Greg,

An interesting idea about the different scales. I'd never encountered it before, so I'm going to do some more looking into it.

I would say, however, that there might be another dimension to Tommy Dorsey's different styles between his blues stuff and his gospel. He started his recording career behind a number of other better-knowns, particularly Tampa Red (Hudson Whittaker). They formed The Hokum Boys for a while and also recorded a lot as just Tampa Red and Georgia Tom and Tampa's slide guitar work was a big factor in what they were doing. Was that part of the reason for the differences? Might be interesting to look at, tho' I don't know how you could prove it one way or the other.

Interesting stuff, tho....

cheers,

david