The dual hosting format lasted only a few months before NBC forced Steve Allen to focus all his attention on The Steve Allen Show to better compete, on Sunday nights, with the juggernaut that was CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show. Ernie Kovacs had a future in film and wasn't disappointed to be overlooked as the possible solo heir to Tonight! Really, NBC didn't have much love for Allen's late night format and didn't think it could survive in the ratings without him. In fact, the original concept for Tonight! was to be a scheduled bookend to NBC's top-rated morning show Today and focus on news, culture and promotional fodder (before Steve Allen signed on, refused the very idea, and just did the same show he'd done locally in New York.) So with Steve Allen's desk empty, NBC had a chance to finally try out its original concept with Tonight! America After Dark. It was a bust. Jack Lescoulie, a Today cast member, hosted this iteration for the first six months. NBC then sacrificed veteran radio DJ Al "Jazzbo" Collins to finish out another five weeks until the next Tonight! host could step in. Jack Lescoulie doesn't have many recordings to speak of, but Al "Jazzbo" Collins does, so he'll be our next stop on the Tour with Spotlight on Percussion released in 1955 on the Vox record label.
"Jazzbo" was his radio handle, and from it, you can guess what kind of radio shows Al Collins hosted. "Jazzbo" was cool, laid back and well-versed in the lingo of the fifties beats (which he also built upon and created whole jazz worlds out of such as on his WNEW show live from the imaginary Purple Grotto which was inhabited by an anthropomorphic bestiary of jazz fans.) This jazz jargon was the basis for Steve Allen's own hipster fairy tales which "Jazzbo" would cover, play with and add to to make his own. Other recordings featuring Collins were a series of jazz concerts labeled as "Al 'Jazzbo' Collins Presents" where he would invariably get in the way of a great session and try to elucidate, through the players, how he understood jazz to be. It probably worked a lot better on the radio in between 45s. This instructional bent is also found on the scripted Spotlight on Percussion (under the more necktied moniker of "Al Collins".)
This educational record is a listing of classical, latin and jazz percussion where Al Collins details the instruments' sound qualities and uses in popular classical pieces. Arnold Goldberg performs the classical percussion and the complex pieces that combine them all. Kenny Clarke takes over for the closing jazz section where he furiously improvises two tracks over eight minutes. Jazz is where the "Jazzbo" comes out and though Collins doesn't have to say very much—smartly leaving that to Clarke—his excitement for the genre is focused on elevating jazz percussion above the highbrow reputation of classical music. If there is any narrative to Collins's narration to be found, it's that classical music is the beautiful past and jazz is the present and future of the highest individual and ensemble art of musical expression.
Here is the discography surrounding Al "Jazzbo" Collins's debut album:
Little Red Riding Hood (1953 single)
Jack and the Beanstalk (1953 single)
The Invention of the Airplane (1953 single)
Little Hood Riding Red (Little Red Riding Hood) (1954 single)
Jazz at the Metropole Cafe (1955 "presented" album)
Spotlight on Percussion
Max (1956 single)
Al "Jazzbo" Collins Presents the East Coast Jazz Scene - Vol. 1 (1956 "presented" album)
The Space Man (1957 single)
Prehistoric Hop (1959 single)
Al "Jazzbo" Collins Presents Swinging at the Opera (1960 "presented" album)
In the Purple Grotto (1961 "presented" album)
Al "Jazzbo" Collins Tells Fairy Tales for Hip Kids (2008 compilation album)
"Pee Little Thrigs (Three Little Pigs)" by Al "Jazzbo" Collins
"The Discovery of America" by Al "Jazzbo" Collins
"Jack and the Beanstalk" by Al "Jazzbo" Collins
Pass the Headphones!!
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