BIG BAND JOE

The boy, and the musical phenomena that captured the world...

 

A young boy fights for a dream. In a futureless town, he hustles to the beat of the Roxbury streets, doing whatever he can to make his way, from shining shoes, running numbers, and selling newspapers on street corners.

 

Driven by his gift for music, Joe Servello longs to become a big band musician and play the music that has taken over the world. Disapproving parents and the price of his coveted instrument, the slide trombone, complicates his goals. Then a generous gift from the sisters at St. Patrick's School opens the way.

 

His dream begins in a rat-infested cellar where he practices through a muffled horn, undetected from his father, Rocco, who strongly opposes his son's ambitions. Months later, his secret is revealed and Joe begins playing in local bands. The plight of ill-fated young men and neighborhood tragedies, however, convinces him he must one day leave his hopeless surroundings. A bittersweet decision is made and despite the comfort of a loving family, Joe realizes his one true destiny.

 

Meanwhile, Joe begins playing in the East Coast big bands - Tommy Reynolds, Chic Hathaway, Mal Hallet and others. Experience developing pictures with his friend Frank Malone lands him a part-time job working in a darkroom for Boston's nightclubs, along with twenty-eight camera girls. Soon, Joe becomes intwined with the Boston night life and its colorful cast of celebrities and notorious characters.

 

Joe in the Bradford Hotel darkroom,, Boston

When Frank Sinatra and the Harry James Band comes to Boston, Joe manages to cleverly slip behind the scenes and ends up playing cards with Ol' Blue Eyes himself, becoming the official food runner for Frank and the band. Determined to get close to America's best big bands, he takes a tip from a Harry James musicians, Dave Matthews, and takes a trip to Nola Studios in New York, where all the major big bands rehearse, only to find himself offered countless opportunities he must turn down to finish school.

 

Then war is declared and life changes. Air raids are conducted. Young men are drafted. The nightclubs are busier than ever. Joe makes friends with Al Chin, who works in the in-house darkroom at the Coconut Grove. He hires a friendly veteran for the darkroom named Cal, who has lost a leg in the war; but in knowing Cal, Joe will lose much more. Then the infamous Coconut Grove fire ignites while Al Chin is working inside. Will Al escape the deadly fire?

 

When a fellow musician calls Joe about a gig with the Gray Gordon Band in Florida, Joe leaves Roxbury to join the band at the Flagler Gardens which, he inadvertantly discovers, is run by mobsters who take a liking to the young boy from Roxbury. The Gray Gordon Band is also scheduled to play for the troops in Bermuda. As the plane nears the island with Joe and the band onboard, a horrible tragedy occurs.

 

Still stunned by what has happened, Joe and the remaining musicians return to the Flagler Gardens.During a break, Joe hears a live broadcast of the Ina Ray Hutton Orchestra playing on the radio. Moved by what he hears, he heads down the next day where the Ina Ray Orchestra is playing at the nearby Frolic Club. He runs into the manager and asks if there's an opening in the band. The manager tells him to be in Omaha Nebraska in two weeks where they'll be performing.

 

Traveling with the Ina Ray Hutton Orchestra throughout the South, Joe discovers the dark side of southern ways. Walking on the streets of New Orleans with fellow musicians, he witnesses the ungodly sight of man's inhumanity to man, and learns of a foreign world existing in his own country of America. When the band hits Texas, Joe discovers the best of the South in the beautiful and gracious Marie.

 

Then, good news is announced. The band learns they're going to Hollywood to make a movie at Columbia Studios called "Ever Since Venus".

 

The Ina Ray Hutton Orchestra in a scene from "Ever Since Venus". Joe is the first trombonist, top row.

 

Ina Ray Hutton

 

Later, in Rochester, New York, Joe and the band get bad news. Ina's partner, George Paxton, is leaving to form his own orchestra. The band is breaking up. Joe gets a job with the Horace Heidt band, but doesn't stay long.

 

He calls around to find out where the Stan Kenton band is playing. Stan had tried recruiting some of Ina Ray Hutton's musicians back in Omaha Nebraska when he came in for the next show. There's an opening and Joe lands the job, playing awhile for "Stan the Man".

 

It is now 1945. World War two ends and massive celebrating breaks out. Joe is back at Nola Studios. Boyd Raeburn, who leads the most innovative and progressive band around is there, looking for new musicians. Joe joins the band, along with other eager musicians creatively challenged by the modern arrangements, including Dizzie Gillespie, who sits in for awhile. After about eight months, Joe leaves following financial difficulties in the Raeburn band.

 

Returning to Nola Studios, Joe is spotted walking around with his trombone case by the manager of the Georgie Auld band. He tells Joe he needs another trombone player for a recording they're doing featuring a new young songstress by the name of Sarah Vaughan. Joe becomes part of the Musicraft label recording, with a series of songs including "You're Blase", "A Hundred Years From Today", "Body and Soul", "Mean To Me", and others.

 

Afterwards, becoming more and more interested in writing arrangements, Joe decides to go where he'll have plenty of opportunity.

 

He returns to Hollywood. A musician he meets while playing with the Gus Armhein band in San Diego, Nick Rosetti, tells him about a great house where he and his girl are living on Hollywood Boulevard, and invites Joe to move in. Joe meets a girl, Liz, and the residents soon become four. The house becomes a Hollywood hang-out when the two musicians find themselves playing host to a crowd of entertainers, actors and actresses streaming in from the Florentine Gardens club across the street. A writer for the Inner Sanctum radio program in the house one night asks Joe his last name with a surprising purpose in mind.

 

One day, Joe is walking in the Hollywood Hills with a friend and comes upon a "strange and haunting man" who is living with nature. His hair is long, he is clad in meager clothing and sandals. The man invites Joe and his friend to sit with him and shows them something. Maybe, he says, being in the business, they can do something with it, show it to someone. Little does Joe know that what he takes from the stranger will someday become one of the greatest classics of all time.

 

When head conductor of Samuel Goldwyn Studios Emil Newman wanders into the house one night with a friend, he spots some of Joe's arrangements on the kitchen table. He likes what he sees and tells Joe to be at the studio the next morning about some work with the studio orchestra for the movie soundtracks. Joe shows up, but Emil is continuously paged and pestered until he finally ducks into a movie set with Joe where they end up in a scene from "The Kid From Brooklyn" starring Danny Kaye.

 

Life is unbelievable. Joe is at the top of his game. Hollywood is crazy, but Joe is thankful for the values he was raised with and a loyal sister back home who helps to calm their worried parents. Then things go sour.

 

Liz becomes intolerably possessive, resentful of the time Joe must spend on his work. The Hollywood scene begins wearing on him with its immoral lifestyle and parties where drugs are passed around in fancy dishes like candy. He tells Liz he's leaving. She doesn't take it well. Joe becomes personally threatened by her reaction.