History of the Airmen of Note

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Following Nestico’s departure the Airmen of Note was temporarily inactivated, and for several months the future of the band hung in the balance. Finally Col. Howard decided that the Airmen of Note should continue as a separate full-time dance band. He put the unit under the direction of MSgt Johnny Osiecki, the accordion soloist that shared the stage at the band’s debut back in 1951. Johnny had since demonstrated his leadership capability as the organizer and leader of the Crew Chiefs, a jazz-oriented dance combo that often toured with the Note. 

Through the summer of 1955 the Airmen of Note had ceased to exist as an operating unit. During this period the men filled in with the HeadCom Band, dance combos, and other units at Bolling. In September, Johnny was named leader and he began to reactivate the band. Rehearsals were resumed, and men were auditioned to fill the vacancies that had developed in the interim.

Johnny was to lead the Airmen of Note for the next eleven years; he has the distinction of serving longer than any other director. His leadership can be divided into four distinct time periods, which he called the four “Herds” after the legendary Woody Herman Herds.  

Kenny Eshelman, Andy Peele, Ken Grasley or Ray Stone, Bobby Zottola (tp), John Shuman, Ray Winslow, Greg Phillips (tb), George West (btb), Mel Owen, Paul Chafin or Jimmy Craig or Jim Staten (as), Tommy Newsom (ts-arr) or Bob Snyder or Gary Scott, Rufus Long or Charlie Almeida (ts), John Bowling (bs), Joe Nerren or Al Pothier (p), Ken Fricker or Don Dempsey (b), Jack Franklin or Bobby Test (d), Tommy Tomlinson, Judy Hickman (vcl), Sammy Nestico (arr)

Facing the responsibility of fronting a big band for the first time was indeed a challenge for Johnny, but he had the advantage of having a nucleus of experienced musicians, an excellent book, and the arranging talent of Tommy Newsom, whose musical stamp is apparent in the sounds of the First Herd. Johnny’s first objective was to update the band’s style. Johnny introduced a more modern flavor to the dance charts.   

The First Herd as it appeared in early 1956

Personnel-wise, the reconstituted Airmen of Note was a mixed bag. Johnny had brought his rhythm section and lead alto saxophone over from the Crew Chiefs. There were a couple of new hires, but most of the personnel were holdovers from the Nestico band. By the summer of 1956, however, enlistments started to expire, and other musicians were transferred to new assignments. The next nine months were to see a big turnover in personnel as the band evolved into what would become the Second Herd, a horse of an entirely different color. 

The brass section and Tommy Newsom in early 1956

One of the carryovers was vocalist Tommy Tomlinson, who about this time began to use the stage name “Duff Thomas.” Duff would be an Airmen of Note fixture on into the days of the Third Herd. In early 1956 Johnny held auditions for a female vocalist. Judy Carroll (Hickman) was selected and sang with the band for a time. Although a WAF, she was never assigned full-time to either the Airmen of Note or the Air Force Band. Another vocal innovation was the Crew Chiefs quartet, which was made up of Tomlinson and musicians Mel Owen, Ray Winslow and Bobby Zottola.

Johnny’s accordion didn’t fit into the Airmen of Note’s style, but he sometimes played a solo on concert jobs to give the brass section a chance to rest their chops.

The rejuvenated Airmen of Note debuted on December 13, 1955 and were soon back into a heavy schedule of local dance jobs and tours of bases in the field. In the spring of 1956, the band had the opportunity to participate in a public relations stage show featuring the “Hurricane Hunters” of the Air Weather Service. Project Barnstorm played fourteen major cities up and down the East Coast and demonstrated the band’s capabilities in a concert format.  It was a forerunner of the concert tours that were to be such an important part of the Airmen of Note’s mission in years to come.

In August of 1956, the band played the Air Force Association Convention in New Orleans, where General Jimmy Stewart took the baton and led the Airmen of Note through the Glenn Miller Medley.  Perhaps the most memorable part of that job was the trip home, when the planes were caught in a heavy storm.

Another memorable experience was the band’s second European tour, which took place in the last two months of 1956. This tour concentrated primarily on troop entertainment and included jobs at bases in Germany and England. Where proper advanced notice had been given, large crowds of enthusiastic GIs were on hand to enjoy the Note’s musical offerings. At other bases the word apparently hadn’t gotten around, because no one seemed to be expecting them.  One of the high points of the tour was a superbly produced half-hour television performance on BBC-TV, which reached an estimated 22 million people in England, Ireland and Scotland.  By the time the band was ready to return to the US, the airlift of Hungarian refugees was in full swing, and it looked like it might be impossible to get a plane for the trip home.  After some anxious hours, MATS finally came through, and the band was able to make it home just in time for Christmas.

Jimmy Stewart leading the Note at the 1956 AFA Convention

Don Smith or Scott Waller, Ken Grasley, Ray Stone, Bobby Zottola or Jim Fuller (tp), John Shuman, Jack Schnupp, Gregg Phillips or Jim Buchanan (tb), George West (btb-arr) or Houghton Peterson (btb); Gene Ventresca, Jim Staten or Don Grossi (as), Gary Scott or Tony Osiecki, Rick Torcaso (ts), John Bowling or Jim Staten (bs), Kenny Sampson (p-arr), Bob Warren or Don Dempsey (b), Doug Marsh (d), Duff Thomas (vcl), Sammy Nestico (arr)

If the First Herd was a transition band and an opportunity for Johnny to get his feet wet in the big band business, the Second Herd was the first to settle into a groove.  Johnny remembers it as an aggressive band, a bit rough around the edges perhaps, but with a lot of individualism and personality.

