Joe Maini was lying on the floor or Frank Rosolino was standing on somebody's shoulders. He never knew if they were near their mikes. Luckily, on the takes I picked, they were all sitting in their seats. I have some takes where, all of a sudden, you don't hear the lead alto. Joe Maini may have been lying on the floor or going out to dance with one of the girls. He'd break up a couple and start dancing with both of them, and for laughs, he'd wind up dancing with the guy. You never knew what these guys were going to do. Everybody had a good time.
On volumes 4 and 5, everybody knew they were record dates, and so everybody sat in their seats. They still carried on, making all kinds of noise, cheering every soloist, or just having fun.
If you listen closely to the Dream Band CDs, there are a lot of times when I'm soloing that you can hear Frank Rosolino yelling, "Hammer, baby! Hammer, baby!" Conte's schtick was when I'd call out the number of the song instead of its name. I'd say, "All right guys, let's play number thirty-four," and then Conte would ask, "What number is that?" That's also on some of the CDs. On "Flying Home," which is on volume 3, when I'm soloing and really getting into it, Joe Maini yells out, "Ohhhhhhhhh, SHIT!" In the same chorus he yells, "JEEEESUS CHRIST!" We couldn't edit that out because Wally recorded those albums on two tracks and if you tried to make those few bars softer, then it would ruin the continuity of the solo. So "Ohhhhhhhhh, SHIT!" And "JEEESUS CHRIST!" are on "Flying Home." So when you listen to the records, you hear a lot of yelling, which really is just a bunch of guys having fun.
I conducted the band on a telethon for the blind, which had Florence Henderson singing. We had an intermission and some of the guys in the band went outside and smoked some pot. They must have gotten something completely different than regular pot. Florence was singing "Some Enchanted Evening." It was more of a concert arrangement than a jazz arrangement. In the middle of the song, Med Flory stood up and started to play bebop behind her. I didn't believe it because there was nothing written for him to play. This was all live and I didn't know what to do, so I said, "Sit down!" And he said, "I CANT!" I kept telling him to sit down and he kept playing through her song. Every time I'd tell him to sit down, he'd stop long enough to say, "I CANT!" She didn't know what was happening at all because she never heard the arrangement played like that. I couldn't stop Med and Med couldn't sit down, he was so stoned out.
We weren't working steady with the band, so when I got a call for a job on the road for the quartet that paid a decent amount of money, I took it. Joe Glaser's office booked us in Las Vegas for a few weeks and then we went on to San Francisco. ….
When we got back to Los Angeles, I put the band together again and we played at Shelly's Manne Hole for a few weeks. Those days, they allowed you to smoke in nightclubs in California. I never allowed smoking on the bandstand because I thought that it looked cheap. Drinking was different because the guys could put their drinks underneath their stands and they could sip on them. Ray Triscari was in the band longer than anybody was and one time, I caught him smoking on the bandstand. When the set was over, we went into the band room and I said. "Ray, of all guys, you know that I don't like smoking on the bandstand. I don't mind you drinking, but smoking really looks terrible." I was really bugged with him.
Now, like I said, you never knew what my band was going to do. Shelly wanted us to close at ten to two so he could get everybody out of the place. We always closed the night with "Billie's Bounce" at about twenty to two. I had it timed so that at whatever bar or letter it was, I'd play six choruses, the band would come in with a background, and then we'd play the ensemble on out, and it always came out perfect. Because the club was always packed and the band was swinging. I brought a bottle of cognac in on the first night and Conte, Ray, John Audino. and I would drink most of it. Then the next night, John would bring one in and I'd bring one in also. Then Conte and Ray would bring one in, and little by little, we'd have four or five bottles of cognac going around. The good thing about the band was that even though I allowed drinking on the bandstand, it never got to the point where they couldn't play their part.
On the night that I caught Ray smoking, we were playing our last song and, like every night, when I got to my sixth chorus, the band was supposed to come in and play a background. Nobody came in. I figured they were a little juiced and having fun, so I kept playing. I played my seventh chorus and my eighth chorus and still nobody came in. Now I was getting bugged because they were ruining my timing on finishing the song by ten to two when I got to my next chorus, nobody came in. but everybody in the audience started applauding. I figured they all loved me. Wonderful, I'll play another chorus. They still didn't come in and now I'm really bugged so I turned around, ready to give them hell, and EVERYBODY, all fifteen musicians, were puffing on cigarettes. There was so much smoke you couldn't see the band. All I saw was a cloud of smoke. They were bugged with me because half of them didn't smoke and they had to keep puffing on their cigarettes until I turned around.
