Tommy Dorsey

Livin' in a Great Big Way, A Biography

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By Peter J. Levinson

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$24.99

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$31.99 CAD

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  1. Trade Paperback $24.99 $31.99 CAD
  2. ebook $2.99 $3.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around November 7, 2006. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Swing has never gone out of style. It was the music the Greatest Generation danced to–and went to war to. And no musician evokes the Big Band era more strikingly than Tommy Dorsey, whose soaring trombone play and hit tunes influenced popular music for a generation. Tommy Dorsey (1905-1956) led a rich and complex life. Beginning with his childhood in the coal mining towns of Pennsylvania, we follow the young trombonist’s journey to fame and fortune during the Jazz Age. Tommy, with his brother Jimmy, created one of the most popular bands of the era and played with such giants as Bing Crosby and Glenn Miller. They also launched the career of a skinny young singer named Frank Sinatra. But Tommy’s volcanic personality eventually split the band and Tommy went off on his own. Drawing on exhaustive new research and scores of interviews with the musicians who knew him best, Levinson delves into Dorsey’s famously eccentric lifestyle and his oversize appetite for drink, women, and perfection. The first biography on Dorsey in more than thirty years, Tommy Dorsey is a dazzling portrait of the Big Band’s brightest star–his tumultuous life, his turbulent times, and the unforgettable music that made him a legend.

Genre:

On Sale
Nov 7, 2006
Page Count
384 pages
Publisher
Da Capo Press
ISBN-13
9780306815027

Peter J. Levinson

About the Author

Peter J. Levinson is the author of Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James and September in the Rain: The Life of Nelson Riddle . He has worked for four decades in the entertainment business as a publicist, freelance writer, booking agent, and personal manager. He lives in California.

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