10 Facts About Dave Tough

Dave Tough was an American jazz drummer associated with Dixieland and swing jazz in the 1930s and 1940s.

Dave Tough left music for three years until 1935, then joined the big bands of Tommy Dorsey, Red Norvo, Bunny Berigan, and Benny Goodman.

Dave Tough played Dixieland jazz with Bud Freeman, Jack Teagarden, Eddie Condon, Mezz Mezzrow, and Joe Marsala.

Dave Tough subsequently worked with Eddie Condon, Jerry Gray, Muggsy Spanier, Will Bradley and Jazz at the Philharmonic.

Dave Tough died at the age of 41 after falling down and hitting his head on the street in Newark, New Jersey.

Herman told Soph that Dave Tough was an epileptic.

One cold icy evening in the winter of 1948, Dave Tough was out walking on leave from a stay at a Veterans Hospital.

Dave Tough had an epileptic attack, fell hitting his head on the sidewalk and was dead.

Dave Tough was played by Shelly Manne in the 1959 Paramount Pictures biopic The Five Pennies, a biography of Red Nichols starring Danny Kaye, Barbara Bel Geddes, and Louis Armstrong.

Dave Tough has been described as "the most important of the drummers of the Chicago circle".