I wrote a song called "It Might as Well Be Swing" which starts out with the band playing the melody and then I come in with a bell note on the fourth beat. We were only working one or two nights a week at the Sundown and I was playing at Jimmy Maddin's other club called the Sanbah five nights a week with a different rhythm section. When you play with a big band, it's a completely different feel than playing with a quartet, especially with Mel Lewis playing drums, because he sat on it rather than giving it a little edge, like you would play with a little band. With a little band, the rhythm section gives you that little edge and you play more on top. Now, after playing five nights a week with a little band, when I came to work with the big band, sometimes I would feel uncomfortable playing, because there was a difference in the time.
On the first set, I played "It Might as Well Be Swing" and was getting ready to hit my bell note on the fourth beat, but heard the band still holding their note. I thought, "This is going to be a weird night for me." because I was already having trouble with the time. After the next eight bars, I was ready to play the fourth beat again and the band was still holding their note. The third time this happened, I said to myself, "Wait a minute. I can't be THAT screwed up. There's something wrong here." What they did was, they were holding their note for four beats instead of three. So they were playing a 5/4 bar while I was playing in four, so I never came down with the note.
To me, Richie Kamuca was the most unheralded saxophone player of all time. I felt like he was in the same class as Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and Al Cohn; he was as good as any of those guys. He could have been one of the Four Brothers and the sound wouldn't have changed. Everything he played was so melodic and beautiful. Richie and Bill Perkins were two introverted guys who became completely nuts on my band. Nobody could play in the band and be introverted. They couldn't help it.
Richie was also very handsome. I was standing in front of the band when I noticed this gorgeous blonde staring right at me. It looked like she was really hitting on me. She started to walk towards me, came to within three inches of me, and walked right PAST me to Richie and gave him the biggest kiss in the world. Fluffed me off completely. It was Richie she was looking at, not me.
Richie wasn't a big band lover. Even though he played a lot of solos, it was really never enough because we had so many great soloists and I had to let everybody play. What made the band so good was that it was an ensemble band. He loved little bands more than anything, but he loved our big band.
Every once in a while, it got so loose that I would get bugged and say, "I'm breaking up the band." What I meant by loose is that the guys had to be on time for every set. I didn't care if they showed up naked, just so long as they showed up on time.
In 1961, we were finally getting a chance to do a record date and get paid for it. After the first break, I sent Berrel out to find the guys so we could get ready to record again. He came back alone and said, "They're not here." I said, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THEY'RE NOT HERE? WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A RECORD DATE!" He told me that they had all gone down to the Hollywood Palladium, a few blocks away, to hear Harry James' band. Richie and I were alone in the dressing room and I said to him, "You know, Richie, after we do this record date, I'm definitely breaking up the band." He said, "Oh, Terry, you can't break up the band. Don't do it. It's too good." Everybody finally came back and we got back up on the bandstand. On the song, "The Big Cat," at the end, the trombones just vamp and I noodle around for a while and then I cut off the band. While the vamping was going on — and this lasted about a minute — Richie knew I was serious about breaking up the band and he didn't want it to happen. So he started yelling behind me while I was playing the vamp: "GO GET 'EM TERRY! GO AHEAD, TERRY!" which wasn't his bag because he was such an introvert. But he was egging me on. He was having a great time and didn't want me to break up the band. You can hear him saying that on the CD.
Bill Perkins, who everybody called "Perk," was also very introverted but not on this band. He was just starting to listen to John Coltrane and was getting a little bit influenced by him. Perk's style came out of the Lester Young school. When we recorded at the Summit, he had a solo on a song called "Soft Eyes." Being that we were a straight-ahead swing band, he came to me and said, "Terry, do you mind if I get a little out on my solo on 'Soft Eyes'? I've been listening to Trane and I love some of the things he's been doing." I never tell anybody how to play their solo, plus it wasn't really out, but it was a little different for Perk.
Charlie Kennedy was quiet and shy and had a funny sense of humor. In his younger days, Charlie worked with Gene Krupa and recorded a song called "Disc Jockey Jump" with Gene and played a solo on it that became very famous. Charlie's sound was closer to Charlie Parker than anybody in the band, even more than Joe Maini's. On Volume 2, called The Sundown Sessions, Charlie played a solo on "It Could Happen to You" and you'd swear it was Bird.
Charlie was also a very humble human being and a very nice person, but he had to give up the music business because he couldn't be around it without getting in trouble with dope. In 1986, after the CD came out, I started up the Dream Band again and called Charlie to play lead alto because by then, Joe Maini had died. We were going to play at the Playboy Jazz Festival, and when I called Charlie he said, "Let me think about it." He called me later and said, "I don't want to do it. I can't play again; I haven't played in years." We had a few months to get prepared but he just wouldn't do it. I think he didn't feel that he could be around the jazz scene without getting in trouble.
