IN THIS ISSUE: k An interview with KAY KYSER, GEORGIA CARROLL KYSER and KIMBERLY KYSER BIG k Reviews of TONI TENILLE and JIM M Y DORSEY albums and a BAND book about ANDY RAZAF JUMP ★ A BIG BAND GENERAL KNOWLEDGE TRIVIA QUIZ NEWSLETTER ★ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR about MEL TORME, ARTIE SHAW’S SUMMIT RIDGE DRIVE, JO STAFFORD, RALPH SHARON and more BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER FIRST-CLASS MAIL Box 52252 U.S. POSTAGE PAID Atlanta, GA 30355 Atlanta, GA Permit No. 2022 BIG BAND JUMP N EWSLETTER VOLUME 90______________________________ BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004 INTERVIEWS - KAY KYSER, the band. He also GEORGIA CARROLL KYSER, valued his KIMBERLY KYSER audience, refusing to The Background shorten stage ap­ In one of those “everybody doesn’t hear every BBJ pearances program” inquiries, several people have inquired about so theater Kay Kyser, with the latest question in a letter published owners in this issue. A BIG BAND JUMP program was could produced about Kay Kyser using archival interview squeeze in segments with Kay himself, his wife Georgia Carroll an addi­ Kyser and one of his daughters, Kimberly Kyser. tional per­ Those interview comments form the basis of this formance feature, dispensing with the usual question and answer to increase form. box office totals. Kay Kyser led a phenomenally successful orchestra in the later thirties and forties, an amazing feat consider­ Musically ing the fact that Kay was not a musician. He was, the Kyser however, a tireless promoter of his product and a organiza­ dynamic personality who made himself and his band tion was into top radio and motion picture stars. Wednesday sometimes night on NBC Radio, forty million listeners tuned in to looked hear the “Kay Kyser Kollege of Musical Knowledge” down upon presented with a studio audience who answered silly by “hip” questions purely as a device to introduce the music. To music put the success of the radio program in perspective, the fans, but population of the United States in the forties was just some of 130 million, so nearly one-third of the entire citizenry the ar- was listening to Kay Kyser each Wednesday. range- ments were highly pleasing and precisely performed, The motion pictures were no less successful, even particularly some of the recordings prepared by George though they consisted of simple and predictable stories Duning, who later went on to write for motion pictures, generally casting Kay as a country rube who in spite of most notably the theme from “Picnic.” himself topped the sophisticated city folk by the final reel. In life, Kay Kyser was an astute business man and The Scene energized performer who placed primary importance on the character of the band members, for they were Through a mutual friend we were introduced to Kim­ together more than the members of their families. He ’ s berly Kyser, whose comments are recorded here, and quoted as saying, “You can make a musician out of a who supplied recordings of previous interviews with gentleman, butyou can’t always make a gentleman out her mother and father. At the time we met Kimberly she of a musician,” in reference to selecting members of had just appeared in a crowd scene for a television VOLUME 90 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004 motion picture starring Candice Bergen, a childhood ing all previous attendance records at the Blackhawk, friend during her early years growing up in Hollywood. leading to a network broadcast. After the Big Band Era was over, and as a consequence, the motion picture stardom for Kay Kyser diminished, BBJ: What kind of a man was Kay Kyser? Daughter the family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Kimberly Kyser comments. There was an attempt at early television, as referred to in the interview, but Kay Kyser ’ s final years were spent KIMBERLY: There were moments in my life when in the family home in Chapel Hill. I was with him and I needed him and I can hardly talk about it without getting choked up, but We generally imagine that success comes overnight for he was there with you on such a level you couldn’t such personalities as Kay Kyser, but that’s just not believe anybody was so thoughtful and right there with true. For Kay as for so many musicians, it was eight you. On the other hand, he could be as remote and years of playing one-nighters from 1926 at the Univer­ distant and very private as he was warm and with you. sity of North