One hopes the obits for saxophonist Tommy Newsom, who died Saturday at the age of 78, will all remember what a fine musician he was and not just focus on his alleged boring personality. Newsom was a member of The Tonight Show Band beginning in 1962, even before Johnny Carson took over as host, and he stayed on 'til the night Johnny had departed. Not only was his playing valuable to that wonderful orchestra but his skill as an arranger was put to good use. Everyone else in the music business seemed to know this. Newsom was in constant demand for outside jazz gigs, both for his musicianship and for his charts.
The job of Musical Director on The Tonight Show went through a scuffling period before Doc Severinsen nailed it down on a permanent basis. Newsom became his second-in-command, stepping into the position when Doc was away. For a while, when Ed McMahon was off, they'd bring in an outside announcer to handle his job but in the early seventies, Carson decided he didn't want a "stranger" as his sidekick, even for an evening. So when Ed wasn't there, Doc would move over to function as announcer and that increased the number of nights when Tommy moved from playing his sax to leading the band. (There were even nights when Doc and Ed were both off. When that happened, Tommy would be the announcer and someone else from the orchestra — usually Shelley Cohen — would conduct.)
Johnny was already getting good monologue mileage off Severinsen's outrageous wardrobe. The writers went the other way with Tommy, penning jokes about how bland and unexciting he could be. Newsom was a brilliant musician but his awkwardness speaking on camera often yielded comedy gold. It certainly paved the way for David Letterman's practice of putting non-professionals on his show. A lot of the seemingly spontaneous banter between Johnny and Tommy was carefully scripted but there were nights when Newsom would come up with something so clumsy (or just odd) that it was hilarious.
At some point around the late eighties, Johnny more or less retired the "Tommy Newsom is so boring that…" franchise and only rarely went for such jokes. He also stopped using Tommy in sketches, as he'd occasionally done, and almost completely eliminated Newsom's role as Doc's replacement. The story is that Johnny decided he wanted Ed and Doc there any night he was hosting so the two men were asked/ordered to schedule their extracurricular projects for guest host nights so they'd be there for Johnny. And then on guest host nights when Ed was off, Doc would serve as both announcer and musical director…so Tommy rarely got to front the band. The official word around the Tonight Show set was that Johnny simply thought the lines about Newsom's lack of charisma had gone on too long, but many suspected a personal falling-out.
Whatever the cause, Newsom continued to contribute his playing and arrangement to what was truly an outstanding band. Whenever I was in the NBC studios and they were rehearsing, I'd race for Studio 1 just to listen. The sound was amazing and Tommy Newsom was a major reason.