The record changer (Mar 1946-Feb 1947)

RECORD CHANGER Bill Gottlieb * frederic :c Ramsey, Jf From 1938 to 1943, Bill Gottlieb wrote a column, "Swing Sessions," for the Washington Sunday Post, and also conducted a weekly radio program featuring the best jazz musicians that hit town and their recordings. At the time a character named Gullickson hung around the station asking Bill whether it was the Victor 38000 series or the O-Boy Kiddie series that collectors were looking for. Gottlieb gave this person his first hundred dollar order and thereby set him up in business. Bill began writing regularly on popular music in 1937, when, as editor of the Lehigh University "Review" he saw a fine chance to get free records for his fraternity house by establishing a column of record reviews. As a result, he became a "critic" and in fact president of the fraternity. Flashing, as he says, "a Phi Beta Kappa key outlined in neon," Bill applied for a job as a writer on the Washington Post, but somehow ended up as ' an advertising solicitor. For compensation he wrote, on the side, his Sunday column which has run continuously in the Post amusement section, except for the three years that found him in the air corps as an aerial photo officer. "My duties," he writes, "consisted of following WAC technicians and keeping them from taking the covers off gross boxes of photo paper with their right hands while snapping on the white lights with their left." He does not mention that while stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, he was a finalist in the Army Northwest tennis competition and a champion in the ping pong division. Bill Gottlieb is also an expert billiard player, and has even originated a game known as "Bill's Pool." This game is, of course, to be distinguished from "real pool." Bill does anything well the first time he tries it. Just prior to his enlistment, he spent several semesters as instructor of economics at Maryland Univer sity, and as sugar price economist of the OPA. (If any of you produce honey or maple syrup, Bill is the man you are sore at.) Out of the Army a couple of months ago, Bill Gottlieb has joined the New York staff of Down Beat and a remarkable shot of his appears on their May 1st cover. When he finds a home for his wife, child, dark room and 5000 records, I hope he will git with us good. Frederic Ramsey, Jr. — Born, Pittsburgh, Penna., Jan. 29, 1915. At that time his father was Business Manager and Docent of the Department of Fine Arts of Carnegie Institute. Shortly afterward the family moved to New Hope, Penna., where Frederic Ramsey, Sr., still paints and teaches. Fred began to interest himself in jazz music at the age of 12 years when he bought Duke Ellington's East St. Louis Toodle-oo. This record of Duke's sold Fred on jazz and he began in earnest to study the art and to build up a sizable library of jazz recordings. Fred Ramsey attended the Solebury School, a small college preparatory school near New Hope. "At that time," Fred writes, "probably the most sophisticated and rowdy upperform character was a gent then known as Bob (now Carlton) Brown. There are some illuminating chapters in Bob's book, Brainstorm; that might be said to be derived from life in that school. In the big room where Bob lived 'with two roommates in a top corner of a remodeled barn, there was always a huge stack of records, with a machine going day and night. In the stack, you could go in any day, pick out all the Ellingtons, Jelly Rolls, Armstrongs, Hot Fives, Whitemans, Goldkettes, McKinney's Cotton Pickers, Rhythm Kings, Washboard Thumpers and Bessie Smiths that had been issued to date." Entering Princeton University r 1932, Fred majored in Modern Lan guages and was sent abroad in the summer of 1935 as guest of the French Government, representing Princeton in a group of thirteen students from other universities. Of this tour, Fred remembers best the cidre de Normandie (guaranteed to kill all pain) and a long talk he had with James Joyce, who at the time was writing his monumental Finnegan's Wake. Upon his graduation from Princeton in 1936, Fred began working for a book publisher, reading manuscripts. One day a jazz, book was sent to him for his observations. Fred gave it such a brush-off that the publisher challenged him with, "If you can write a better one, why the hell don't you do it?" And that's how Jazzmen got under way. Jazzmen, written by Fred Ramsey, Charles Edw. Smith and Steve Smith, was published in October 1939 and did not sell at all well at first. It was panned by John O'Hara, Elie Siegmeister, Lewis Gannett ; and most reviews, if they appeared at all, were lukewarm. By now, the book seems to have survived this reception and is still in print. During the war, Fred Ramsey went to work for the O.W.I, and set up its jazz and popular music department. Some of the publications for which he has written are Down Beat, H.R.S. Rag, Jazz Information, Direction, Negro. Digest, Circle, Now, Jazz Music Books, The Jazz Record, Jazzways, The Needle, Or k ester Journalen, and the Record Changer. Beginning this month, Fred will be in charge of the record review column in the Street & Smith ladymag, Charm. A bachelor, Fred Ramsey divides his time between his New York apartment and his home in New Hope. As a free-lance writer, he is working on short stories, a novel, and has already started on next year's issue of Jazzzvays.