Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

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New Jersey's Jerry Wald — a rugged rhythmic individualist — never played for any big-time orchestra and doesn't think this lack of experience has handicapped him in the swing sweepstakes. "I've been sort of on my own ever since I had a high school dance band," Jerry says, "and through records and the radio I've studied the styles of all the top men." However, the dark-haired, browneyed, and slender bandsman candidly admits that several lucky breaks have helped him knock on the door to fame. Without these fateful events Jerry Wald's band might not be currently chalking up attendance records in New York's Hotel Lincoln and broadcasting several times weekly over MBS and CBS. So well has Wald clicked that his contract there has been renewed until October. THE first break came when the General Amusement Corporation, one of the three big dance band booking offices, felt the lack of a clarinetplaying leader on its roster. Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw were managed by rival firms. A quick survey of the field revealed that clarinetplaying leaders were not so easy to develop. Jerry was then playing in one of Child's restaurants on Broadway. The bookers liked Wald but were not impressed with his band. So they shipped Jerry to California where a promising college outfit had been discovered by their scouts, and told him to pilot the collegians. Jerry readily accepted their offer because he wasn't satisfied with his own band and jumped at the opportunity to get another. "The band I had then was a 'mickey mouse' bunch and we had to play that stuff because the people financing me wanted it that way," Jerry says. Jerry was born in Newark, New Jersey, the only child of a family of moderate means. His father was the owner of a laundry. When the boy was eight he went to a vaudeville show, heard saxophonist Rudy Weidoft (Rudy Vallee's hero) and was so intrigued that he pestered his father until he got his own saxophone. He practiced diligently and two years later was a local child prodigy, with a few broadcasts over WOR already under his youthful belt. So good was Jerry's Weequahic High School dance band that the boys were soon playing outside engagements. After graduation Jerry took the money he had accumulated from these jobs and headed for the west coast. He played out there in a few small units, got homesick, and came east, determined to organize his first professional band. But it takes capital to launch a dance band and Jerry had to find an "angel." Unfortunately, Jerry and his investor had different ideas about how music should be played and it wasn't until Jerry and the big-time booking office worked out a mutually beneficial deal that he really became happy about his future. Jerry's 16-piece band is an out growth of a Los Angeles college band. He went out there to reorganize them. They had a shakedown trip east, caused talk in the trade when they played in New York's Roseland ballroom, and got the Lincoln Hotel spot this Spring, winning out over some better-known rivals. The band has a sure, steady beat, emphasizes Wald's clarinet stick-work, and the sure-fire singing of attractive Anita Boyer. She's an auburn-haired vocalist who used to sing with Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Leo Reisman, and her ex-husband, Dick Barrie. Wald strives to play above-average tunes; has a penchant for Jerome Kern and George Gershwin songs. He snubs new tunes that he is urged to play simply because broadcasting big guns have already aired them. "If I don't like a song it doesn't go in the books," he says. This discriminating attitude makes it tough on the song-pluggers who offer him their wares. Though Jerry is proud of the comparisons drawn between his playing and Artie Shaw's, he vigorously denies the rumor that his arrangements are based on Artie's old ones. "That rumor came about in this fashion," Jerry explains. "Artie heard me when I played in Child's. Evidently he liked my music because he gave me eight of his old arrangements, including his famous 'Begin the Beguine' and 'Carioca' to help me get started. Naturally, I haven't used them since I've attained a bit of recognition, but I'll always be grateful for Artie's generosity." Jerry is 3-A in the draft because he supports his sick father and mother. Single, he lives alone and likes it, insists he hasn't got time to get serious with any girl. "That will have to wait until I click in a big way." Due to the shellac priority and resultant phonograph record shortage, the disk makers have stopped distributing records for review purposes. Therefore Facing the Music is forced to discontinue its monthly record review column for the duration. "We'd like to see a picture of Benny Goodman's new singer," you wrote. And here he is — Dick Haymes. RMl'l AND TELEVISION MIRROK