Jack Nimitz took Jack Schwartz' place and he was nicknamed "The Admiral," I suppose, after Admiral Nimitz. Jack Nimitz was more of a soloist than Jack Schwartz was and got to be very much in demand doing studio work. The only guy in the original band who really did any studio work was Ray Triscari, but Ray would take off record dates to do our fifteen-dollar job. When Porcino left, John Audino took his place. John was doing the Hollywood Palace show and so was Ray. They loved the band so much that when we had a job to play, they both would take off that show. It wasn't just giving up the 200 and some-odd dollars that the show paid; they were giving up the pension fund money and the money that goes for their health and welfare benefits. They gave up a whole lot when they gave up those shows. The money wasn't important to them because they felt just like I did. It probably was the happiest part of their lives too.
I didn't name it the Dream Band. When the first CD came out, Ralph Kaffel. the president of Fantasy, named it that. The album was just titled The Dream Band. I was against it because I hated names put on bands. Originally, we were called "The Exciting Terry Gibbs Big Band," but the name "Dream Band" stuck so much that every album was called "The Terry Gibbs Dream Band." When people talk to me about the band, they always address it as the Dream Band and leave my name out completely.
Joe Maini was, as the cliché goes, "one of a kind." Joe was also a street person. He'd use four-letter words even if he were talking to his mother. That was part of his vocabulary and he couldn't help it. When Bob Gefaell bought the Sundown from Jimmy Maddin. he renamed it the Summit. He loved the band so much, he decided he wanted to broadcast from there. Since it was his club, Bob decided he was going to be the announcer. The first broadcast was aired coast-to-coast on a show called Monitor. That day happened to be Joe Maini's birthday. I told Berrel to bring the whole band except Joe to the band room and I told them, "When we get to 'Cotton Tail,' and all the saxophones stand up on the saxophone chorus, go right into 'Happy Birthday.'" We played a few tunes and Bob Gefaell was announcing his heart away. We started "Cotton Tail," and when the saxophones stood up to play that great chorus that Al Cohn wrote, we went right into "Happy Birthday." Everybody in the band sang, and the audience did too. Everybody applauded, and Joe was really touched because he was a very warm guy. Then everybody stopped playing and were applauding him when all of a sudden Joe reached for the mike. Bob Gefaell, not knowing much about Joe. made the mistake of handing it to him. I thought, "Oh, NOOOO, not on the air!"
Joe's timing was perfect. He took the microphone and said, "Terry, this makes me feel so good . . ." then he paused a while and then said, " .. .that MY DICK IS TURNING PURPLE!" and handed the mike right back to Bob. Bob stammered and stuttered and didn't know what to say after that. He looked dumbfounded. I immediately said to the guys, "Take it from the sax chorus" and we went out swinging with Bob Gefaell looking like he was in shock.
One night, Harold Land played tenor sax with the band. For the first three sets we were playing mostly ensemble arrangements, but on the last set I let him stretch out on one of the blues things and he played about thirty some-odd choruses. When he got done, Joe Maini had to follow him. Joe didn't own a clarinet but there was one right next to him that Med used to play on two of the arrangements. After Harold played his thirty choruses and tore up the house, Joe didn't know what to play to follow him, so he picked up Med's clarinet and played Jimmy Dorsey's chorus from "Fingerbustin'," which had nothing to do with the blues. It was just a clarinet chorus that Jimmy made famous and it broke up the whole band. Joe was so talented. The title "Fingerbustin"' perfectly describes the type of a song it was. and it wasn't easy to play, especially when you played it on a strange clarinet.
I think that Conte Candoli was the favorite soloist of everyone in the band. When Conte played a solo, all the other trumpet players looked at him with admiration. Conte, who was married at that time, was seeing a Swedish girl named Kris who he eventually married after he got his divorce.
We were playing at a club called King Arthur's in Canoga Park and Kris came in with Conte. Conte was so in love with her that he was flipping out. Every once in a while, he would stand up in the middle of a number and throw kisses to Kris in the audience. Some of the people in the audience knew Conte's wife, so John Audino, who loved Conte, didn't want anybody to know what Conte was doing. So whenever Conte stood up to throw kisses to Kris, John stood up and also threw kisses to Kris. It looked weird to see two guys standing up throwing kisses to the same girl.