Carolina, through 1934. The first com­ I think the qualities that are his greatest were that he ment was about those years. always listened and he took criticism extremely well. On the other hand, someone named him the “holy KAY: Just barely made it those early days. We drove terror.” He wasn’t mean or vicious, he could be quick- in our cars; I had a thirty dollar Ford Fd had in tongued, very high strung. You can see that in the high school and brought to college with me, and I fixed movies and the tapes of the shows. His energy level it up and so we rode around in that car. We named it is....it’s going to explode....it’s bigger than life. “Passion.” BBJ: Kay Kyser and his band starred in seven mov­ BBJ: The driver for passion was a fellow named ies. He himself was in three other motion Mack Rigsby, who had also worked for Hal pictures. He liked to have fun made of him. There’s a Kemp, the band that preceded Kay Kyser’s at UNC. classic line in the movie “Swing Fever” when Tommy Dorsey and Harry James are supposedly playing in the KAY: Mack was a waiter at the cafeteria next to the Kyser band. James and Dorsey get up to leave the band post office in those days, and Mack said he was with Dorsey saying, “That square will never get any­ going to go north with us if we ever went north like Mr. where. He looks too much like Kay Kyser!” Kemp did. I thought he was kidding, but boy when he heard we were going he was right there with his With the advent of WWII, the Kyser organization suitcase. So, he drove me in my car. He cooked for the played only for service personnel, appearing six hun­ whole band that first summer up in Cleveland. Stayed dred times at military installations, refusing to take with me twenty years, bless his heart. He was more other engagements. than a brother to me. KAY: It was absolutely the most gratifying experi­ BBJ: The “Kollege of Musical Knowledge” origi­ ence I’ve ever had, in fact I told my friends I nated at the Blackhawk in Chicago in 1934 never wanted to play commercially anymore. I’d tasted when Kay’s orchestra followed Hal Kemp into that what real gratitude, really out of the bottom of the heart location. The prime advantage of the Blackhawk ap­ self-effacing gratitude, was all about. pearance was the radio wire and a regular Saturday night broadcast with the band and professional acting BBJ: There was a romance between Kay Kyser and talent. About that time the union insisted that the dark-haired, glamorous Ginny Simms. That actors, who had been working gratis for the exposure, romance never resulted in marriage, but it was source of should be paid. They couldn’t keep the program on the confusion for fans, according to Kimberly Kyser. air if they had to do that, and so Kay came up with the idea of using the audience, asking them questions KIMBERLY: My first realization that Ginny Simms about song titles. It was an immediate success, break­ had been a serious girlfriend of daddy’s 2 VOLUME 90 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004 was when, as people have done all my life, have come crossed the Nevada line her way of accepting his up to me in public and said, “You know, you look just proposal was to say, “Kay, don’t you think you’d better like your mother.” I would thank them and say I never slow down?” heard that before. I was told I looked just like him. They’d squint a moment and then say, “Your mother BBJ: A marriage between Kay Kyser and Georgia had such dark hair.” I told them then my mother is very Carroll was headline news in the '40s, and they blond. They were remembering Ginny Simms. I’d wanted to keep it a secret. smile and say, “No, he didn’t marry her. He married KIMBERLY: They went to the Justice of the Peace in Georgia Carroll.” Las Vegas at 2 AM and got him out of bed. He put on his holster on top of his pajamas, did the BBJ: A t the time ceremony, and they checked into a motel under an Georgia assumed name. Carroll, who displayed a perfect face and fig­ The next morning the headlines were: “KAY KYSER ure, was described by MARRIES.” It turns out the justice of the peace was a John Robert Powers, stringer for AP. who ran a model agency, as “The Most beautiful BBJ: The story is Kay Kyser wanted to retire several girl in the world.” She times during the forties, but was talked out of it every recalls how she met Kay. time. If was after a brief sojourn into television he finally broke up the band and moved to Chapel Hill, GEORGIA: I met Kay on a USO show, and one North Carolina.