''Pete Kelly's Blues'' was an American crime-musical
radio drama
Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...
which aired over
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
as an
unsponsored summer replacement series on Wednesday nights at 8 pm (et) from July 4 through September 19, 1951.
The series starred
Jack Webb
John Randolph Webb (April 2, 1920 – December 23, 1982) was an American actor, television producer, Television director, director, and screenwriter, who is most famous for his role as Joe Friday, Sgt. Joe Friday in the Dragnet (franchise) ...
as Pete Kelly and was created by writer
Richard L. Breen
Richard L. Breen (June 26, 1918 – February 1, 1967) was a Hollywood screenwriter and director.
Biography
Breen was born in Chicago of Irish Catholic extraction. He began as a freelance radio writer. After a stint in the U.S. Navy during World ...
, who had previously worked with Webb on ''
Pat Novak for Hire
''Pat Novak, for Hire'' is an old-time radio detective drama series which aired from 1946 to 1947 as a West Coast regional (produced at KGO in San Francisco) program and in 1949 as a nationwide program for ABC. The regional version originally st ...
'';
James Moser and
Jo Eisinger
Jo Eisinger (1909–1991) was a film and television writer whose career spanned more than 40 years from the early 1940s well into the 1980s. He is widely recognized as the writer of two of the most psychologically complex film noirs, ''Gilda'' ...
wrote most of the other scripts.
Set in
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...
, in the early 1920s, the series was a crime drama with a strong
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
al atmosphere (Webb was a noted Dixieland
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
enthusiast). Kansas City in this era was a hotbed of jazz, as well as of organized crime and political corruption, all of which influenced the series.
Overview
Pete Kelly was a musician, a cornet player who headed his own jazz combo, "Pete Kelly's Big Seven." They worked at 417 Cherry Street, a
speakeasy
A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an illicit establishment that sells alcoholic beverages, or a retro style bar that replicates aspects of historical speakeasies.
Speakeasy bars came into prominence in the United States d ...
run by George Lupo, often mentioned but never heard. Kelly, narrating the series, described Lupo as a "fat, friendly little guy." The plots typically centered on Kelly's reluctant involvement with gangsters, gun molls, FBI agents, and people trying to save their own skins. The endings were often downbeat.
The supporting cast was minimal; apart from the
off-mike character Lupo and occasional speaking parts by the band members (notably Red the bass player, played by
Jack Kruschen
Jacob "Jack" Kruschen (March 20, 1922 – April 2, 2002) was a Canadian character actor who worked primarily in American film, television and radio. Kruschen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Dr. ...
), the only other regular role of note was Maggie Jackson, the torch singer at another club (Fat Annie's, "across the river on the Kansas side"), played by blues singer Meredith Howard.
In one episode,
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and ...
is mentioned as the singer at Fat Annie's instead of Maggie Jackson. Boozy ex-bootlegger Barney Ricketts would show up occasionally, an informant not unlike the character Jocko Madigan on Webb and Breen's ''Pat Novak for Hire''. The episodic roles were filled by
William Conrad
William Conrad (born John William Cann Jr., September 27, 1920 – February 11, 1994) was an American actor, producer, and director whose entertainment career spanned five decades in radio, film, and television, peaking in popularity when he s ...
(as various mob bosses),
Vic Perrin
Victor Herbert Perrin (April 26, 1916 – July 4, 1989)Cox, Jim (2007). ''Radio Speakers: Narrators, News Junkies, Sports Jockeys, Tattletales, Tipsters, Toastmasters and Coffee Klatch Couples Who Verbalized the Jargon of the Aural Ether fr ...
, and
Roy Glenn
Roy Edwin Glenn, Sr. (June 3, 1914 – March 12, 1971) was an American character actor.
Early life
Glenn was born in Pittsburg, Kansas on June 3, 1914.
Career
In 1949, Glenn's radio career started in Rocky Jordan – The Adventures of Rocky ...
, among others.
Music
The music dominated the series. In addition to one song by Maggie Jackson, each episode boasted two jazz numbers by the "Big Seven." The group was actually led by
Dick Cathcart
Charles Richard Cathcart (November 6, 1924 – November 8, 1993) was an American Dixieland trumpet player who was best known as a member of ''The Lawrence Welk Show'' in which he appeared from 1962 to 1968.
Cathcart was born in Michigan City, In ...
, the cornet player who was Pete Kelly's musical
stand-in
A stand-in for film and television is a person who substitutes for the actor before filming, for technical purposes such as lighting and camera setup.
Stand-ins are helpful in the initial processes of film and television production.
Stand-ins a ...
. The other members of the group, all well known jazz musicians, included
Matty Matlock
Julian Clifton "Matty" Matlock (April 27, 1907 – June 14, 1978) was an American Dixieland jazz clarinettist, saxophonist and arranger.
Early years
Matlock was born in Paducah, Kentucky, April 27, 1907, and raised in Nashville beginning in 1917. ...
on clarinet,
Moe Schneider on trombone, piano player
Ray Sherman
Ray Sherman (November 27, 1951) is an American football coach for the Vegas Vipers. Sherman has more than four decades of coaching at the college and professional levels.
Coaching career
College career
Sherman played college football at Fresno ...
, bass player
Morty Corb
Mortimer Gerald Corb (April 10, 1917 San Antonio — January 13, 1996 Las Vegas) was an American jazz double-bassist.
Career
Corb had a long career as a jazz musician that began in 1946 and lasted until his death. He performed and recorded w ...
, guitarist
Bill Newman, and drummer
Nick Fatool. The show's
announcer
An announcer is a voice artist who relays information to the audience of a broadcast media programme or live event.
Television and other media
Some announcers work in television production, radio or filmmaking, usually providing narrations, ...
was another frequent Webb collaborator,
George Fenneman
George Watt Fenneman (November 10, 1919 – May 29, 1997) was an American radio and television announcer. Fenneman is best remembered as the show announcer and straight man on Groucho Marx's ''You Bet Your Life''. Marx, said of Fenneman in 1976, ...
, who would open each show with "This one's about Pete Kelly."
Legacy
The series lasted only three months, but inspired a 1955 film version of ''
Pete Kelly's Blues'', in which Jack Webb produced, directed and starred. It used many of the same musicians, including Cathcart, and
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...
was cast as Maggie Jackson. A lesser-known
television version, still produced and directed by Webb but with
William Reynolds in the lead, aired in 1959, using scripts originally written for the radio version.
After the film, two albums were released, a soundtrack recording and ''Pete Kelly Lets His Hair Down'', an instrumental album using the musicians from the series with songs arranged by tempo - "blue songs" and "red songs" with names such as "Peacock," '"Periwinkle," "Midnight," "Rouge," "Flame'" and '"Fire Engine." This LP was released by
Rhino Records
A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...
as one-half of a Webb compilation disc, ''Just The Tracks, Ma’am''.
See also
*
''Pete Kelly's Blues'' (film)
*
Pete Kelly's Blues (song)
*
''Pete Kelly's Blues'' (TV series)
*''
Songs from Pete Kelly's Blues''
References
Sources
*McNeil, Alex (1991). ''Total Television: A Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present.'' p. 598. Penguin.
External links
6 streaming episodes of ''Pete Kelly's Blues'' from Old Time Radio Researchers Group
{{Jack Webb/Mark VII Limited
American radio dramas
1950s American radio programs
NBC radio programs
Radio programs adapted into television shows