There wasn’t a white space left on the page.” But when the band started to play, he realized the chart was exactly the same as the one that he had learned back in Providence.ĭorsey “was testing me, standing right behind me. Massimino was stunned to find that the entire piano solo was written out.
So the very first thing he calls is ‘T.D.'s Boogie.’ ”
He never warmed up, never said much to the guys on the bandstand. “So the first night, I got on the bandstand with the uniform on and all-I’d never rehearsed with the band, hadn’t even seen them-and Tommy came out. He’s very tough, but I’ll stand behind you and pull music for the first couple of nights.’ He must have known I was green and wet behind the ears and said, ‘Let me tell you a little bit about Tommy Dorsey. I flew to Cleveland to meet the band and Jerry Arlio, the band boy-he must have been 60 years old at the time-picked me up. He would test guys immediately, and if you couldn’t measure up, you were gone. “Now, Tommy Dorsey was a complete and total tyrant. He said, ‘Tommy fired the piano player, and they want you to come and do the gig.’ Then, “at age 17 1/2, I get a call from a friend in the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Massimino traveled with Pelosi’s band to Upstate New York and as far away as Bermuda in the summers. “My mother loves boogie-woogie, so I learned ‘T.D.'s Boogie’ for her, to do as my part of the show.”
“Pelosi, had a segment where the musicians would do different things, the drummer would do Gene Krupa, the saxophonist would do Illinois Jacquet, Massimino said. And one of the things he loved was the tribute album to Tommy Dorsey which had Oliver Nelson’s ‘T.D.'s Boogie’ on it.”Īt 14, Massimino- who plays tonight at El Matador in Huntington Beach-already had a promising career in his hometown of Providence, R.I., working with saxophonist Art Pelosi’s band. “My father was a musician,” Massimino, 56, said during a recent phone conversation from his home in Tustin, “and he used to sit me in front of the hi-fi and play all these bands, all these piano players. To hear Joe Massimino tell it, he would never have impressed Tommy Dorsey, or gone on to a career as pianist to the stars, if his father hadn’t sat him down at an early age to listen to “T.D.'s Boogie.”
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