The Second Herd in the fall of 1957

The evolution of the First Herd into the Second Herd was a difficult time for Johnny and the Airmen of Note.  As mentioned earlier, there was a lot of turnover during this period because many musicians were leaving the service and others were transferring to new assignments.  Good replacement musicians, especially those with big band experience, were hard to find.  The Korean War build-up was over, and recruitment was way down.  There were times when Johnny had to borrow musicians from the HeadCom Band or the Bandsman School just to field a full crew.  He even had to spend his vacation that year visiting field bands in hopes of finding some of the men he needed.

His persistence was rewarded.  By the summer of 1957 the personnel was set once more, with the addition of veteran trombonist Jack Schnupp and pianist Kenny Sampson from New York City, saxophonists Gene Ventresca and Rick Torcaso from the Duquesne University music program, trumpeter Don Smith from the Harry James band, drummer Doug Marsh from the Sauter-Finegan orchestra and bassist Bob Warren from the Chicago Symphony.  Ken Grasley also returned to the Note about this time.

On the Second Herd, Gene Ventresca was lead alto saxophonist, John Shuman continued as lead trombone, and splitting the trumpet lead were Don Smith and Ken Grasley.  A number of soloists were featured: Smith and Bobby Zottola on trumpet, Gary Scott and Rick Torcaso on tenor saxophone, Gene Ventresca on alto saxophone, Jack Schnupp and George West on trombone, Doug Marsh on drums, and Kenny Sampson on piano.

Sparked by musicians of the “new school” like Ventresca, Torcaso, Sampson, Marsh and West, and augmented by “veterans” Scott, Schnupp, and Zottola, the band loved to play jazz, and the more modern the jazz, the better.  This sometimes caused problems, because the band’s bread-and-butter was dance jobs, and the clientele usually preferred hearing pretty music to exploring the frontiers of jazz.  But Johnny looked for opportunities for the band to show off its jazz side, and even on dance jobs, when the situation was right, he let them go for it.  In those days, the dancers were pretty skillful - if they had a good tempo, it didn’t matter quite so much whether the band was playing swing or bop.

By this time Johnny had developed some definite ideas on what direction the band’s music should be taking.  One of his main objectives was to avoid developing a particular style for the band.  Instead he tried to develop a repertoire that showcased the best of the contemporary big band styles while staying within the context of the Note’s primary objective of providing entertainment for Air Force functions.  So while most of the music had to be danceable, he also brought in some arrangements that could show off the band’s considerable jazz capabilities when they had the opportunity to do concerts or stage shows.

Future Capitol recording artists The Four Saints perform with the Airmen of Note at Griffiss AFB

The service club dances and air base tours continued, and the band returned to the recording studios after a two-year absence.  Programs like Reserved for You were still being aired during this period, but the producers had to fall back on material that had been taped in prior years.  Starting in 1957, however, the Note began waxing some of the new sounds that had become such an important part of their repertoire.

Johnny knew that he had a first rate band, and one that was a real credit to the Air Force.  He worked hard to find opportunities to present the band in concert format.  Typical of those early efforts was a benefit jazz concert at Front Royal, Virginia on November 2, 1957 .  Sharing the stage that night was “The Four Saints” an Air Force Band vocal group.

In the same year, the Note received some nationwide exposure when it appeared on the Lawrence Welk television show to commemorate the Air Force’s 10th anniversary. The band was also featured at the world premiere of the Dean Hess movie Battle Hymn in Marrietta, Ohio .

The following year saw the Airmen of Note return to Europe, this time on a 45-day State Department-sponsored tour, which included public concerts in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Crete.  Perhaps the high point was opening the United States Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Brussels. But wherever they played, the dedicated European big band fans enthusiastically received them. Their concert repertoire on this tour ran the gamut from Miller to Basie and from Dixieland to contemporary big band jazz.

In June of 1959 the Airmen of Note was invited to perform at the Grieg International Music Festival in Bergen, Norway. They were the first jazz group to receive such an honor. The year 1959 also saw Metronome feature a complimentary article on the Airmen of Note. Another high point was a 1960 appearance at the Tri-State Jazz Festival in Enid, Oklahoma, where they performed Gordon Jenkins’ Manhattan Tower Suite with the Phillips University Symphony Orchestra.

During this same period the band began to participate in the summer concerts presented by the service bands on the Mall in Washington DC. The first few summers the Note only did a single performance at the Watergate Amphitheater, but in later years the park concerts became an important part of the Note’s summer schedule. These concerts provided an opportunity for the band to open up and show what it could do.

By this time the Airmen of Note’s schedule had become so heavy that a second Air Force dance orchestra was formed to handle some of the routine dance and service club work. This unit was called the VIP Orchestra and was under the direction of Bruce Snyder, one of the original members of the Airmen of Note. The VIP Orchestra was a smaller group, normally about nine or ten pieces. The band could swing, but given the type of jobs it played, the music usually leaned more toward “businessman’s bounce.” Musicians were drawn from the HeadCom Band, and most of the arrangements were by Ken Grasley, Fred Kepner and Dale Chamberlin. The unit performed on a part-time basis for the about six years.

Bruce Snyder and the VIP Orchestra with ex-Note musicians Eddie d'Alfonso, Sammy Nestico, Ken Grasley, Jimmy Craig, and Bob Snyder