 Family Theatre presents Joe Stafford, Dan Der Yee, and Scotty Beckett. From Hollywood, the Mutual Network in Cooperation with Family Theatre presents Sideman starring Dan Der Yee and Scotty Beckett. And here is your hostess, Joe Stafford. Thank you, Tony LaFranco. Family Theatre's only purpose is to bring to everyone's attention a practice that must become an important part of our lives if we're to win peace for ourselves, peace for our families, and peace for the world. Family Theatre urges you to pray. Pray together as a family. And now to our transcribed drama, Sideman, starring Dan Der Yee as Speak and Scotty Beckett as Roscoe Dodds. Yeah. My name's Jerry Peters. Glad to know you kid. What can I do for you? Well, uh, are you gonna be playing much longer? Another half hour or so. It's all right. The manager's my brother-in-law. What do you want? Well, uh, I just came from the Palladium watching Art Henning's band. Yeah? Great outfit, huh? Oh, real great. Yeah. You been over to see him yet? No, I, uh, I've been pretty busy. Well, uh, Mr. Henning told me he'd like to see you when you get the chance. He did, huh? That's what he said. You were a very good friend of Art's? Well, I... No. No, to tell you the truth, I just met him tonight. I won first prize in that amateur jazz contest he had. Good stuff. What do you play? Well, this. Like Mr. Henning, a horn. You must be all right for Art to like you. I sure want to be. How'd he come to give you my name? Well, after the contest was over and he'd announced the winner, me, I got to meet him backstage. I wanted to thank him for the watch. Oh, look. Say, that's a watch. Yeah, yeah. Well, then we got to talk about music and what a rough business it was to break into. So I asked him if he thought I had the stuff to make a go of it professionally. What did he say to that? Well, he said he didn't know. Well, you won the contest, you must have something. Well, he said that wasn't what he meant. Oh, he likes the way I play all right, but, uh, well, he didn't know about the rest of it. Any idea what he meant by that? No, but he said you'd know. Me? Yeah. Yeah, he said go over to that place on Melrose where Speak Whitten works and ask him to tell you about Roscoe Dodds. Art Henning wants me to tell you about Roscoe Dodds? That's what he said. Who was he? He was a kid about your age. At least he was 10, 11 years ago. That winter I was working with Billy Foy's outfit playing the Eastern prom circuit. You'd have thought that sort of thing might have died down during the war, but it didn't. The only difference was the college boys were wearing uniforms. That is most of them. This particular night we were playing a dance at a little one-horse school I never heard of somewhere in Pennsylvania. It was about 10.30, and we just finished up the last number in the second second. How about some coffee, Speak? No thanks, Billy. I think I'll get a little air. You better take a coat. It's pretty cold outside. Yeah. I don't want any more flu casualties this week. Any word on Mickey? I called his wife long distance about six o'clock. She thinks she'll be OK to join us in Philly for the date Saturday. Well, that's four days. I wouldn't worry. Neither would I if this was your band. It'll work out, Billy. Go have some coffee. Remember, 10.45 back on the stand. Have I ever been late? The hall we were playing in was at the front end of a student union building, and you had to go down a long corridor behind it to get to our dressing rooms. I was about halfway down the hall when I heard the sound of a horn coming from one of the closed recreation rooms. It was good stuff. Careful. The man was thinking about what he was doing. He wasn't trying to do everything all in one breath. I didn't see how it could be one of fours, man. Only reason one of them had picked up his instrument between his set would be to hit you with it, so just out of curiosity, I went over and tried the door. Hope I didn't interrupt anything. I was just fooling around. Go ahead. Don't let me stop you. You speak Whitton, aren't you? Yeah. You a student here? Sophomore, pre-med. I got most of the fours' records. Good. How come you're not out front dancing? Well, I'm not much of a dancer. I've been listening to your back of the stand, though. Awful good. Thanks. You sound pretty good yourself. Play any jobs around town when you're not hitting the books? Once in a while. We get a few high school dances. Who's we? Four of us. Guys in my class, drums, piano, bass and me. This way you rehearse? When we can get it. It's the only rec room in the union that's got a piano in it. Mm-hmm. Working all by yourself tonight, huh? Yeah, the other guys are out front at the dance. Pretty loose for an upright. Yeah, Jack likes it that way. Say, um, what are most of those kids wearing out there? Is that Navy? It's Naval ROTC. You in there? No, I'm... I'm 4F, punctured eardrum. Does it hurt when you blow? The horn? Nah, never feel it. Uh, what key were you just doing that in? Uh, B-flat. Go ahead, let's hear some more of it. It was the first time I ever heard Roscoe Dodds play the trumpet. And it might have been the last. And Dr. Roscoe Dodds would be taking out tonsils today if it wasn't for a telegram. A telegram that room clerk handed Billy Foy when we checked into that hotel in Philly the following Friday night. Oh, brother. What is it? Mickey, virus infection. Complications. Dr. Strongly advises he stopped going on the road indefinitely. Oh, great. Waves guaranteed minimum work clause. Get a permanent replacement. Isn't that a doll? Well, we've been limping along with Adam for almost 10 days. We ought to be able to get through tomorrow night, okay? Well, it's not tomorrow that bothers me. What about the next four weeks? You want to run up to New York in the morning? Look around? Look around at what? The holiday's going full steam, you want a good trumpeter who isn't working? You can't tell. You can tell. I wind up with some bomb who's lip is shot. It'll still cost me a fortune because he's doing me a favor. How about that local guy we picked up for the redding date last week? He wasn't bad. He cut the book all right, but his jazz was Mickey Mouse. Why don't you put him on lead and let Mitchell do the jazz? I don't think the other guy's strong enough to carry the section. Why don't you go out and shoot yourself? That's a great idea. I think I'll do that. That's a puny trumpeter. That's not asking too much. Just to play a little bit of jazz. I've got kind of an idea. Yeah? It's just a thought, so don't fall down dead. Oh, all right. You remember that college kid I told you I ran into last week? Oh, where was that? Hurtland? Hearstland. Yeah, Hearstland College. He was good. In fact, he was fine. I got a thing about college musicians. We've all got a thing about college musicians, but you're in a bind. Nobody ever expects anything from them, so if they come out even half good, we go around saying they're fine. This kid is good, and I think he'd be interested. How good? Is he good like Mickey's good? Well, it's not that firehouse stuff. Yeah? But he's good like Butterfield's good or Chris Griffin. Oh, I'm not looking for someone who plays a lot of educational jazz. Okay, Billy. I've recommended them. You don't think so. Let's forget it. Probably don't even have a card anyway. Probably not. Anyway, I'd be crazy to tie myself up to some kid I've never even heard. It'd be foolish. Yeah. Of course, there's no reason I couldn't just try him out. How would you do then? Well, ask him would he come down here to play the date tomorrow night? I hadn't thought of that. You'd probably jump at the chance. What if he doesn't have a card? Oh, I can work around that. Local secretary's a friend of mine. We'll get him a work permit for one job. Well, it's your band. Hey, what's the matter with you? How's the kid gonna break into this business if someone on the inside doesn't give him a chance? You're a great man, Billy. Oh, sure, you can laugh. I'm the guy who has to solve all these problems. I'll wire him. What's the kid's name? Dodds, Roscoe Dodds. Roscoe Dodds. That is kind of a funny name. That was the beginning. It was snowing when I met Dodds at the train station in Philly the next morning. After some breakfast, I took him over to the club and got the piano and second trumpet parts out of the library. Hey, it's kind of cold in here, isn't it? Yeah, they don't give him much heat in the night club at 10 in the morning. Speak, I sure hope I do all right tonight. Don't worry about it, kid. This isn't a hard book to cut. Well, I know a lot of Billy's instrumental arrangement is pretty well. Well, there are the worst of it. Want to warm up a little? Yeah, I guess so. A lot of this stuff is ballads, ballads, intro, two and over. Yeah. Won't give you any trouble. Hey, can you give me an A? Mm-hmm. Little stiff, huh? Just kind of cold. It'll be all right. Feel like trying one? Okay. Let's take number 43. 40. 42. 43. Got it? Yeah. Big John Special. Mm-hmm. We do this as is, and you've got the ride on the bridge of the second chorus. And let's see. I guess that's all. Hey, uh, speak. Yeah. Maybe I ought to tell you how you... I'm a little slow on sight-reading stuff like this. Well, let's see how it goes anyhow. Okay. We're in on the pickup note, ready? Yeah. Hey, look, let's go over it a couple of more times. I'll get it. Dods, tell me the truth. You ever worked with a brass section? Well, not too much. But I know I can get it if you let me go over the part a few times. Kid, every arrangement we've got is a special. There's over 100 numbers in this book. I know that. But I tell you I can get it. I know I can't. Look, on a day like tonight, we'll play maybe six sets of five numbers a piece. You're not going to learn 30 arrangements by nine o'clock tonight? I could if you'd help me. Nah. Go back to college for another year or so and learn how to read. Then maybe. Look, I haven't gotten another year or so. It's gotta be now. What do you mean? I quit school. I called up my dad on the phone and