Jazzletter PO Box 240, Ojai CA 93024-0240
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Gene Lees Ad Ljbitum Jazzletter PO Box 240, Ojai CA 93024-0240 Mare/1 2002 Vol 27 No. 3 A Lyrical Shrnooze: player. Hetaught me, he was very nice to me. He came back and he was one of three music directors with John Mercer Alan and Marilyn Bergman with Capitol Records. In fact, his son Frank is a producer on Part Two many ofthe Spielberg pictures. “So I learned a great deal about orchestration and arrang- “The Ethical Culture School was just terrifically encourag- ing from Jack. When Icameback, IhadtheGI Bill, sol ing,” Alan Bergman said. “Betty Comden went there. The wentbackto Chapel}-Iillandlgraduated, andthenlwentto man who is now the dean offlie Yale music school went there. graduate school here at UCLA.” A lot of people in the arts. And then I went to public high “Chapel Hill was Kay Kyser’s home town,” I said. school, Abraham Lincoln High School, which is in the Coney “Yeah,” Alan said. “Let me digress for a moment.” Island section of Brooklyn. I wrote some shows there, Marilyn said, “I love this story.” musicals. And also we had a band, and the fellow I mentioned “When I was eleven or twelve, at the Pararnoimt Theater before, Tommy Goodman, was the piano player. Dave Pell, in New York, they had bands and movies. And Kay Kyser the saxophone player, who was Dave Pellowitz, and Buddy wasthebandthereatthetime. And when you walked in,t_hey Rich’s brother Mickey, who was a saxophone player. We tookyourticket, andtheticketwentinto afish bowl. Thenthe played bar mitzvahs and jobs like that. ' stage would come up, and they reached into the bowl and “Then I went to college, the University ofNorth Carolina pickedoutsixmnnbers, who would be contestants inthe Kay at Chapel Hill. I studied music, but the reason I went there is Kyser Kollege ofMusical Knowledge. And my number came that they had a wonderful drama department called The up. So I walked down there and the usher said, ‘You’re too Playmakers. If you wrote a musical, they would put it on if young, you can’tgoup there.’ Kay Kyser came over and said, they liked it. ‘What’s the trouble,’ and the usher said I was too young, and “Then the war came and I went into the army. We were Kay Kyser said, ‘Never mind, come up here, kid.’ He asked losing the war. When I was eighteen, they drafled me. I went me what two drummers lefl to fonn bands oftheir own, and to the infantry, because that’s what they needed. I was lucky. IsaidSkinnayErmishad1eftHalKempandGene Krupahad We were out on maneuvers in Mississippi and some fellow in lefl Benny Goodman. And I won ten dollars! I brought home the group was taking up shells ofl‘the firing range. Some of ten dollars and I gave it to my mother, the fellows would polish them up so they could make lighters “Now. Dissolve. Now it’s 1947, and I wrote a musical at out ofthem and send them home. This fellow was polishing the college, and I wrote the orchestrations and I conducted the up an anti-tank shell that had been fired but not detonated. orchestra and everything, and sitting in the audience was Kay And he dropped it. Everything in the hut, the stove and the Kyser. Attheendoftheshowhe came up to congratulate me. cots, all became shrapnel. It broke my right arm and a piece He said he liked it. I told him this story, and he laughed and of shrapnel went through my kneecap. I was in the hospital said, ‘I can’t believe it.’ He was very nice. - for about three months, and then they made me limited “I finished school there, and then I came out here to service. I couldn’t go anywhere. Because I had two years of UCLA. On the GI Bill, you could go to school for a long college by now, and was a music major, they sent me to a time!” special service outfit and they made me staif arranger for a I said, “Ifthere ever was a perfect argument for socialism, big band. The instrumentation was like a Basie band. I knew it was the GI Bill. Free education, right up through college, very little about how to do that, but I tried. A man named and it transfonned America.” Jack Marshall, a terrific guitar player, was in the band. In “Absolutely!” fact, when he was sixteen he was the MGM staff guitar “That and the Marshall Plan,” Marilyn said. m Alan said, “It was fantastic.” She ’ll never say yes, “Yeah,” I said, “it took hillbilly boys who would never Never