Severinsen Taking Baton in Pops Series

About 20 years ago, Doc Severinsen made his orchestral debut conducting a surprise symphony that had nothing to do with Haydn.

As Severinsen recalled it in a phone interview this week, he had been engaged to appear with the Pittsburgh Symphony as guest soloist--or so he believed.

“I thought I was just going there to play a concerto. Three days before, I called to see who the conductor would be. They said, ‘You are. It’s your program.’ ” After the initial shock, Severinsen went to work. “I got some Copland things together, and I don’t even recall what else. I learned the pieces very quickly and jumped in.”

By now, the man best known as a jazz trumpet player and leader of the “Tonight Show” band is a practiced hand at conducting pops symphonic programs. Tonight and Saturday, he’ll pick up the baton again in his role as principal conductor for the Pacific Symphony’s pops series.

This time, Severinsen will bring the 16-piece “Tonight Show” band with him in a program aimed at forging a link between symphonic music and big band jazz. Severinsen said this will be only the second time the full band has played with a symphony.

When the performance was booked, Severinsen said, he had been expecting a hectic day of rehearsals leading up to opening night--though perhaps not quite so hectic as his own preparations for that conducting debut 20 years ago. The “Tonight Show” band was going to have to be bused to Costa Mesa for morning rehearsals with the Pacific Symphony, head back to Los Angeles for the “Tonight Show’s” afternoon taping, then return to the Orange County Performing Arts Center to play in the evening.

But the strike by the Writers Guild of America solved the problem. Television producers, including those for the Carson show, have been forced into reruns, leaving Severinsen and the “Tonight Show” band with some unexpected time to rehearse.

During the first half of the evening, Severinsen said, he’ll augment the Pacific Symphony with a four-piece jazz rhythm section and try to convey “my idea of what a big band would sound like through the eyes of Dmitri Shostakovich.” The piece in question, Shostakovich’s “Festival Overture,” is “a known classical selection that has some of the same excitement you would have with a big band,” Severinsen said. The “Tonight Show” band will come on after intermission to play a swing segment on its own, then join forces with the symphony for a Duke Ellington medley, among other selections.

Entrenched as band leader and flashily attired foil for Johnny Carson since 1967, Severinsen has stepped up his symphonic work during the ‘80s. After his hastily prepared conducting debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony, he said, he was content to appear as a guest soloist and leave most of the conducting to others. But in 1983, after appearances in Phoenix as a symphony soloist, the Phoenix Symphony named Severinsen its principal pops conductor. “They said, ‘We like the way you do it; we want you to become our regular pops guy.’ ” Severinsen said his Orange County position came about in the same way, and he’ll also be working with the Syracuse Symphony on a pops series.

Severinsen said the stepped-up activity with symphony orchestras isn’t calculated to give him another, more sophisticated platform than his much-seen--but only briefly heard--work on the “Tonight Show.”

“I don’t have any overall concept in mind in working with symphony orchestras,” he said. “It’s just something I like to do.”

Whether performing in an orchestra hall or on the “Tonight Show,” “my basic personality stays the same,” he said. “But musically (with an orchestra), I have two hours to go out and perform. It’s a lot more than the 20 seconds here and 20 seconds there, with an occasional band number, that we have on the ‘Tonight Show.’ ”

DOC SEVERINSEN,

“TONIGHT SHOW BAND”

and PACIFIC SYMPHONY

Tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m.

Orange County Performing Arts Center, Costa Mesa.

$15 to $47

Information: (714) 556-ARTS