Sammy Kaye (born Samuel Zarnocay Jr.; March 13, 1910 – June 2, 1987) was an American bandleader and songwriter, whose tag line, "Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye", became one of the most famous of the
Big Band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s ...
Era. The expression springs from his first hit single in 1937, " Swing and Sway" (U.S. #15). His signature tune was " Harbor Lights", a number-one hit from late 1950.
Biography
Kaye, born in
Lakewood, Ohio
Lakewood is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, on the southern shore of Lake Erie. Established in 1889, it is one of Cleveland's historical streetcar suburbs and part of the Greater Cleveland Metropolitan Area. The population was ...
Ohio University
Ohio University is a public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation and subse ...
in
Athens, Ohio
Athens is a city and the county seat of Athens County, Ohio. The population was 23,849 at the 2020 census. Located along the Hocking River within Appalachian Ohio about southeast of Columbus, Athens is best known as the home of Ohio Universi ...
he was a member of
Theta Chi
Theta Chi () is an international Fraternities and sororities, college fraternity. It was founded on April 10, 1856 at Norwich University then-located in Norwich, Vermont, and has initiated more than 200,000 members and currently has over 8,700 c ...
fraternity. Kaye could play the saxophone and the clarinet, but he never featured himself as a soloist on either one.
A leader of one of the so-called "Sweet" bands of the Big Band Era, he made a large number of records for
Vocalion Records
Vocalion Records is an American record company and label.
History
The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...
,
RCA Victor
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also A ...
,
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the A ...
,
Bell Records
Bell Records was an American record label founded in 1952 in New York City by Arthur Shimkin, the owner of the children's record label Golden Records, and initially a unit of Pocket Books, after the rights to the name were acquired from Benny ...
, and the American
Decca Decca may refer to:
Music
* Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label
* Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group
* Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label
* Decca Studios, a recording facility in We ...
record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the pr ...
. He was also a hit on radio. Kaye was known for an audience participation gimmick called "So You Want to Lead a Band?" where audience members would be called onto stage in an attempt to conduct the orchestra, with the possibility of winning batons. Kaye was also known for his use of "singing of song titles", which was emulated by
Kay Kyser
James Kern Kyser (June 18, 1905 – July 23, 1985), known as Kay Kyser, was an American bandleader and radio personality of the 1930s and 1940s.
Early years
James Kern Kyser was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the son of pharmacists Emily ...
and Blue Barron.
Shortly after the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, Sammy Kaye wrote the music and Don Reid wrote the words to " Remember Pearl Harbor", the tune of which was based on Ohio University's "Alma Mater". On December 17, 1941, RCA Victor recorded the song, with Sammy Kaye's Swing and Sway Band and The Glee Club.
His band members included Ralph Flanagan. Singers included Don Cornell (not related to Dale Cornell), Billy Williams (the
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
singer with the Pecos River Rogues),
Tommy Ryan
Tommy Ryan (born Joseph Youngs; March 31, 1870 – August 3, 1948) was an American World Welterweight and World Middleweight boxing champion who fought from 1887 to 1907. His simultaneously holding records in both weight classes was a rar ...
, Gary Willner,
Barry Frank
Barry Frank (September 1930 – December 2, 2016) was a smooth-voiced 1950s and early 1960s pop and rock and roll vocalist who professionally recorded numerous 78s, 45s, 33s, and extended play/long play albums for Bell, Columbia, Jubilee, Seeco a ...
, Tony Russo, and Nancy Norman. All members of the band sometimes sang backing vocals in various combination as the "Kaydets". Although his musicians were always competent, the jazz critic George T. Simon described them as "magnificently trained and exceedingly unoriginal".
Television
Kaye had the following shows on network television:
*''The Sammy Kaye Show'' on
CBS Television
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
ABC Television ABC Television most commonly refers to:
*ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or
*ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia
ABC Television or ABC ...
(1954–55)
*''Sammy Kaye's Music From Manhattan'' on ABC (1958–59)
Death
Kaye died at Valley Hospital in
Ridgewood, New Jersey
Ridgewood is a village in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 24,958, Thorpe, an accomplished music professor at SUNY Dutchess and director of the Dutchess Jazz Ensemble, knew Sammy from over the years. Thorpe operates the orchestra to this day.
In popular culture
*In October 1939, Kaye's "sweet band" sound was satirized by
Charlie Barnet
Charles Daly Barnet (October 26, 1913 – September 4, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.
His major recordings were "Skyliner", " Cherokee", "The Wrong Idea", "Scotch and Soda", "In a Mizz", and "Southland Shuffl ...
and his Orchestra with the song "The Wrong Idea (Swing and Sweat with Charlie Barnet)" written by Charlie Barnet and
Billy May
Edward William May Jr. (November 10, 1916 – January 22, 2004) was an American composer, arranger and trumpeter. He composed film and television music for ''The Green Hornet'' (1966), ''The Mod Squad'' (1968), '' Batman'' (with ''Batgirl'' them ...
.
Discography
Compositions
Sammy Kaye wrote or co-wrote the following songs: "Remember Pearl Harbor", "Until Tomorrow (Goodnight, My Love)", "Belmont Boogie", "Kaye's Melody", "Wanderin'", "I Gotta See a Dream About a Girl", "I Miss Your Kiss" and "Bottoms Up (Let's Have a Ball)" with
Sunny Skylar
Sunny Skylar (October 11, 1913 – February 2, 2009) was an American composer, singer, lyricist, and music publisher. He was born Selig Sidney Shaftel in Brooklyn, New York, one of four children, to Sarah and Jacob Shaftel (or Schaftel), Jewish i ...
, "The Midnight Ride", and "Hawaiian Sunset". "I Miss Your Kiss" was released as a U.S. War Department V-Disc in May, 1945 as 433A during World War II for American troops overseas.
Iceland
Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its ...
'' (1942)
Legacy
Kaye was posthumously inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1992, and for his contribution to the recording industry has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Calif ...
Discography of American Historical Recordings
The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is a database of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. The DAHR provides some of these original recordings, free of charge, via audio streaming, along with ...