Swing situation around Beantown gets a real dose of aspirin as three topnotch bands pull into town today. Jimmy Dorsey, Les Brown, and Sonny Burke attract in the order named, the last two being here for several weeks, Jimmy doing a series of one-nighters starting tonight at Roseland State and ending up next Friday at the MIT Sophomore Prom.

Besides the rather natural interest that this column has in its discovery, vocalist Helen O'Connell, it has seemed to us that ever since Jimmy started his band, he has had the best all-around combination in the country. We've said this for two years now, predicting that he would go to the top very shortly, and Jimmy has saved our face by breaking every record in sight with the most disgusting regularity for the past nine months. Down in Atlantic City this summer with lots of the name bands around, including his brother Tommy, Jimmy managed to gather some thousands of dance fans around for a new house record. Reason for this sort of thing is very simple: Jimmy has one of the very few bands that play good dance music, good swing, have good soloists, a colorful style, a leader that gets along with his band and the crowd, and two of the best vocalists in the business.

He always plays his "commercial" tunes softly, easily, and with good dance tempo. As far as the swing stuff goes, things like "Parade of the Milk Bottle Caps," "Serenade to Nobody in Particular," and "Hollywood Pastime" are recognized in the trade as a style of program music that Jimmy alone can do.

He himself is recognized as the greatest technician on the alto sax in all the surrounding territory. His "Flight of a Bumble Bee" is often done so fast that it gets done about two seconds before the people at end of the hall have begun to hear it. Drummer Buddy Schutz and trombonist Don Matteson are two of the best. Besides having a marvelous classical background, one of tenor saxman Herby Haymer's joys in life is to work in things like "Hymn to the Sun" in arrangements of "Liza"--also making faces that only a mother could love or a jitterbug appreciate.

Most overlooked but one of the best men in the band is first saxist Milt Yaner. And if you don't think that having a first sax that knows how to lead a section is important, listen to Benny Goodman's orchestra right now. He has one of the best alto solo men around, but when the section plays together, it sounds like a battle royal. With Jimmy's bunch, however, it's just one smooth tone, and Yaner is the gentleman responsible for this very telling factor.

Vocalist Bob Eberly turned out a performance on the band's record of "Body and Soul" a few weeks ago that gives him the tap as being the best band vocalist working. He has a swell voice that's well enough trained so that he can be heard sans microphone, something most singers have to think twice about. The "Colonel" has in addition a swell sense of humor that makes him one of the band's chief assets.

The previously mentioned Miss O'Connell, we must admit, can't be judged objectively here. But in any band's land, she is good-looking, has lots of genuine personality and charm, and sings very well. We think that she is much better than that--in fact, we'd rank her right under Mildred Bailey, but we would be accused of prejudice. Point remains that here is the band that anyone of any taste can listen to and like, and that is something that Jimmy can not only be proud of, but from which he is going to make a lot of money.

Les Brown and Sonny Burke, the former playing at the Raymor Ballroom and the latter at the Atlantic Beach in Revere are both good bands worth spending an evening listening to. Since he disbanded his Duke University band, Brown has gone in for a sort of pleasantly arranged sweet-swing that's quite good. For example, his theme, "Shang-ri-La," is something worth hearing.

Burke comes from the same North Carolina school that Hal Kemp did. In fact, he did arrangements for Kemp for a while, but found that the Goodman-Basic style was more to his liking, and so he started a band on this idea. Results are not bad, the band's first record (Vocalion) "Tea for Two" being well arranged, with some decent solos.