Mitchell Ayres

The Mitchell Ayres Or­ches­tra was a co­op­er­a­tive ef­fort founded in the mid-​1930s by for­mer mem­bers of the Lit­tle Jack Lit­tle Or­ches­tra. Vi­o­lin­ist Ayres served as pres­i­dent and front man. An atyp­i­cal col­lec­tion of per­form­ers, the band at first glance ap­peared more like a group of homely sci­en­tists than an or­ches­tra. Nev­er­the­less, they proved them­selves one of the more mu­si­cal hotel ball­room bands. Using the catch phrase “Fash­ions in Music,” they em­ployed a unique sound that em­pha­sized melody. The or­ches­tra never truly swung hard but did pre­sent good arrange­ments, spe­cial­iz­ing in nov­elty num­bers and swing ver­sions of the clas­sics.

Born in Mil­wau­kee, Ayres was con­sid­ered a vi­o­lin prodigy as a teenager but put aside his mu­si­cal stud­ies to at­tend Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­sity in New York, where he be­came an all-​around ath­lete. After grad­u­a­tion, he re­turned to the vi­o­lin and took a job with the pit band at the Roxy The­ater. He later played with the St. Louis Sym­phony Or­ches­tra be­fore join­ing his first dance band, led by Jimmy Carr. After work­ing with Ben Mar­den, he ended up with Lit­tle Jack Lit­tle. When Lit­tle walked away from his or­ches­tra in late 1936, the mu­si­cians de­cided to con­tinue on as a co­op­er­a­tive unit, elect­ing Ayres as their leader.

Band­lead­ing Years

The band spent the first eight months of 1937 at the Hol­ly­wood Restau­rant in New York, where they began to at­tract at­ten­tion, sign­ing with Mas­ter Record­ings in early spring and mak­ing sides for the Va­ri­ety label. Ruth Gay­lor was vo­cal­ist by April, with song­writer Abner Sil­ver record­ing one of his songs with them that same month. When Ayres left the Hol­ly­wood in Au­gust to begin a road tour, Gay­lor stayed be­hind at the club. Mary Ann Mer­cer had joined as fe­male vo­cal­ist by Jan­u­ary 1938. Com­pe­tent on bal­lads and nov­elty num­bers, she re­mained with the band for three-​and-a-half years, be­com­ing one of its star at­trac­tions.

Ayres recorded on Vo­calion in early 1939 and later that year signed with RCA Vic­tor, where the band was placed with their Blue­bird sub­sidiary, be­com­ing one of the label’s top sell­ing artists. Tommy Tay­lor joined as male vo­cal­ist in late 1939. He and Mer­cer made a for­mi­da­ble duo, often singing and record­ing to­gether. In late 1940, Ayres brought in trom­bone player and singer War­ren Cov­ing­ton, who re­mained with the band through at least mid-​1942. 1940 also saw the ad­di­tion of com­edy singer Gee Gee, who per­formed child and an­i­mal roles in nov­elty songs.

Mid-​1941 saw big changes in Ayres’ vocal lineup. Tay­lor left the band in July 1941, wooed away by Benny Good­man, with Mer­cer leav­ing in Au­gust for radio work. Trum­pet player and nov­elty vo­cal­ist Johnny Bond joined the band to re­place Tay­lor, with Mered­ith Blake tak­ing Mer­cer’s po­si­tion. Gee Gee was gone by the end of the year. Both Bond and Blake left in Oc­to­ber 1942. By March 1943, Dick Dyer and Ruth Mc­Cul­lough were vo­cal­ists. Bond re­turned in May 1943. Other vo­cal­ists over the years in­cluded Frances Hol­brook, Mar­i­lyn Day, Roberta Quin­lan, and Dick Craig, though no dates are found for their time with the band.

In early 1943, Ayres began an as­so­ci­a­tion with the An­drews Sis­ters, the two acts hav­ing the same man­age­ment. Ayres toured with the sis­ters, back­ing them dur­ing shows. When the Para­mount The­ater in New York tried to book an­other band in place of Ayres as part of an An­drews Sis­ter ap­pear­ance, the sis­ters held firm and forced the­ater man­age­ment to hire Ayres in­stead. The or­ches­tra ap­peared in two films with the An­drews Sis­ters, their first being Uni­ver­sal’s 1943 mu­si­cal west­ern Moon­light and Cac­tus, where they play mem­bers of a mer­chant ma­rine band who end up on a Cal­i­for­nia ranch run by girl cowhands. Swing­time for Johnny soon fol­lowed, which also fea­tured Har­riet Hilliard, of Ozzie and Har­riet fame.

Break-​up and Post-​Band Ca­reer

In early 1944, the draft board re­clas­si­fied Ayres as 1-A. When he faced in­duc­tion in April, the band voted to carry on with­out him while still using his name, bring­ing in fe­male trum­pet player Stelle Slavin as their new leader. Due to Ayres’ age and new draft reg­u­la­tions, how­ever, se­lec­tive ser­vice sus­pended his in­duc­tion, and he re­joined the band as it re­turned to the East Coast, end­ing a gru­el­ing 42 weeks on the road.

Once back in New York, Mc­Cul­lough and Dyer both left for Sonny Dun­ham. Jimmy Fos­ter came in on vo­cals, but at that point most of the mu­si­cians de­cided that they didn’t want to go out on tour again, and they voted to dis­band, with sev­eral of the mem­bers head­ing to the West Coast. Ayres then set­tled into lead­ing the stu­dio or­ches­tra on Jack Pep­per’s CBS radio pro­gram, with seven of his for­mer mu­si­cians join­ing him. In Au­gust, he or­ga­nized a new or­ches­tra for a date at the Para­mount The­ater to back the An­drews Sis­ters but de­cided not to form a per­ma­nent tour­ing unit, pre­fer­ring to re­main in New York and on the Pep­per show.

In 1945, Ayres be­came the mu­si­cal di­rec­tor for Co­lum­bia Records, where he stayed until early 1949. He also or­ches­trated sev­eral tele­vi­sion pro­grams, in­clud­ing that of Perry Como, for whom he worked from 1948 through­out the 1950s. Mitchell Ayres passed away in 1969 when he was struck by an au­to­mo­bile while cross­ing the street in Las Vegas.