The Bob Dorough Interview

Digging it Right with You

By Bob Dorough 

When I went to North Texas, I ran across a very good little jazz band, and I was dumbfounded because they were much more advanced than I was. They had an excellent clarinetist, a trombonist, and bass, drums, piano. They were more like Jack Teagarden’s group than anything else. They knocked me out, of course, and every time they played I would dig them and try to pick up some ideas and tricks. That was the beginning of my jazz life.
Teagarden was a great singer and a wonderful trombonist. I never heard him in person, but I heard these guys and it knocked me out. I liked that jazz combo. Teagarden did some duets with Louis Armstrong. He was a down-home singer.
I discovered Thelonious Monk at North Texas. All the other students thought he was weird, but of course he was right. All along he was the right composer. He had off-the-wall melodies and what would look like a primitive kind of piano playing. It was so skilled, you didn’t realize it until you listened carefully. At first, it was just a completely different style of playing the piano and writing the tunes. They made a superficial judgement that he was weird and laughed at me having ordered his records through Downbeat ads.
I learned a lot about show business from Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole: they were really my big heroes. I learned that you needed to make contact with the audience: sing a song in such a way that they’re completely wrapped up in it and hear every word. They let you do it your way and they’re digging it right with you. To get the audience is a special knack that Louis had.