Variety (November 1954)

Wednesday, November 3, 1954 MUSIC 41 URGE CLEANUP ON —♦ In reviewing the Festival of ,American Jazz Stan Kenton Unit at Carnegie Hall, N.Y, recently; Variety’s Land suggested that this was an ideal export item, if the U.S. State Dept, was, sin- cerely Interested, as reported, in fostering and partly financing further foreign tours of American entertainments calculated to increase good will. By coincident, the same point was made in the San Francisco Chronicle by- Guillermo Salas, manager of radio station MIL of Mexico City. In an interview with; Ralph J. Gleason, Senor Salas expressed the view that “your country might make more prog- j ress behind the Iron Curtain With: jazz, than diplomats,” J Salas was not just talking off the top of the head. He has ex«r ; tensively used American j azz recordings on his radio station and is currently promoting a live Festival of Jazz of his own for 1955. This is no easy matter in Mexico Where tradition runs to sentimentality on the. marimba and serenade guitar. Salas re- ported he had at last secured the perniissibn of the Mexican Musicians Union Which, heretofore, fought any. wholesale im- portation of Yanqui jazzmen. Salas is: projecting a three-day Festival. The tourist-minded Government is partial to the. proj ect. The Mexican reaction is just one further evidence that jazz is a language of feeling that: lends itself readily to foreign con.- .. sumption. American jazz is hot stuff in. Sweden, Switzerland, Britain, France, Japan and Australi It Is showing signs of catching on in Italy where there are: now two native;groups on a New Orleans beat; Spain and Portugal,; citadels of conserva- tism in all areas, even are doing a bit of jumping. Jonie Taps, ex-gen. prof. mgr. for Shapiro-Bernstein Music and now a Columbia Pictures producer, came east last week to sign a deal with Louis Bernstein, his. long- time boss, for the formation of Columbi Pictures Music Corp. This puts S-B into the Hollywood music affiliation field, a la the Big Three (Robbins, Feist and Miller) with Metro and 20th-Fox; Famous and Paramount Music with the Par studios; and the Music Publishers Holding Corp. (Remick, Witmark, Harms, Gershwin, Advanced,. New World) with Warner Bros. All Col musicals will be pub- lished by the new pub outfit, a partnership between S-B and the studi , excepting of course where writers are committed elsewhere. , Dick Voiter, Bernstein’s son-i law, will be prez of the Col. Pic- tures Music Corp:., and Taps will be yeepee. It’s a 50-50 deal. This is no first-time affiliation. Fpr Seven years, at the time Taps left S-B. for Col there was an ac- cord, until two years ago, when a deal was made with Irving Mills on the Coast whereby Mills Mu- ic was Col’s publishing outlet. This lapsed and there is a backlog of some six or seven months of Col film scores and musicals now ready-, ing for release. One of the soon to be published scores is the title song from a Col British-made pro- duction, “Prize of Gold.” MERC NABS DENISE LOR TO END DISK SCRAMBLE Major -diskery scramble for Denise Lor wound up last week with thrush going to Mercury Rec- ords. Several top platteries had been dickering for Miss Lor ever since she broke through with her etching of “If I Give My Heart To You” via the indie Majar label. Deal was set by Merc’s eastern artists & repertoire chiefs Hugo Perretti and Luigi Creator, They plan to record her within the next few weeks. Sosnik on Coe TV Show; Pens Spillane Themer Harry Sosnik is getting in on the pic theme vogue with his com- position of the: title song for the new Mickey Spillane film, “Kiss Me Deadly.” Film is being pro- duced by Victor Saville and will be released via United Artists. Sosnik also has: been set as mu- sical director for Fred Coe’s tv “Producer'! Showcase,” Swing It, Santa Betty Johnson’s new Christ- mas tune for New Disc, “I Want Eddie.Fisher For Christ- mas,” is reported leading to a dixieland Version: “I Want Eddie Condon For Christmas.” Although Great Britain has be- come fertile territory for many U.. S. singers, Guy Mitchell claims that a vocalist- still needs that disk hit to pack 'em into the vaude houses there. Mitchell interrupted his tour of England last week to plane back to New. York for some quickie disk sessions on the Colum- bia label! He returned to London Friday (29) after four days in Gotham. Singer had been touring England since May and felt that too long a time had elapsed between his disk releases. There’s close to 52 weeks of in-person work available in England, he pldims, but a disclick is always necessary to stir up box- office action. Mitchell is slated to Continue his British tour through mid-December and he figured that he ought to have some hew disks working for him before then. Sides he cut will be rushed into the market both in the U. S. and in England. The quickie round trip costs a lot of money, he said; but in the long run it’ll be Worth it. Cap Contracts Candoli; To Bow on 17-Man Group Hollywood, Nov. 2. . Pete Candoli, one of the top Coast trumpet men, has been signed to an exclusive three-yCar contract by. Alan. Liyingston, a&r veepee of Capitol Records, and wiU debut next week with the first two sides by a new 17-man group. Outfit, in addition to featuring Can- doli’s trumpet, utilizes his arrange- ments. 