# Monte Kay
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> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Monte_Kay.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Kay
> Source revision: 1327699202
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{{Use American English|date=December 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2025}}
{{Infobox musical artist
| name = Monte Kay
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| birth_place = New York City, U.S.
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1924|09|18}}
| death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1988|05|25|1924|09|18}}
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| occupation = [Music producer](/source/Music_producer), club manager, [television producer](/source/television_producer)
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| past_member_of = {{flatlist|
*[Miles Davis](/source/Miles_Davis)
*[Herbie Mann](/source/Herbie_Mann)
*[Stan Getz](/source/Stan_Getz)
*[Sonny Rollins](/source/Sonny_Rollins)
*[Modern Jazz Quartet](/source/Modern_Jazz_Quartet)
*[Flip Wilson](/source/Flip_Wilson)}}
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'''Monte Kay''' (September 18, 1924 – May 25, 1988)[The [New York Times](/source/New_York_Times) [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE4DC1230F93BA15756C0A96E948260 obituary]][The [IMDb](/source/IMDb) [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0443143/ record]] was an American music agent and record producer.
Kay acted as a talent scout and musical director of several night clubs on the New York [jazz](/source/jazz) scene in the late 1940s and 1950s. According to some accounts, during those years, the [Caucasian](/source/White_American) Kay would sometimes introduce himself as a fair-skinned African American.[Miles Davis and [Quincy Troupe](/source/Quincy_Troupe), Miles: The Autobiography, Simon and Schuster, 1989, {{ISBN|0-671-63504-2}}.] In May and June 1945, Mal Braveman and Kay's New Jazz Foundation produced concerts at [New York's Town Hall](/source/The_Town_Hall_(New_York_City)) that included [Dizzy Gillespie](/source/Dizzy_Gillespie), [Pearl Bailey](/source/Pearl_Bailey), [Erroll Garner](/source/Erroll_Garner), [Don Byas](/source/Don_Byas), [Charlie Parker](/source/Charlie_Parker), [Max Roach](/source/Max_Roach) and [Sidney Catlett](/source/Sidney_Catlett).[{{cite web |title=Dizzy Gillespie - Charlie Parker – Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 |url=https://www.discogs.com/Dizzy-Gillespie-Charlie-Parker-Town-Hall-New-York-City-June-22-1945/release/11292171 |website=Discogs |accessdate=12 January 2020}}] As the artistic director of the [Royal Roost](/source/Royal_Roost) (a jazz venue on [52nd Street](/source/52nd_Street_(Manhattan))) he succeeded in persuading the owner, Ralph Watkins, to hire [Miles Davis](/source/Miles_Davis)'s nonet—sometimes called the ''"Tuba Band"''—with which Davis was pursuing a project that gave birth to the [cool jazz](/source/cool_jazz) movement later to be called ''[Birth of the Cool](/source/Birth_of_the_Cool)''. Kay befriended Davis and, during his later marriage to singer and actress [Diahann Carroll](/source/Diahann_Carroll), was for a time Miles' neighbor.