Herbie Kay, born Herbert Kaumeyer (1904 – May 11, 1944,

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

) was an American trumpeter and

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 an ...

leader. Kay's career began while he was a student at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

, where he played in dance bands in the mid-1920s. He led his own group from the late 1920s, and played extensively in the Chicago area from the early 1930s to the early 1940s, including a longstanding residency at the Blackhawk Restaurant. Kay hired

Dorothy Lamour Dorothy Lamour (born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton; December 10, 1914 – September 22, 1996) was an American actress and singer. She is best remembered for having appeared in the '' Road to...'' movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing ...

as a vocalist in 1934, and married her in 1935; by 1936, Lamour had moved to Hollywood to pursue a film career, and her marriage to Kay ended in 1939.Leo Walker, ''The Big Band Almanac''. Ward Ritchie Press, 1978, p. 228. He recorded for

Vocalion 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 ...

and

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

and toured throughout the Western US; his band’s songs included a specially-written novelty dance tune, “Rhythm Steps”. For most of his career, he led a band with four saxophones, four brass instruments, and three rhythm instruments. Singers included Shirley Lloyd, Fuzzy Combs, King Harvey, and a vocal trio called “The Three Kays”. He dissolved the group in the early 1940s and moved to Dallas, where he died in 1944.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kay, Herbie 1904 births 1944 deaths American bandleaders American trumpeters American male trumpeters 20th-century American male musicians Northwestern University alumni