I was working in Toronto when I got a call from Jerry Lewis. Jerry liked to pantomime to big band records. I think that when Jerry started in show business, that was his act. He did it to a Count Basie record in one of his movies called "The Errand Boy" in a scene where he was sitting at a conference table. Jerry was a big fan of my band and loved a song we recorded called "Nose Cone" and wanted to do pantomime to it for another movie that he was now doing. I couldn't fly in so he asked me if I minded if somebody else played my solo. I said, "No, go ahead." They had my part written out and Larry Bunker played it. Playing somebody else's solo is the hardest thing in the world to do, especially mine, because I play four billion notes. Plus, I never know which mallet I'm going to use. In classical music, everything is usually right-left-right-left. But when you're playing jazz, who knows where your hands are going? Larry told me it was the hardest thing he ever had to read and he was one of the big studio players who could read anything. He did it but they never used it in the picture ….
I was back east when I got a call from Ray Linn, who was contracting the Monterey Jazz Festival. He asked me to put the Dream Band together again to play at the festival. Cannonball Adderley, Oscar Peterson. Dave Brubeck, and Dizzy Gillespie were some of the people also playing on the festival. I gave Ray names of who I wanted to play in the band. I also wanted to make sure that they were all paid a decent amount of money so I told him that if he could work the money situation out for the musicians, he should call me back and we'd arrange a fee for me. About a week later, Ray called me back and said, "I got all the guys you asked for." He agreed to what I wanted and I said great. This was a hard job for the guys in the band. Not only did they have to play our music, but they had to be the house band also. This meant that they had to play Johnny Richards' arrangements and play music for other people, music that they really didn't enjoy playing. They were getting paid well and I suppose that's why they accepted the job.
I flew in and they called a rehearsal for three o'clock, the afternoon of the night of the show. Duke Ellington was the emcee and he was going to introduce the band, so I figured we'd open up with something he wrote, "Main Stem." I hadn't seen the guys in six months. Everybody came to our rehearsal: Dizzy, Oscar, Cannonball . . . They all came because they had heard about the band.
I tapped off "Main Stem" and the band played the heck out of the chart. You could have sworn that we had been playing together for the last six months. It was so perfect, that I said, "No rehearsal. See you guys in the dressing room tonight."
I put two bottles of cognac and gin in the dressing room. It was like old times and we were all glad to be together again. When we got on the stage, the curtain was closed. Duke Ellington was in front of the curtain introducing the band while Lou Levy, Mel Lewis, and Buddy Clark were playing the blues, which was the chord changes to "Main Stem." Duke had an eloquent way of speaking, and when he finished introducing the band, we could have played one chord and we would have been a winner. I had it planned so that when Duke said, "Terry Gibbs" and the curtain opened, I was going to go right into the ensemble of "Main Stem."
We were all on the stage with the curtain closed while Duke was introducing us and here is what was going on backstage. This was October and the World Series was going on. All four trumpet players had portable radios with their earphones in their ears, listening to the ballgame. They were just standing around, not even sitting in their chairs. Frank Rosolino was sitting on somebody's shoulders, just carrying on. Joe Maini was lying on the floor, kicking his feet, and the rest of the saxes were in hysterics because of what Joe was doing. The rhythm section was still swinging and Duke was still talking. It looked so disorganized that it didn't make any sense. The curtain was closed, so I didn't care, because nobody could see us anyway. When Duke said. "Terry Gibbs!" you'd think that everyone would sit back in their seats. The curtain opened up and everybody was still doing what they were doing. Joe was on the floor kicking his feet, Frank was still on somebody's shoulders, and the four trumpet players were yelling, "Hey! It's a home run!" It almost looked like Spike Jones' band.
With my dumb sense of humor, I let it go on for a while. Why not? They were all having fun. I knew the music was going to be good no matter what, so when the band finally came in, it was like a powerhouse. Not only did we break it up and get a standing ovation, they made us come back at the end of the show after Dizzy, Oscar, and everybody else had played. We had to play another half-hour. The only person in the whole place who wasn't shocked to see the band so disorganized was Duke Ellington, who was used to seeing a loose band. His band was loose, but this was ridiculous….
People always ask me why the Dream Band wasn't much more successful. Actually, it was as successful as I wanted it to be. I was happy playing the Sundown and the Summit, making my eleven dollars a night. I didn't want the band just playing anywhere. That's why I left the Cloister. I just wanted to have fun. We were a complete winner. We played to a packed house full of celebrities every night. The club owner made money, and we had the times of our lives. Just listening to the band was the greatest thrill I ever had, and I had the best seat in the house. Sometimes when I was in front of the band, I would turn my back to them and cup my hands so I could hear them louder, if that was possible. As loud as they played, it was never loud enough for me. It was a great feeling. We were accepted by everybody in Hollywood. Even though every movie star came in to see us, WE were the stars. What could be better?””