told him. Oh, kid. Look, I would have quit anyhow. This is what I want. I don't want to be a doctor. What did your dad say? I said it was my life and good luck. You wouldn't schmooze me. That's what he said. He wasn't happy about it, but that's what he said. So you gotta help me. Kid, I'm willing to help you. But learning 30 arrangements in one day when you don't even know which 30 they'll be, how you... Look, who picks the numbers, Billy? Well, sometimes. Mostly has me pick them. Well, if you picked them tonight, I'd know which 30 they'd be. You'll never get away with it. I will. I've got it. Look, speak. This is what I want. All I can say is you're pleased pretty easy. Well, will you help me? All right. Let's take this one again from the top. I'll never forget you for this speak. I'll bet you wounded that. Ready? Ready. For Don's, I won't say he came through clean as a whistle, but when he fluffed in the sectional stuff, he more than made up for when he took a chorus on his own. And what was even more important, the people liked him. Roscoe would stand up to take a slow, sad chorus all by himself. Just the reeds and a rhythm under him. You could see the young chick sigh, and he hunched his face into his shoulder, shut his eyes, and let go. You could see it, and Billy Ford could see it, too. So he gave Roscoe a run of the tour contract, and when that was over in February, he renewed it for another six months. I gotta say this for the kid. He worked for every nickel he made, practicing, taking lessons on the side, paid off, too. By November, he could read like a hawk. I remember it was November because we auditioned a new girl vocalist the same afternoon. Roscoe and I told Billy how we'd taken him in. Go on, you two clowns. Let me alone, will you? Ah, I'm the square, Billy. I had to memorize every part in the book the first two months. That's level, my stroke. Sure, sure. Now, don't jerk me around. How could he know what I was gonna call? I got news for you, boy. January through March, you called exactly nothing. I set every number. What are you talking? You did nothing. January through March, every date, every number. Yeah, well, I told you what to set. Sure. You told him to set a rumba, set a standard, set a ballad. I know what you told him because I used to listen hard. Hey, is this on the square? Sure it is. Remember last May, those four new arrangements she put on the stand in Chicago with the ink still wet? Yeah, yeah, Roscoe cut them cold. Why not? I'd taken the second part off the master sheet three days before it went to the copyist. True, huh, Willie? You two phonies, I ought to fire the both of you. So go ahead, fire. Yeah, fire. Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute. What is this, Fort, something? We're buddies, aren't we? Oh, Mr. Foy. Hey, look what's here. I'm Mr. Foy. Can I help you, honey? I'm Liza Raymond for the audition. Oh, yeah, sure, sure. Miss Raymond, speak with me. Glad to know you. How do you do? Roscoe Dodds. How do you do? Well, up till now, I thought I was doing all right. Just cause to show you how wrong a guy can be, huh? These are a couple of tired sight, and Miss Raymond, look out for them. Well, if you say so. Are you going to be working with us, Liza? Well, I hope I am. Yeah, me too. Liza got the spot. Not that I have to tell you. If you followed Billy Foy's band at all during 44 and 45, you probably remember the great job she did. Liza also got something else. She got the kit. Roscoe Dodds, hook, line, and sinker. Only thing, she wasn't that gone on them. Oh, yeah, they had some laughs and sandwiches together. But Liza had some ideas of her own as Roscoe found out the New Year's Eve after VJ Day. The guy in the Air Force she'd been waiting for finally arrived in New York. I, uh, I thought we had a date tonight. I'm sorry, Roz. I've got something else on. I thought we had a date. It's New Year's Eve, you know. Well, that's right. And if you wanted a date, you should have asked for one. I am asking for one. Well, you're late. Someone else has already asked me. Who, that thin kid out there with all the salad on his neck? That thin kid, as you call him, is a very dear friend of mine. And don't knock the DFC until you get one. Oh, I knock no heroes. I just can't work up much respect for people who discover them at the last minute. All right. You tell me how you'd like it. What do you want? Hi. I love you. I want you to marry me. You say you're in love with me. That's what I said. All right. Will you get out of this business and support me some other way? Do you love me that much? What's that got to do with it? Will you? Well, what's wrong with this business? You're in it. Yes. And I've been in it since I was 12. My folks were in it all their lives. It's fried egg sandwiches in hotel rooms. That's what's wrong with it. Yeah, you're crazy. Oh, you're going to be an up-and-coming young side man all your life. I'm not crazy. Okay. What about fruit salad? What's he going to be? Some up-and-coming airline pilot? Oh, let's