Late-night hosts are always assuring us that their studio bands sound great wailing away during the commercials, but how do these outfits stack up in the snippets heard by a TV viewer at home? We rate the bands:
The Tonight Show Band
Unlike Doc Severinsen,the current Tonight
Show bandleader is as interested in hard and post-bop as in pop
standards and big band. But saxophonist Branford Marsalis — who sometimes looks as if he wishes Jay Leno would just leave him alone — could use a bit more of Doc's snappy showmanship. The Tonight
Show band doesn't always come across effectively on television
because its top-flight musicians take too long to get into or out of
a commercial break. Lovely closing theme, though. B+
The CBS Orchestra
You'd never know that primo Letterman foil Paul
Shaffer has added Parliament/Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell to
his reconstituted group: As always, this is a slick, fast, frequently
witty, but assiduously unfunky crew. B
The Max Weinberg Seven Drummer Weinberg is playing his E Street heart out with his six cohorts on Conan O'Brien's Late Night. He knows he has to work hard to hook O'Brien's college-age crowd and has come up with a canny mixture of soul oldies and camp-tinged jazz. Beaming as he pounds, Weinberg is the most likable bandleader in late-night. A-
Chevy Chase's unnamed band
Consistency is a byword here: The
worst nighttime talk show has the worst music, spearheaded by
saxophonist-leader Tom Scott's impeccably played, flaccid pop-fusion
glop. D
Arsenio Hall's Posse
Like Scott, keyboardist-leader Michael Wolff also emulates his boss, wagging his head to
the bass-heavy MOR funk provided by a passel of soulless pros. When Arsenio bids them to ''give me something really nasty,'' they respond
with licks that would sound tame on a New Kids on the Block album. C
Add your comment
The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. An asterisk * indicates a required field.