'Flattery has shipped a total of 2,200 vinylites in an allout deejay campaign to plug the new aggrega- tion, which consists of five trum- pets, three trombones, one B-flat tuba, four saxes, piano, bass* drum, chimes and tympani. Sparked by beefs from radio sta- tions over the Increase Of smutty disks, . the music biz Is currently marshalling its top organizations to clean lip. the situation. First step was taken last week by the Songwriters Protective Assn., which passed a resolution asking for the industry to “voluntarily curb the publication, recording and public performance of material of- fensive to the public taste.” Both ASCAP and BMI recently received letters from station WDIA in Memphis asking: the licensing societies to help curb disks which were either outright pornographic or contained double entendres. A list of about 10; tunes was submit- ted. by WDIA as samples of disks; that should be banned. .Most of. the tunes were licensed through BMI and were cut by such indie labels, Among the allegedly obscene or unsubtle songs ; on the Federal, At- lantic, Checker, Mercury, Chess, Imperial and Duke labels are “Honey Love,” “Work With Me, Annie,” “Annie Had A Baby,” “Sexy Ways,” “Momma Took the Baby,” “Rocking Chair Baby,” “Give It Up,” “Baiby Don’t Put Me Down,” "Get High Everybody,” “Bow’d On My Knees,” Dinah Washington’s version of Cole Por- ter's “Love For Sale” on Mercury, “Get It,” “Toy Bell,” “Love All Night” and “Annie Pulled Hum- bug.” BMI prexy Carl Haverlin lauded all efforts to wipe Out the off-color disks and said he would cooperate with., the rest of the industry in so doing. BMI has already, set up a screening committee to weed out obviously dirty songs from its li- censing setup. Up to the Diskeries Trade toppers, however, believe that, the major responsibility for the smut songs lies with the radio Stations and the disk companies. Virtually all stations in the major cities have; banned disks of bad or doubtful taste and do not permit the blind spinning of new disks by their jockeys. WDIA recently in- stituted a method of weeding out (Continued on page 48) * Hollywood, Nov. 2. Jimmy Durante and Eddie Jack-, son check in at Decca tomorrow (Wed.) to etch two sides for single release and discuss material for an upcoming album. Package, which probably will be called “Club Durant,” will be cut sometime before the end of the year. It will consist of most of the. tunes Durante used to sing in his own Prohibition-era club when the team of Clayton, Jackson & Dur- ante was at its peak. Gross of Over $20,000,000 in 1954 Pygmy Music, Please Chicago, Nov. %. Will J. Harris, oldtimer i sbrigwriting, who has to his credits such tunes as “Sweet Sue” and “Santa Claus Is Com- ing to Town,” was commis- sioned to clef part of the score for the 1 current, edition of Polack Bros. Circus and part of next year’s as well. What floored him in this season’s assignment, he says, was a request for special pro- duction music for eight pygmy elephants. He composed it arid called it “Jumbo Jingles.” “I thought it was a gag at first,” he said. "Never heard of such a thing in all my 30 years in the game.” Then disenchant- edly, “So this is what’s left of show business,” ASCAP Wraps Up MOG-a-Year Pact Another loose end in the. music licensing picture was tied up last Week with the finalization of a deal between ASCAP and Loevv’s Inc, for the use of the Society’s music in Metro pictures. Deal, which is retroactive to March 15, 1952, and expires in March of next year, will give ASCAP around $140,000 per year from the studio. Before 1949, ASCAP collected Over $1,300,000 from fill exhibitors, but since Judge Vincent L. Leibell outlawed the theatre seat tax; ASCAP now has to collect direct from the pro-, ducers. When coin from the various Hollywood producers and film theatres using music other than film soundtracks is toted up, ASCAP may collect about as much from the film industry as it once did. (All theatres using music for exit arid intermission purposes