forget it, Roz. Okay. You go ahead. You have him. You don't love me. I don't love you like this. Go ahead. Take a fall for this punk with the wings. Roz, listen. Maybe if my eardrum was okay, you'd be taking a fall for me. If you really love me, you quit the business. If you really loved me, you wouldn't ask me to. Maybe you're right. Maybe I wouldn't. Well, that spells it out in a pretty simple language. It's the other guy, huh? I think so. I'm not sure. From the way you talk, you must be pretty sure it isn't me. Pretty sure. I'm sorry, Roz. That was a pretty unhappy New Year's Eve for Roscoe Dodds. But when he got up the next day, it was 1946, and he was a young man who was going places, so he decided to pick up his horn and forget about Liza. A lot of things happened that year to help him forget her, too. And they happened pretty fast. First place, Billy broke up the band in March. The war was over, and so was the demand for big outfits, eight brass and five reeds. So Billy decided to throw in a towel. Most of the boys stayed on in New York, working staff on radio, making records when they could. I kind of lost track of most of them. Roscoe included. Especially after I came out here to the coast. Well, then you never did find out what happened to Roscoe Dodds. Oh, yeah. He caught on to this new sound everyone started making a few years ago. Formed his own band. He's going like a house affair. Well, that's funny. I never heard of him. The name he uses now is Henning. Art Henning. No kidding? Is that who you've been telling me about all the time? Art said you should ask me about Roscoe Dodds. So I told you. Well, thanks. It was nice of you. But, uh, look, what's that got to do with me? It still doesn't give me much to go on. It will if you think about it. What do you mean? Remember, I told you about that morning in the club when I found out Art couldn't read music for sour apples? Yeah. Suppose Art had told you to go home and forget it tonight after he heard you play. What would you do? I'd tell him to go soak his head. I ought to know whether I'm good enough or not. Who's he thinking? Okay, kid, okay. You've answered your own question. What do you mean? Nobody can tell you whether or not you'll be a trumpeter or a doctor or a fireman. If you've got some talent in that line and you want it the way Art wanted it, you'll be a trumpeter no matter what anybody says. I want it all right. There's plenty of people to tell you who you are. If you don't know, nobody else can tell you. Well, I... I think I'm a trumpeter. Who knows? What... Would you mind listening to me play, Mr. Whitten? That all depends. Are you any good? I... yeah. Yeah, I'm very good. In fact, I'll make you forget all about Art Henning. I'm willing. What was that tune he played for you the first time? Birth of the Blues. Okay, E-flat all right. What's your name? You got a load of this. This is Joe Stafford again. I suppose you know the humble origin of jazz music and the blues? It was originally played by lost, lonely people who made up for what they lacked in formal training by putting as much warmth and feeling into their music as they could. When they were happy, they played jazz. When they were downhearted, they played the blues. It wasn't always pretty, but it came from the heart. They were playing. It wasn't very respectable either. Not when it first began. People were scandalized by it. They threw up their hands. That wasn't music. It was almost blasphemy. You know, I never run across people who feel that way about jazz music without remembering the friars who stood in the back of the chapel and gaped in horror at Our Lady's Juggler. I guess that's because I think there's a great similarity between music, any kind of music, any kind of prayer. We can pray formally, solemnly on our knees in church, or we can pray just by turning our thoughts to God and expressing those thoughts in whatever words come to mind. Either way, it's praying, and it falls pleasantly on his ear. Any sound we make, if it comes from our hearts, is pleasing to him, whether it be the sound of a muted trumpet or a muttered prayer. And here's something else you might remember about prayer. The family that prays together stays together. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Family Theater Broadcast is made possible by the thousands of you who feel the need for this type of program. By the Mutual Network, which has responded to this need, and by the hundreds of stars of state, screen and radio who give so unselfishly of their time and talent to appear on our Family Theater stage. To them and to you, our humble thanks. This is Tony LaFranco expressing the wish of Family Theater that the blessing of God may be upon you and your home and inviting you to be with us next week when Family Theater will present starring Michael O'Shea and Gail Storm. Join us, won't you? Family Theater has broadcast throughout the world and originates in the Hollywood studios of the world's largest network. This is the Mutual Broadcasting System.