I remember a Saturday Review piece fromt he mid-1950s (no, I was of reading age then, but our local library was well-stocked in that regard, and there were a lot of "real time" jazz articles & reviews in that magazine for a good while, so...carpe diem, etc.), anyway, this article made the point that Les Brown's band was not a jazz band per se, it was a dance band, but it was as close to a jazz band as a dance band could be in the marketplace and not actually be a jazz band...one of those articles that in retrospect seems as clarifying as it does ludicrous, but I have to confess that I did hear Les Brown in a different way after reading that, when I heard him at all, which outside of Leap Frog, Doris Day, and Bob Hope was hardly ever for a looooong time. But yeah, fine band, s close to a jazz band as a dance band could be in the marketplace and not actually be a jazz band.
As true in 1984 as ever, eh?