How to go
Who: Doc Severinsen and El Ritmo de la Vida
When: 8 p.m. Sept. 18
Where: Kuss Auditorium
Tickets: $30 to $50; visit springfieldartscouncil.com or call (937) 328-3874.
SPRINGFIELD — The last time Doc Severinsen played Springfield, in February 2001, he stood on the Kuss Auditorium stage wearing a fluorescent yellow jacket.
With purple pants.
Almost a decade later, with a return date to Kuss scheduled for Sept. 18, the legendary trumpeter claims to be happier than ever — but how do you get much happier than a fluorescent yellow jacket with purple pants?
Just asking.
Leading a new group at the grand age of 83 that fuses jazz with classical Spanish, Severinsen finally feels the way he’s always dressed.
“This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life,” he explained recently.
Inside and out, the octogenarian who became a household name as music director of “The Tonight Show” during the Carson era is one exuberant cat.
“Sometimes I try to dress age-appropriate,” Severinsen confessed, only to turn around and ask, “Are pink leather pants age appropriate?”
God bless Doc, a true American original — “a cowboy from the wilds of eastern Oregon,” in his words — who’s now the last of an era.
He outlived Johnny and Ed; outlasted Maynard Ferguson.
This former member of the Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey bands seemed content to ride quietly — although still impeccably dressed — into the sunset in 2006 when he moved to Mexico to retire.
“I told my wife, ‘You know, I’m going to practice the horn every day,’ ” he recalled. “ ‘I’m not done with the trumpet but I’m through with performing.’ ”
He’d be perfectly happy, he remembers saying, just playing a little jazz with a few guys.
“The gods must have been listening,” Severinsen said, “because that’s exactly what happened.”
While out to eat, he saw two Mexican musicians — guitarist Gil Gutierrez and violinist Pedro Cartas — playing in a restaurant.
“After eight bars,” he said, “I turned around and said, ‘My God, these people are world class.’ I immediately had a picture in my mind of how they should be presented.”
He went up and introduced himself.
“They had no idea who I was,” he said.
But right then and there, it was as obvious as a fluorescent yellow jacket with purple pants that Severinsen should postpone retirement and form an ensemble with Gutierrez and Cartas.
“It happened exactly when it was supposed to,” Severinsen said.
Three years later, he’s happier than he’s ever been, and he claims he’s even a better player in some ways than before.
He calls the new group El Ritmo de la Vida — “the rhythm of life.”
Maybe he should’ve called it the Fountain of Youth.
“Every now and then, I take out my driver’s license,” Severinsen said. “I see the numbers on there and think, ‘This must be for some other guy.’ ”
He doesn’t feel 83, but the pictures tell a different story.
“I have pictures in my studio of Johnny and Ed,” he said, speaking from San Miguel de Allende. “I have a picture of Elvis Presley, Johnny Carson, myself and two other people, and everybody in the picture is dead except me.
“It makes me look over my shoulder. It also makes me thankful I lived in a time that I got to meet people like Johnny.”
Severinsen joined “The Tonight Show” band in 1962, became its leader in 1967 and held that position until Carson stepped off the late-night throne in 1992.
Musically, El Ritmo de la Vida is as diverse as you might expect from a guy who can be seen in vintage YouTube clips playing everything from modern jazz and “Malaguena” to “MacArthur Park” and the “Star Wars” theme with enough gusto to power a medium-sized city for a week.
With Maynard gone, someone should seriously consider tapping Severinsen as a source of renewable energy before it’s too late — nobody blows like this anymore, or at least sounds this good doing it.
The last time he played here, it was with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.
“It has a Latin style to it,” Severinsen said of this latest endeavor, “but I think it’s more world music. A certain part of it is French gypsy jazz in the style of Django Reinhardt. We also play some originals and Argentinean music. You know, the tangos.
“We’re just who we are, but we don’t exactly know what that is.”
Just don’t call him a retiree.
“My wife and I were talking about that yesterday,” he said. “She said, ‘Whatever you’re thinking about, it’s not time for you to think about retirement. You may just go out with your boots on.’
“I think she’s absolutely right.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
About the Author