say yes, have had a chance at education and turned them into famous only will say ‘oui, oui, oui. ’ attomeys and other things. They had it in Canada too, and there has never been anything like it.” “He wrote that to the music.” “You know something, when I came out here again, I was I said, “Comedy songs can be written before the music.” going to graduate school, I told that story to Harry Babbitt, “Oh yeah!” Alan said. who sang for Kay Kyser.” “Most ofthe time,” I said, “they have to be.” “And a very good singer,” I said. “But Leo wrote those songs for Gentleman Prefer Blondes “He had a radio show out here. He was a lovely man. I to the music! People don’t realize that he wrote the first hit went to see him, and I went through the whole thing about Bing Crosby ever had, Please. There’s a score for a movie meeting him years ago. He was so sweet.” Casbah, which he wrote with Harold Arlen: It Was Written “Yeah the hip — or hep — people trade fun of Kay Kyser, in the Stars, What ’s Good about Goodbye, Hoorayfor Love, but that actually was a very good band.” For Every Man There 's a Woman. What a score! And what “Very,” Alan said. “Ish Kabibble was a very good trumpet a sweet man. He used to call us up and say, ‘I’m so proud of player.” you.’ “He was. He had that funny bowl haircut, but he really “I spent a year in graduate school. I didn’t get a master’s was a good trumpet player. Real name Merwyn Bogue. When degree. I went to Philadelphia. Charles Vanda, who intro- that band occasionally did an instrtunental —— they recorded duced me to Leo Robin, became vice president ofWCAU, the a thing, as I recall, called It's Sand, Man — you heard how biggest CBS owned and operated TV station in the country, good it was.” which is how I happened to go there. “He had good arrangers,” Alan said. “George Duning was “I met John when I was in graduate school, but I don’t one ofthem. We later wrote a song with George Duning for remember who introduced us. It could have been that day at Any Wednesday.” Ira Gershwin’s house. Somebody took me over there. But I “And what next?” just don’t remember. “Well, during the time I was in graduate school, I worked “I worked at WCAU for three years. I made enough money like a gopher for a man called Charles Vanda, who produced that I could quit and come back here . .” the Abbot and Costello radio show. And one of his friends “To lead a very Spartan life,” Marilyn said. was Leo Robin. He introduced us. “Yes. I didn’t have a car. I walked everywhere. I took “When Leo was writing the songs for Gentlemen Prefer buses and walked. I had a one-room house in Hollywood, and Blondes with Jule Styne, he was wonderful to me as a mentor. it wasjust around Highland above Hollywood Boulevard, so A sweet man, he was. In Gentleman Prefer Blondes, there’s I could walk to what was then Tin Pan Alley. a song calledMamie IsMimi. Leo wrote all those songs to the “On Vme Street between Hollywood and Argyle, that’s music. When you write a ballad or something to the music, where Tin Pan Alley was in those days. John had an office that’s okay. But when you write comedy to the music, that’s right next to Nicodell’s on Argyle, next to the Buddy Morris hard. And he wrote Diamonds Are a Girl ’s Best Friend to oflice, and up one flight. the music!” “I was writing music. I was working with a lyricist named Marilyn said, “Can you imagine — Little Girlfrom Little Hal Levy. Johnny tookaone ofthe songs to Walter Schuman, Rock to the music?” who had a chorus. And he recorded a song we wrote called Alan said, “In Mamie Is Illimi, listen to the way he Whoo-ee Loo-ee-siana. The Modemaires also recorded it. satisfies the syncopation in the bridge: And then I went back east, and because ofwhat John said, I came back here and the mentoring began. With a terrific sense ofhumor; “Every few months he would call and say, ‘Come on,’ and and a tight dress, he’dtakemedowntoNewportBeacl1WhenIstartedtowrite she was a hit the day she hitiParee. with Lew Spence, it was because he was writing better times than I was. I didn’t have that kind ofego. But there ‘s a mostpersistent rumor; “I met Marilyn. The first song we wrote was simply terrible. But we enjoyed the process. Because we’ve never Spence we wrote a song called Nice ’n ’ Easy. stopped writing since. That was the end of 1956. In addition “And then we got a call from someone at Fox.