Tommy Newsom

Tommy Newsom is best known for his playing in the Tonight Show Band of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, where he occasionally was the butt of jokes as Doc Severinsen's dim-witted sidekick. Newsom was always good-humored about it all, but this particular "gig" covered up the fact that he was actually a pretty talented tenor saxophone soloist. Besides playing with the Airmen of Note during his four years in the Air Force, Newsom studied at the Peabody Conservatory and Columbia University Teachers College, where he earned a master's degree. He spent the 1950s mostly as a studio musicia...