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The Ithaca Conservatory, besides being a first-rate music school, also
boasted the presence of The Pat Conway Band, which –
with the exception of the Sousa band –
was the most popular military band in the country. Conway –
as Les would do in later years –
tired of constant touring, and took a job that would enable him to stay in
one place long enough to raise his children. Les happily joined the band,
quickly establishing a reputation as a serious, gifted and ambitious
musician. Though sax remained his main instrument, Les also studied and mastered
the classical clarinet while at Ithaca. When informed that the school
needed a second bassoonist for the school orchestra to play Mozart and
Beethoven, and that whoever fulfilled that role would receive a full
scholarship, he immediately purchased a second-hand bassoon, and started
studying it in addition to the sax and clarinet.
By 1927, his second year at Ithaca, Les felt the need to lead his own
band, and a new group, The Rainbow Men, was born. The colorful name of the
band was reflected in their apparel –
like Duke Ellington, they wore sashes across the front of their tuxedos,
but theirs were striped with all the colors of the rainbow. "Well, as
many colors as we could squeeze into six inches," Les qualified. This
was the first real big band les would lead. "Big for that time,
anyway," he said. "Four saxes, four brass, four rhythm. I did
all the arranging and rehearsed the band for what few jobs we got."
In the summer of ’29, after graduating from Ithaca, Les ran into a
friend who would change his life. Bob Alexy was an exceptional trumpet
player who went on to play with the Jimmy Dorsey band, as Les recalled:
"He was at the New York Military Academy and told me that he
could get me a scholarship there. He called the bandmaster and said, ‘Hey,
I got a kid here that can play clarinet.’" Les was granted a full
scholarship because of Alexy’s recommendation, as well as Les’ ability
and inclination to play the small, oddly tuned E-flat clarinet. He loved the instrument because
"it was very light, so it’s
great in parades. I used to joke with the tuba players who had these huge
tubas around their necks, and here I am with my little E-flat
clarinet."
Though the academy was devoted to all things military, Les never lost
sight of his reason for being there, and his reason for being in general –
music. So at night he’d sneak out of the barracks to go to a nearby frat
house where he could catch the sounds of the big bands on the radio.
"We’d hear Paul Whiteman, and Mildred Bailey, who was with Whiteman
then, and we’d listen to Coon Sanders," he recalled fondly.
"It was great." Despite these evening escapades, however, Les
was a superb student who was named class valedictorian, and offered a full
scholarship to attend West Point. He didn’t take it. "By then I had
enough of military school," he said.
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‘Hey,
I got a kid here that can play clarinet.’
"I used to joke with the tuba players who had these huge
tubas around their necks, and here I am with my little E-flat
clarinet."
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