Kay Kyser was a bandleader and radio personality who was hugely popular and maintained a high profile from the mid-30s through to the early 50s, his radio show incorporating a music quiz under the title of Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge which he introduced as The Ol Perfessor, giving rise to his image where he appears wearing a mortar-board and academic gown. His orchestras music, always featuring a variety of resident vocalists, most notably Sully Mason, Harry Babbit, Ginny Simms and Georgia Carroll, as well as saxophonist Jack Martin, stayed firmly in the middle ground of easy-listening popular taste, and did not try to compete with the hot swing orchestras of the era, with a style which barely changed while the fashions of jazz and other areas of pop evolved around him, including sentimental or patriotic wartime hits, novelty material and classic ballads.

This great-value 73-track 3-CD set consists entirely of hit records, comprising recordings which are listed as having appeared in one version or another of the popularity charts during the 1930s before the introduction of the Billboard record sales chart in 1940, and after that in the Top 20 of the Billboard chart. It naturally features his No. 1 hits The Umbrella Man, Three Little Fishes, Jingle Jangle Jingle, Ole Buttermilk Sky and Woody Woodpecker, plus many other memorable and evocative Top 5 classics which capture the zeitgeist of the fifteen years or so which spanned WWII and its aftermath.

REVIEWS

“You have to give full marks to Acrobat for having the confidence, some would say courage, to release this 3CD set of a long-forgotten orchestra from the swing era. The usual excellent discographical information and lengthy essay by Paul Watts enhances the attraction of this package which surely will prove to be the definitive Kay Kyser collection on CD.” – Gerry Stonestreet (In Tune Issue 328)

“The great-value 70-track, 3CD set consists entirely of hit records. For readers who are happy with a tour down memory lane, this is just up their street.” – Peter Lay (Just Jazz Issue 254)