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Carl "Doc" Severinsen's favorite memory from his "Tonight Show" days is the one he shared with millions of viewers every night: the moment Johnny Carson first stepped in front of the camera.
"I loved that build up. The drums rolling and the band playing the theme song, and then Ed [McMahon] making his famous introduction. And then Johnny, who would come busting out through those ratty old curtains we used for years and years and years," Severinsen said in a recent telephone interview before taking the stage in Portsmouth, Ohio.
"Of course, I miss Johnny terribly," he said. "Sometimes, even today, I'll be faced with a decision about what to do about something on stage, and I'll think to myself 'I wish Johnny were here so I could give him a call.'"
Severinsen, a World War II veteran and trumpeter extraordinaire, started working on "The Tonight Show" when it was still hosted by creator Steve Allen. So he's been around a long time. Severinsen is currently touring with his Latin jazz band, El Ritmo de la Vida, and will perform Tuesday, Sept. 22, at the
Whitaker Center in Harrisburg.
'Tonight Show' yearsSeverinsen, who acquired the nickname of "the little doc" from his dentist father, got his start as a session musician in New York City, working with the NBC Symphony back in the days of radio.
"I was born and raised in Oregon, and in those days, it was still cowboy country. When [World War II] came, I joined the Army," Severinsen said. "But instead of getting sent overseas, I was assigned to Fort Lewis, Wash., south of Seattle, to do payroll.
"I had zero experience with it. None," he said. "Sometimes I look back and think it was a miracle we won that war. There were a lot of guys like me back then, just kind of making everything up as we went along."
Following his discharge from the military, Severinsen, who had won several high school music contests and had even played live music on an Oregon radio station, decided to head east to New York City to try his chances in the Big Apple.
After several years playing with the NBC Symphony, Severinsen got his big break: the chance to perform on a new evening variety show being created by comedian Steve Allen and producer Sylvester Weaver.
"Steve Allen was a complicated man but also incredibly talented. Back in those early years, it was less of a talk show as we think of it and more of just people sitting around and relaxing," he said.
"It wasn't very scripted," Severinsen said. "Like, sometimes Steve Allen would just break off whatever he was doing and say 'Now it's time to play the piano,' and so suddenly, that's what we would be doing."
In 1957, NBC decided to change Allen's show to an evening news and features program called "Tonight! America After Dark" to complement its popular morning program, "The Today Show." The program lasted less than a year, with producers scrambling to find a way to boost its sagging ratings.
After deciding to return to the show's earlier format, producers hired comedian Jack Paar as the host, but began having second thoughts when Paar threw a tantrum and walked off the live program. After searching through a series of guest hosts, including aging comedian Groucho Marx, producers finally settled on Carson, who was then working as a game-show host on ABC.
Carson hosted the program from 1962 to 1992. Severinsen, who started out as a trumpet player under former bandleader Skitch Henderson, became the leader of the "Tonight Show" band in 1967.
"For me, personally," Severinsen said, "I think it was Johnny Carson who really defined what we now think of as a talk show. And I can honestly say that nobody out there has done it as well as he did, either before or since."
Viva la MexicoFollowing his retirement in 1992, Severinsen and his wife decided to relocate to the town of San Miguel de Allende, a city in central Mexico founded by Franciscan monks in 1542.
"Originally my wife and I were talking about leaving California and moving to Italy, but once we stumbled across San Miguel de Allende, we knew that this is where we wanted to live," Severinsen said. "It was my experiment with retirement, but since I'm now touring again, you can see it hasn't worked."
It was while living in Mexico that Severinsen began exploring Latin jazz and world music, forming a band "with some world-class musicians" and calling it El Ritmo de la Vida ("The Rhythm of Life").
In Harrisburg, the band, made up of fellow musicians Gil Gutierrez and Pedro Cartas, will perform modern jazz standards along with Latin jazz, blues and Spanish gypsy music.
El Ritmo is currently working on its first album.
"It's a kind of music I can't even begin to describe. It's whimsical and mournful and just ... beautiful," he said. "If you've ever heard music by Django Reinhardt, you'd have an idea about what we're doing."
Meanwhile, the 82-year old Severinsen said, he's enjoying being back on the road and performing in front of audiences again.
"I think I'm having more fun now than I ever had in my whole life, and that's because I'm not playing for a living anymore, but just playing what I love.
"The best thing we can do, as musicians, is just get up on stage and let the music speak for itself," he said. "I might be in my early 80s, but put a horn in my hands and I'm still dangerous."
Doc Severinsen and El Ritmo de la Vida will perform at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22, at Sunoco Performance Theater at the Whitaker Center, 222 Market St., Harrisburg. For ticket information, call 214-2787.
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