TELEVISION REVIEWS : A SENTIMENTAL DORSEY JOURNEY

The Hollywood Paladium opened on Halloween Eve of 1940, with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and his vocalists (Frank Sinatra, Connie Haines, the Pied Pipers). Last January, the night was more or less re-created for “Sentimental Swing: The Music of Tommy Dorsey,” a lengthy KCET special (which will be interrupted by three eight-minute pledge breaks) airing at 8 tonight on Channel 28.

For anyone willing to accept nonjudgmentally the nostalgic values inherent in this presentation, “Sentimental Swing” will be a delight from intro to coda.

Produced by Jim Washburn and directed by Kip Walton, this is a slick show aimed at the kind of audience and age bracket that should make the pledge breaks very profitable. However, the only actual Dorsey alumni on hand are Buddy Morrow and Buddy Rich. The former, who played a trombone in the Dorsey band almost a half century ago, leads an orchestra of stunning mediocrity and is a less than flawless instrumentalist.

This was Buddy Rich’s final TV appearance. He sat in with the band for a couple of numbers that succeeded splendidly in bringing it to life, and sang two tunes. When he changes places with Mel Torme, it is clear that Torme is more adept at the drums than Rich was as a singer.

Using a script by Dave Pettito, Torme as host reminisces agreeably (when Dorsey recorded “Song of India” Torme was 11). He also sings several numbers (most notably two Sy Oliver charts), and duets with Maureen McGovern, a superior Lena Horne-type cabaret singer who is not too well served by the orchestra’s support. Jack Jones, hailed by Torme as “the greatest pure singer around today,” is backed at one point by the L.A. Voices, a well-blended quintet that could have upgraded the show by doing more on its own.

The 1940s ambiance is well captured with shots of the dancers and by the use of some 22 songs associated with the band. Everybody joins in for what can be regarded as a grand finale or a dumb anticlimax, depending on your view of a ditty called “I’ll Take Tallulah,” which the Dorsey band played in the 1942 movie “Ship Ahoy.”

Much is made of Dorsey’s legendary stature as a bandleader, and indeed the facts do bear this out on some of his original records. But such pieces as “Marie” come off here with too little of their pristine vigor. Nostalgia, as Simone Signoret once remarked, ain’t what it used to be.

“Sentimental Swing” also airs next Saturday at 4:05 p.m. on Channel 28, at 8 p.m. on Channel 15 and at 10:15 p.m. on Channel 50.