TOMMY DORSEY’S CLAMBAKE SEVEN
During the swing era, many of the more jazz-oriented big band leaders enjoyed playing occasional songs with small combos drawn out of their orchestra, a setting that allowed them to cut loose a bit. Benny Goodman started the trend with his trio and (by 1936) quartet, Bob Crosby’s Bobcats were the most prolific, and there were also Artie Shaw’s Gramercy Five and small units from Duke Ellington and Count Basie’s bands that did not have special names.
One of the first of these units was Tommy Dorsey’s Clambake Seven. The trombonist had split from his brother in mid-1935, leaving the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra and forming the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra out of a big band formerly led by Joe Haymes. On only his sixth session since the breakup, he debuted the Clambake Seven on December 9, 1935, having a hit with his version of “The Music Goes Round And Round.” Dorsey’s small group tended to be Dixieland-oriented, particularly in its early days. The Clambake Seven only recorded a total of six songs during 1935-36 before becoming a regular feature, cutting 24 titles in 1937 and 14 in 1938. By 1939, which just had a single five-song session, the Clambake Seven was slipping away into history. Dorsey would revive the Clambake Seven name for two songs in 1946, three in 1947, eight in 1950 and a final two in 1952. Its entire legacy (not counting broadc
