This Is Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra, Vol. 1 is the first of two volumes originally released in a 1971 series by RCA Victor, which was created in response to a resurgence in big band recreations during the late '60s and early '70s, and is a reissue of 20 famous recordings by Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra. The album was subsequently re-released in 2001 by Collectables Records. Narrative These Dorsey sides, recorded between 1935 and 1944, unreel an era of chugging, big band togetherness; smooth-as-silk trombone mooing over brass punctuation and rising-and-falling reeds; tremulous, high-timbre, tenor voices undulating against rhythmic, glee club riffing; and the dancers Suzy-Q-ing or big-appling over to the raised bandstand to mill around, and sigh, and gawk... The flashbacks fly: Tommy's remote broadcasts from Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook across the bridge in New Jersey...the electric, mink-and-tux openings at the Astor Roof near Times Square...the ear-catching, pied-piping of three men and a girl, Jo Stafford...Bunny Berigan's wonderful horn crackling jazzily behind a Dorsey solo...the date when Tommy fired the whole band, including vocalist Jack Leonard, for imbibing beer on the bandstand...manager Ralph Burns sashaying from Chicago's Palmer House over to the Sherman where a lean kid was singing with Harry James and inviting him for an audition to Tommy's hotel room...the bobby-soxers sighing and screaming and "swooning" over the lean kids vocals... Truculent and sardonic offhorn, onstage Dorsey was the Sentimental Gentleman of Swing. He had the kind of consuming love affair with the sliphorn that drove him to rush off the bandstand at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle to drive down to midtown Manhattan, and after having played long hours for dancers only, trot into the 52nd St. Onyx, horn-in-hand for an into-the-sunrise session of jamming. With his talented brother, saxophonist Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy came out of a coal town in Pennsylvania and gigging with the local Scranton Sirens, toured the country with Paul Whiteman, Red Nichols and other bands. By 1933 the brothers has a joint orchestra that included such future name leaders as Bob Crosby of Bobcat fame, drummer Ray McKinley and trombonist Glenn Miller. Two years later, after innumberable flare-ups Tommy walked off the bandstand at the Glen Island Casino to form his own band. I’m Getting’ Sentimental Over You, previously recorded with his brother, and the opening track of this album, became (with its accompanied opening trombone notes) his nostalgic identification.