or for accompaniment to stage shows must have licenses to use ASCAP music). ASCAP has been negotiat- ing with the various film compa- nies for the past few years and has already wrapped up pacts with three majors,. At the present time, ASCAP has licensing pacts with Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal and Loew’s. It’s continuing talks with 20th-Fox, RK.O, Columbia and United Artists. While the. provisions of the ASCAP pacts with the studios are v uriiform, each studio is bargaining separtely on the compensation, factor, The American Society of Com- posers, Authors & Publishers heading for a. banner pear in 1954, with an estimated gross revenue of slightly over $20,000,000. Latter figure is based on a near $16,000,- 000 gross for the first three quar- ters of this year reported to the New; York membership at the So- ciety’s semi-annual meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria last week! /While ASCAP’s revenue keeps climbing 'from year to year, so is ^ its membership roster. Since March of this year, f00 new writ- er-members and 57 publisher- members have joined ASCAP, to bring the totals to 3,000 writers, 295, non-participating members and 731 publishers. Meantime, 'ASCAP has sliced its cut. for administra- tive overhead from 20% to 18%. As has been customary. for the past three years since! the new writ- er playoff plan has been operative* the . ASCAP meeting, presided over by prexy Stanley Adams, was a quiet affair: The complete har- mony within the ranks was. only slightly ruffled by Pinky Herman, who advocated. revision of the seniority bracket within the writer system. Adams countered the proposal, saying that this is the first time in his career that he ever disagreed with Herman. Herman, meantime, is circulat- ing a petition among A.SCAP mem* biers to get a special meeting to discuss the seniority question. He needs 15% of the total number of writers to make calling of the meeting automatic. Herman’s pro- posals were previously voted down in the augmented, writers' classi- fication committee. New amendment in the seniority bracket, would further cushion older writers against drastic drops in income. At the present time, the seniority factor is tied indirectly to performance credits, which, for many older writers; have become difficult to iriaintain. Herman would revise the rules so that a writer’s seniority could not fall below a given mark for each writ- er, depending on his highest per- formance rating, The dispute revolves around the question whether ASCAP should be a straight performance society or a quasi-insurance Operation. With the accent in the distribution plan on rnathematical counting of the plugs, the tendency in ASCAP for the past few years has swung in favor of paying off on what each writer actually earns in perform- ances. „ Besides Adams, speakers at the meeting were Saul H. Bourne, treasurer, and Bernard Goodwi who delivered the report for the board of directors; CAMDEN’S NEW DISTRIB SETUP ZOOMS OCT. BIZ Camden Records, RCA Victor 1921 (The first distribution made 1938 1939 1940 1941* 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 .... 1949t 1950 1951 1952 1953 19541 Figures are net distributions to writers and publishers and do not include deductions for ASCAP’s admi istrative expenses which usually run to 20% of the total revenue. *The year of ASCAP’s blackout on radio. tThe first year after Judge Vincent Leibell outlawed ASCAP’s collection Of the theatre seat tax from film exhibitors, i Based on first nine months. to 163 members) $ 24,000 4.392.000 4.695.000. 5.455.000 2.862.000 3.965.000 4.747.000 .6,060,000 7.073.000 7.402.000 7.776.000 8 . 000 . 000 7.500.000 10 , 000,000 11.500.000 13.000. 000 14.400.000 16.000. 000 low-priced subsid label, quadrupled its sales in October over any/^ pre- vious month since the line was in-, troduced a year ago. Surge was at- tributed to Camden’s new method of distribution via Victor’s regular distribs. Formerly, Camden disks Were shipped direct to retailers from Victor’s factories. Meantime, the Camden catalog, taken from masters previously in , the regular Victor line, is steadily expanding.. Last week, Ben Selvin, arTists & repertoire chief, acquired the rights to disks by tenors Chris- topher Lynch and Morton Downey;. Bob Musel to Clef theme for Rank Pic United Press correspondent Bob Musel, Who headquarters in Lon- don, makes, his spngwriting return With the theme music to J, Arthur Rank's pic “To Paris, With Love.” Tube will be pushed as a pop en- try tagged “People Like Us.” Abe Olman, general manager of the Big Three, latched on to the song for publication in the U.S.