Tony Pastor

Tenor sax­o­phon­ist and vo­cal­ist Tony Pas­tor first made his name in Artie Shaw’s band be­fore launch­ing his own or­ches­tra at the end of 1939. Though never reach­ing the same level of pop­u­lar­ity as Shaw, Pas­tor man­aged a long and suc­cess­ful ca­reer. With his ex­pres­sive singing and his imp­ish per­son­al­ity, he al­ways put on a good show. Pas­tor was both hon­est and friendly and was well loved by his mu­si­cians and fans.

Pas­tor began play­ing pro­fes­sion­ally while still a teenager, work­ing with the Wes­leyan Ser­e­naders in the mid-​1920s, John Cav­al­laro in 1927, Irv­ing Aaron­son from 1928 to 1930, and Austin Wylie around 1930. In 1931, he opened a night­club in Hart­ford, Con­necti­cut, and fronted an or­ches­tra of his own. The group strug­gled until dis­band­ing in 1934. Pas­tor toured with Smith Ballew in 1935 and played briefly with Joe Venuti and Vin­cent Lopez be­fore join­ing Shaw in 1936, where he both sang and played sax­o­phone.

Pas­tor and Shaw had known each other dur­ing their younger days in New Haven, Con­necti­cut, and Pas­tor be­came a core mem­ber of Shaw’s or­ches­tra for the next sev­eral years. Shaw grew in­creas­ingly dis­sat­is­fied with the band busi­ness, and in mid-​1939, after re­cov­er­ing from a se­ri­ous ill­ness, threat­ened to quit. Pas­tor and arranger Jerry Gray talked him out of it. Their vic­tory was short lived, how­ever. Fac­ing sev­eral law­suits and the wrath of jit­ter­bug­gers who began to smash his records after he called them “mo­rons,” Shaw fi­nally had enough and walked off the band­stand in No­vem­ber 1939. Pas­tor was asked to take over the or­ches­tra but de­clined after it voted to be­come a co­op­er­a­tive af­fair. He formed his own band in­stead.

Early Band

Largely made up of ex-​Shaw mu­si­cians, Pas­tor’s new group de­buted at the end of 1939, record­ing on Vic­tor sub­sidiary Blue­bird. The band went through a num­ber of vo­cal­ists dur­ing its first year. Elisse Cooper served as its first fe­male singer, with Bob Car­roll as male bal­ladeer. Both stayed only a few months. Kay Fos­ter re­placed Cooper in March, with Car­roll also leav­ing that same month for George Hall’s or­ches­tra.^[1] Fos­ter re­mained through the sum­mer but had left by mid-​October, re­placed by Kay Lit­tle. Sax­o­phon­ist and vo­cal­ist Johnny McAfee had joined by Sep­tem­ber, and bal­ladeer Dorsey An­der­son by No­vem­ber. In late 1940, Pas­tor com­bined his vocal staff into a quar­tet var­i­ously called “Three Boys and a Girl” or “Three Lads and a Lassie,” which recorded in Sep­tem­ber.

In the lat­ter part of 1940, Pas­tor began to fea­ture spe­cialty drum­mer Johnny Mor­ris, which re­sulted in one of the band’s most mem­o­rable tunes, “Para­did­dle Joe.” Pas­tor’s lit­tle brother, Sal, known more com­monly as “Stubby,” began to oc­ca­sion­ally play with the or­ches­tra in 1941 and of­fi­cially joined the group later that year. Pas­tor went all out when it came to buy­ing charts for his book. His or­ches­tra fea­tured some of the most mod­ern jazz arrange­ments of its time. In con­trast to Shaw, much of Pas­tor’s music could be termed “low­brow,” often fo­cus­ing on nov­elty tunes and eth­nic humor.

Lit­tle left the band in Jan­u­ary 1941. Linda Keene, who had been with Red Norvo’s re­cently dis­banded out­fit, took her place in Feb­ru­ary but stayed only a month, re­join­ing Norvo in early March when he re­or­ga­nized. Eu­ge­nie Baird then took over the fe­male vo­cal­ist spot in March and set­tled in for the long haul. For the next few months, with Baird, McAfee, and An­der­son, Pas­tor had a rel­a­tively sta­ble vocal de­part­ment. An­der­son, how­ever, fell vic­tim to the draft in mid-​1941. He made a brief reap­pear­ance with Pas­tor’s band in No­vem­ber when he re­ceived a week­end fur­lough. McAfee left in early 1942, lured away by Benny Good­man. An­der­son, who had been dis­charged from the ser­vice by that time, re­joined Pas­tor in March, stay­ing through at least April.

Baird re­mained with Pas­tor until late 1942 when re­ports in Sep­tem­ber had her suf­fer­ing from “bad ton­sils” and plan­ning a va­ca­tion. Mar­cia Rice had taken over by No­vem­ber, stay­ing through at least Feb­ru­ary 1943. The Nor­ton Sis­ters were the band’s fe­male vo­cal­ists by April, with Betty Nor­ton as soloist. The sis­ters left in or be­fore July. Patti Pow­ers was vo­cal­ist in No­vem­ber, with Vir­ginia Maxey tak­ing over in De­cem­ber. Maxey re­mained through at least Oc­to­ber 1944. Nei­ther Rice, Pow­ers, nor Maxey, dur­ing this time pe­riod, recorded with the band, their stays falling en­tirely within the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Mu­si­cians record­ing ban from Au­gust 1942 to No­vem­ber 1944.

Later Ca­reer

After the union lifted the ban, Pas­tor began record­ing on the Vic­tor label proper, where he fo­cused more on his own singing, only record­ing with one fe­male vo­cal­ist dur­ing the next year, Ruth Mc­Cul­lough in April 1945. That changed in 1946 after a move to the Cosmo label. Maxey re­turned to the band early that year, with Pas­tor using her on sev­eral record­ings from Feb­ru­ary through May. Dur­ing this time, Pas­tor also recorded with a vocal group, The Tune­timers.

Maxey likely re­mained with the band into late 1946 when, see­ing the bot­tom start­ing to drop out of the band busi­ness, Pas­tor hired the Clooney Sis­ters, Rose­mary and Betty, and began mod­ern­iz­ing his sound.^[2] That year the band recorded a se­lec­tion of songs from Dis­ney’s Song of the South with Tommy Lynn join­ing the sis­ters and Pas­tor on vo­cals. The Clooneys proved highly pop­u­lar and re­mained with Pas­tor until late 1948, when they left the band to start their own act, though they con­tin­ued to record with Pas­tor until 1950. Dotty Evans, for­merly one of the Mur­phy Sis­ters, re­placed them on stage. Kay Lit­tle re­turned as vo­cal­ist from Au­gust 1950 through at least No­vem­ber 1950. In 1949, Pas­tor switched to the Co­lum­bia label, work­ing with Pearl Bai­ley on two songs.

Pas­tor’s band made its last sides for Co­lum­bia in 1950. It would be three years be­fore they en­tered the stu­dio again, this time for Decca, where they made four sides. They recorded two more sides for Co­lum­bia in 1955. Pas­tor kept his band going through at least 1957, scrap­ping it soon after. In its later years, his son, Guy, sang with the or­ches­tra.

After dis­band­ing, Pas­tor or­ga­nized a small group that played the Las Vegas cir­cuit. The new out­fit fea­tured his three sons. Pas­tor be­came very ill in the late 1960s and quit the music busi­ness, liv­ing in vir­tual seclu­sion for the rest of his life. Tony Pas­tor passed away in 1969 at age 62.

Notes