Was the gal from Kalamazoo really from Kalamazoo?

Once again I’ve proven that there’s no limit to the time you can spend looking up arcane knowledge on the Internet, even for what I thought was a pretty simple question. But while I had the lyrics to the song itself and easily found the plot summary for the 1942 film in which it appeared, Orchestra Wives, I couldn’t seem to find out if the “small-town girl” who marries the trumpeter in Glenn Miller’s band really was from Kalamazoo. I watched most of the movie but could never find any mention of the town’s name where Connie, our heroine, lives. However, I did a little detective work via Googlemaps and put that knowledge together with the plot. Here’s how the story goes: Connie is first seen in the soda shop putting a nickel in the jukebox to listen to “Gene Morrison’s” band, professing especial admiration for the trumpeter, Bill Abbott. The soda jerk (played by a very young Harry Morgan of TV M*A*S*H fame) tells her that the band is playing in “Dixon” that very night and that he’ll be glad to take her. There’s a Dixon, Indiana, located a little over two hours from Kalamazoo, a doable trip. Connie and Bill fall for each other at that concert, so she decides to catch another performance the next night, this time in “Elgin.”

There does appear to be a small town called “Elgin” in Michigan that’s only about 75 miles from Kalamazoo, and since Connie has to go on the bus (her soda jerk admirer having gotten replaced by Bill), she could get to the closer place. I guess the song could be and probably is a reference to her home town. But the lyrics are only tangentially related to the actual story in the movie, and Bill doesn’t sing the song anyway. Tex Beneke, vocalist and saxophonist, performs the solo, and the backup singers ask him, “Hi there, Tex, how’s your new romance, the one you met at the campus dance?” We find out that he carried her books when she was a freckle-faced kid, but years have gone by and “My, my, how she grew.” So I guess he saw her with fresh eyes at the dance. Bet you never knew what literary intricacies could be mined from a seemingly trivial song! It would be great if there were a recording of the composers (Harry Warren and Mack Gordon) batting ideas around, but that doesn’t seem to have surfaced. It’s very possible, indeed probable, that the song was written well before the actual movie script, that the songwriters only knew the story involved a romance and the city of Kalamazoo, and that they went from there. I think I’ve pretty much reached the limit here of what I can deduce or surmise. At least now when I sing this song I’ll have a vague idea of what’s going on. Very vague.

There’s endless information about this song, its performers and its eponymous town. If you’re interested, keep reading below to find out some of it, and if you feel as if you now know enough for all practical purposes, well, I guess you know what to do!

Glenn Miller had signed a contract with Columbia Pictures to do two films in which he would appear and which would include his music, with Orchestra Wives being the second and Sun Valley Serenade being the first. (That earlier movie introduced “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.”) He insisted that his band be an integral part of the story and not just provide musical numbers, and so this film is built around the trials and tribulations of being in a traveling band. I got rather tickled by the Wikipedia entry which said that the film “is notable among the many swing era musicals because its plot is more serious and realistic than the insubstantial storylines that were typical of the genre.” It’s hard to imagine how the plot of Orchestra Wives could be less “serious and realistic,” but I suppose anything is possible. The fictional bandleader is named Gene Morrison so that Miller’s band could use their “GM” initialed music stands in the film. Sadly, by the way, Glenn Miller disappeared in 1944 while flying across the English Channel to a performance for Allied troops. His body and the crashed plane were never found, thus leading to all sorts of conspiracy theories. A later incarnation of the band (a so-called “official ghost band”) after the war was led by Tex Beneke, the soloist and saxophonist mentioned above.

As with so many exotic place names in America, Kalamazoo started out as a Native American word supposedly meaning “boiling water,” although the semantics are a bit murky. The name has popped up in a number of other popular songs. After the success of “Gal,” the city decided that they should capitalize on the publicity given them by the song and film and so decided to elect a real “Gal from Kalamazoo.” Nineteen-year-old Sara Woolley, a student at Kalamazoo College, was the chosen representative and enjoyed some measure of fame during the war years, making public appearances to promote both the city and the sale of war bonds.

I can’t end this post without mentioning the fabulous Nicholas Brothers, who supply the climax to the song with what I thought must be their greatest dance number ever. They were part of a very select group who performed what was called “flash dancing,” a combination of tap dancing and gymnastics. (No reference to the Flashdance film is at all implied!) You’ll note that I said I thought that their number in Orchestra Wives was their greatest. Well, I was wrong. In looking around for information about them I ran into the video of their dancing in the film Stormy Weather, which none other than Fred Astaire pronounced “the greatest dance number ever filmed.” So, below are the links to the “Kalamazoo” number and also the one from “Stormy Weather.” If you’re so inclined you can watch the brothers on numerous YouTube videos, but I’ll limit myself to these two.

Here’s the scene from the film. Be sure to notice as the choreography of the instrumentalists themselves, and, as an added bonus, to identify the bass player.

Here’s the clip from Stormy Weather:

And here are the lyrics to the song:

A B C D E F G H, I got a gal in Kalamazoo
Don’t want to boast but I know she’s the toast of Kalamazoo
Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo
Years have gone by, my my how she grew
I liked her looks when I carried her books in Kalamazoo
Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo

I’m gonna send away, hoppin’ on a plane, leavin’ today
Am I dreamin’? I can hear her screamin’
“Hiya, Mr. Jackson”
Everything’s O K A L A M A Z O O
Oh, what a gal, a real pipperoo
I’ll make my bid for that freckle-faced kid, I’m hurryin’ to
I’m goin’ to Michigan to see the sweetest gal in Kalamazoo
Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, Kalamazoo

K A L A M A Z O O, oh oh oh
Oh what a gal, a real pipperoo
We’re goin’ to Michigan to see the sweetest gal in Kalamazoo
Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo
Kalamazoo!