TubeNet

There was a radio program, a detective show, in the late 1940s, very early 1950s, which begins and ends with an amazing tuba solo. In fact the tuba player, who played it wrote me a letter about his participation on the show a few years ago. Well, in my divorce (and moving things to storage--living in cramped quarters), I cannot find that letter. Does anyone know who the tuba player was? It was done at ABC in New York, presumably at the studios of station WJZ (now WABC).

LISTEN TO A 30 MINUTE EPISODE HERE!

Someone said it is Leonard Jung, but I remember Mr. Jung's letter to me: It is not Leonard Jung.

By the way, the recording I have the link to (in the first posting) is a Canadian rebroadcast of the U.S. show and the closing theme is cut. You can still hear some great tuba licks all through the show.

The show on this posting is a better recording. (You also notice that the Fat Man lost a couple of pounds in a couple of years!) It is a complete show, just as it was heard 55 years ago.

It's too bad they don't have anything like this on radio today!

LISTEN TO ANOTHER 30 MINUTE EPISODE HERE!

This episode is only online for a limited time. This is a great story and the sound is better than a lot of others. But it's only half there.

If you enjoy these programs, please let me know. There are only 10 full-length episodes known to exist out of almost 100 episodes made.

There was also an Australian version of The Fat Man, which doesn't have the great tuba solo theme music.

I also have three different radio versions of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town: Two have the original cast, with Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. The third is from the Mercury Theater/Campbell Playhouse and stars Orson Welles, which is more of a curiosity than anything else. It also lacks the tuba playing that the other two have. The first two were done at KNX in Los Angeles and the third was done at WABC (today WCBS) in New York--the original call letters of WCBS were WABC, which stood for the Atlantic Broadcasting Company; the original call letters of today's WABC were WJZ.

LISTEN TO HALF OF A 30 MINUTE EPISODE HERE!

These two and a half episodes should fit nicely onto an audio CD to hear in your car.

When I saw the post about "The Fat Man" being recorded in the late 40's I knew it couldn't be Harvey Phillips. I talked to Harvey Phillips this morning and he said the tuba player was Phillip Cadway, who was on staff at ABC for many years. According to Harvey, Cadway was a beautiful player and was Bill Bell's first really good student. He also said that Cadway was one the first of the versatile tuba players who could do many styles from jazz to studio to symphony. He was also the player on Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows".

"The Fat Man" was a take off on Sydney Greenstreet and was later spun off on the TV shows "Cannon" and "Jake and the Fat Man"--shows that Tommy Johnson did here in Los Angeles.

Jim Self
www.bassethoundmusic.com