I just couldn’t take it anymore. This new trombonist I hired last month wasn’t working out. I had to let him go, though I hated to do it with the world in the state it is. He needed the gig, but the band really can’t make music with him in it.
Leo Lets is a jazzer. He’s a talented musician, no doubt, but his habits from jazz don’t work with our dinner club orchestra. We play it straight, some standards, some Latin, a few that Jerry wrote and arranged for us. No jazz. But Leo would always let his slide do his talking for him, glisses sliding up and down as if he were a Dorsey. I couldn’t let him stomp at our Savoy any more. Portamento isn’t good for the group sound, and in the end I had to reach my decision. I couldn’t let players like him slide.