Tommy Dorsey

From a coal mining family in Pennsylvania, Tommy and his brother Jimmy Dorsey grew up to become two of the most popular US jazz stars of the 1930s, entertaining audiences with up-tempo swing and show tunes and shaping the dance sounds of the era. With Tommy on trombone and Jimmy on saxophone, the siblings worked together in bands as teenagers before uniting as The Dorsey Brothers and scoring hits Coquette, I Believe In Miracles and Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love). Despite numerous rows and disagreements, they successfully ran the orchestra (which included a young Glenn Miller in its ranks) together for years, before Tommy left in 1935 to start his own band and score his first solo hit with single Every Little Moment. A short-fused perfectionist, Tommy went on to score the US Number 1 singles The Music Goes Round And Round, Satan Takes A Holiday, Marie, The Dipsy Doodle and Our Love, but made several changes to the band including hiring a young Frank Sinatra as a vocalist in 1939. Dorsey started playing with his brother again in 1953 and they had a national television series called Stage Show (which once featured Elvis Presley), but he died suddenly in 1956 aged 51 after taking sleeping pills and choking to death in his sleep.

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