Saturday, December 09, 2006

Ernie Kovack's Nairobi Trio

5 comments:

Hugh Jass said...

I think this is one of the best done pieces of comedy ever done on tv. The timing between them is perfect. Thanks Notso!

Hugh Jass said...

By the way, I have a different version of the Nairobi Trio on my blog http://www.alstrand.blogspot.com/
I think you have the original one, and I have one that they did by request some weeks later.
I remember seeing a photo of these guys with their masks off. The middle one, of course, is Ernie Kovaks. The piano player is his wife. Not much on the web about whom the antagonist is. Anyone know?
Dennis

Gregg said...

from wikipedia

To the viewer's left another gorilla stood, holding two oversized timpani mallets. (The identity of this ape varied, but among Kovacs' celebrity friends both Jack Lemmon and Frank Sinatra are known to have performed in the skit.)

Silent 3 said...

FYA:

The song Nairobi Trio do is called Solfeggio. This is a singing technique where the sol-fa syllables are used instead of text.

The "lyrics" of the song use the syllables "doe ray me fa so la te doe", but they sing the name of the note to represent the note of the C major scale.

In other words, if you were to sing the song "Doe a deer" (from Sound of Music) in Solfeggio style, you'd sing, "Doe, Ray-Me, Do Me, Do Me..."

So listen to the lyrics. You'll see that they're singing the name of the notes.

http://www.users.interport.net/b/e/bendesky/about/primate-mp3.html

Gregg said...

leave it to Mr Kovack to work that out! Very astute!