Radio Digest (June 1932-Mar 1933)

JUST a half an hour after we had heard Toscanini conduct the New York Philharmonic orchestra in Brahms' Third Symphony at Carnegie Hall, Frank Black and I were seated in the living room of his home in Sutton place, New York city. Black, general musical director of the National Broadcasting Company, walked to a phonograph, placed a record on the turntable and started the machine. I heard the strains of an old jazz tune I recognized as "The Washboard Blues." The hand which was playing it sounded hot. I was amazed. When the record ended, Black said, "That's a record made by Red Nichols and his Five Pennies, a jazz band. And yet it is a> great a work of art in its own field as the playing of the Brahms symphony this afternoon — because it is well done." A hit unusual? Most real or psuedo Frank Black intellectuals and highbrow music lovers who would orally express their appreciation of the classics would rarely think of mentioning a jazz band's work in the same breath. But Frank Black would. For he's the type of person who can appreciate musical art, no matter what its guise, no matter what its limitations without placing any on his own mental viewpoint. And that's also probably why Frank Black as an orchestra director has been chosen to direct orchestras on some of radio's greatest programs which might play either popular jazz or serious music of a difficult nature and why he is able to do a great job with both. Black is a keen student of human appreciation. No prospective sponsor has to tell him that for every hundred people who will like dance music only ten will like something by Mozart. He knows and he speaks with authority. The New NBC Ghief lJirector By Earle Ferris Early in his career in the public eye Black realized that it was necessary to give the people what they wanted. From the time when he played the piano in a murky nickeloden at the age of eleven, Black has been studying audience reaction along with his music. The two have combined to make him the man who is now general musical director for the National Broadcasting Company. Ever since he was a small boy, the unusual in music has interested him. They tell a rather amusing story about the time when he was musical director at Brunswick. A song plugger brought in a sheaf of songs to submit to him for possible recording use. Black looked them over and none of them fitted his needs. The song publisher's representative' had a manuscript copy in his brief case and Black asked to see it. "Oh, that's no good," said the song plugger, "some of the boys wrote it but they wrote 47 bars instead of the regular 32." "Yes?" queried Black. "Leave it with me." The publisher's man was reluctant. "Don't make a record of that thing," he pleaded. "I'd get bawled out by the boss. It isn't regular and it would be difficult to publish." Black kept it. He liked it. He played it over for some singers. They liked it. The next time the publisher's man dropped in, Black let him hear it sung by Franklin Baur, played by three different bands. He had recorded it four times. The publisher was amazed. But the song sold almost a million copies. It was "Just a Memory" by De Sylva, Brown and Henderson. If it had not appealed to Black as "something different," it would have wound up in a waste basket. Black makes up his own mind. A sponsor for a program wanted a singer, so Black picked one. But the sponsor had been listening to claims of greatness made by a dozen agents. So he and his cohorts listened to 30 other singers. After he finished hearing (Continued on page 47)