Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

n / Dinah Shore, as glamorous now as any full-fledged Hollywood star, is beaued to a premiere at the Carthay Circle by Mervyn LeRoy. FACING THE MUSIC (CONTINUED) trying to woo some of the Duke's arrangers away? RUGGED INDIVIDUALIST IF barrel-chested Russ Morgan had viewed his dance band career strictly as a hard-headed commercial venture, today he would probably be a retired gentleman farmer, resting easily on his laurels and annuities, and making only occasional excursions to Tin Pan Alley to deliver the manuscript of his latest song hit. Instead, at 38, the rugged ex-coal miner from Scranton, Pa., is still one of the busiest big league batoneers, touring the country playing theaters, hotels, ballrooms, one-night stands, dashing off popular tunes, making Decca records, and keeping his sixand-a-half-foot, 215 pound frame in a state of continuous activity. "Leading a band doesn't really mean a thing to me if it has to be measured in dollars and cents," Russ says with the refreshing frankness that's as individual with him as his sobbing, throbbing trombone notes. "After all, what good's the do-re-mi when you go down that deep dark hole?" Unlike his more commerciallyminded contemporaries who try to keep their payrolls down, Morgan's troupe numbers seventeen musicians, a girl singer, and a rapid-fire portrait artist. He uses the latter for stage show work. Morgan gets a kick out of leading an over-sized ensemble even though it cuts heavily into his bank account. For just the same reason he pays out bountiful sums for arrangements of Strauss waltzes. "I paid $25,000 for a flock of Strauss arrangements because I love 'em. But I bet I couldn't give 'em away to another band leader," he admits. Don't get the idea that Russ plays five shows a day or maps out a 64,000 mile road tour just to satisfy his musical whims. He has a healthy and normal respect for earning money because it brings him such trifles as flashy roadsters, beach and country homes, good food and clothes. But Russ believes he can make more money playing on the road than following the orthodox custom of getting a New York hotel spot. Because he realizes the value of network air time, Morgan shrewdly accepts just enough mid-western hotel dates to fill the broadcasting gap. He is currently heard over the Blue network from Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel. Leading a band is no novelty to Morgan. He's been a professional musician since he was fifteen. Although he can play every instrument in the band, except the strings, the trombone is his favorite. "Gosh, if it wasn't for that old horn I might be pushing up daisies," he says — and here is the explanation of that remark: When Russ was a youngster, doctors discovered that he had a weak lung. They suggested that he learn to play a wind instrument. The news came as quite a shock to Russ' family because everyone in it had always been remarkably healthy. Russ' father followed the doctors' advice, bought the ailing child a trombone and made him practice diligently. The parents helped teach the boy. Before becoming mining people, the Morgans had been small-time vaudevillians. When Russ was fifteen, he believed he had mastered the slide horn well enough to give impromptu solos deep down in the, mines. These coal-mine concerts did not meet with the approval of Russ' dad, Songstress Bea Wain is a busy traveller these days, visiting her husband, Andre Baruch, in Washington and entertaining at Army camps. I ** a stern Welshman, and he banned the f| boy from the mines and saw to it that his son couldn't work in any other near-by pits. "My dad figured this would make me earn my living as a musician and he was right," Russ recalls. "But every once in a while I sort of get homesick for the mines and every chance I get I go back there to talk with the workers. The same guys are still there." Russ played with all kinds of bands —Phil Spitalny, Ted Fiorito, Arnold Johnson, Victor Herbert, John Phillips Sousa, Paul Specht, and the renowned Jean Goldkette. He helped the latter organize one of the great pioneer swing bands. "When Jean hired me he asked me for a candid opinion of the men in his band. I told him to throw all those bums out and I would dig him up a group of real musicians." Goldkette took the brash youth at his word and Russ rounded up Bix Beiderbecke, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lange, Don Murray and Chauncey Morehouse. Russ still thinks it was the greatest swing crew ever assembled. Russ drifted into all sorts of musical work. He was recording director for the old Brunswick studios, musical director of WXYZ, Detroit, and a key trombone soloist on a number of network shows. He didn't organize his RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRROR