Variety (Oct 1944)

Wednesday, October 11, 1944 Armours Wire Recorder Seen Blow To Disc Cos. and Headache to Surveyors VARIETY ORCHESTRAS—MUSIC 35 Chicago, Oct. 10. -f New wire recorder developed here by Armour Research Foundation threatens to be knock-out blow to recording companies and record sales and a full-sized monkey wrench in the works Of the Hooper and Cros- ley radio surveys in the post-war period. Estimate by Chief Engineer W. L. Camp of the Armour Founda- tion was that a wire recorder equipped with a spool of wire costing less than $5, would be usable for; more than 100,000 times, hence the jive hound or symphony fan can record his favorite music as it comes over the air, while the discs of the com- mercial recording companies warp on the shelves. . Automatic time switches on the wire recorder allow, .family to set dials at the time of a Sunday night radio program, go off to church, and have the entire program ready to play back that night, next week, or six, months from then. Family can even record an entire afternoon's or evening's programs, or put together "'the favorite programs of a whole week for one evening's listening, since spool of 11,700 feet of wire wili record for six hours and 45 minutes. Use of the recorder on a large scale would inevitably have a vital effect on the accuracy of present- day measurement systems for, in-* stead of having from four to eight possible programs to check, the number might easily mount to 30 or more due to the delayed playing during evening hours now consid- ered the choicest radio time. Result in terms of trying to prove which show had the highest rating would take a battery of Philadelphia law- yers to interpret the figures. ' 135 and Less Wire recorder incorporated in a radio would be available to civilians after the war at a cost of about $35, and much less when licensed manu- facturers got into mass production. Recorder is being manufactured for government use under license by General Electric, McLoiith . Steel Corp., Utah Radio Products Co., C. G. Conn, Ltd., and Stromberg Carl- son. More than 100 applications for licenses have been filed with the Foundation in the past few months. ASCAP's Probe Into BMI Pub Financing Of Maestros Dropped American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers won't at- tempt to make anything out of Broadcast Music, Inc.'s, current drive to set up bandleaders in the music biz, via cash advances against future performance royalties. Whatever action will be taken on the matter is being left to the Music Publishers Contact Employees union, which is now investigating BMI's activity, At ASCAP's August board of di- rector's meeting there Was a lengthy discussion of BMI's practices and the matter was tabled for further investigation. . • Ed Richmond Becomes Brown-Henderson Mgr. Eddie Richmond takes over the professional manager spot with the recently activated firm of Brown & Henderson in N. Y. He replaces Herb Reis, who a few months ago took over the spot from Benny Gilbert. Reis shifts to California for Capitol songs. '«£'•'».: Richmond was Chicago representa- tive for Bregman, Vocco & Conn when he accepted the new spot. Geoffrey O'Hara Points Out ASCAP's Troubles SAUL BORNSTEIN'S NEW ACCOUNTANT EX-PARITE Richard Bennett, accountancy executive, for Paramount at its homeoftice, has resigned to take up an exec accountant's post with Bourne, Inc., Outgrowth of the old Irving Berlin company which is now headed by Saul Bornstein; Berlin himself has formed the Irving Ber- lin Music Co. ' With Par 18 years,, Bennett has been in charge of accounting work covering Balaban & Katz and other circuits of the Par theatre empire under Fred Mohrhardt, comptroller of the company. Bennett steps out of Par on Oct. 20. New York. Editor, "Variety": From the tenor of your article recently on the ASCAP Coast meeting you'd think there was a Civil War going on between the standard and pop writers in ASCAP. Nothing could be stranger fiction than your remarks. * Speaking only as one of the in- dividuals who has sat in committee foTr two years, week in and week out trying to uncover a formula by which we could reduce the ASCAP pay-off to mathematics, I want to say that the "brush-off" which you give us is such that a few words ought to be printed to make it clear that a sincere effort is being made to discover a method or a formula, at least to "get the thing started" and see how it works. Our com- mittee thinks we are doing very nicely. . There is no Civil War. There haven't even been "words." There has been no effort which I have seen on either side the Standards or the Popular to do any- thing or say anything which didn't seem to the whole committee to be constructive and to the point. Lest someone thinks this has been an easy job; that we have ducked the issue, that we are looking for "outs" as your article implies, let me tell you a little of what we have gone through. First, we examined the payoff systems of Italy, France and England, to see v how they might serve as a basis for our sys- tem, and if, anyone thinks that wasn'_t_a_ job .just take a shot at it and find out! It was terrific. To aid us in this study we had the as- sistance of the former president of one of those big European societies, plus a mathematical wizard Rhodes scholar who served us up with charts, figures, formulas, facts, and what-not' till we were all groggy, and had then to individually sit down and try to digest what we had seen and heard in a group. This, was time and heart-breaking, but we did it. After a whole year of this we came to the conclusion that we'd have to abandon most--of the Euro- pean systems entirely. Since then we have been working on per- centages of payment, dividing music into its formal classifications, a Symphony, a Sonata, 'an Opera, a Suite, an Art song, a Standard song, and a Popular song x (to mention a few of the classifications, into which fall our ASCAP works). How much are they worth, in dollars, per per- formance? The tangles and rami- fications • of this subject are, such that "Variety" better not start to discuss it. But let me say this, the "intense opposition" which you men- tion of the Standard group Is fic- tion. There has been no intense "op- position. I want to make that very plain. Nor have the Standards been "battling" as you say "for a dis- tribution ratio of five points to one (Continued on page. 36 ) <•'•: CONDON'S JAZZ BASH AT CARNEGIE HALL Carnegie Hall, N. Y.'s longhair atmosphere, will be jazz-ruffled again Monday (16) when Eddie Con- don, who directed series of Satur- day afternoon sessions at Town Hall, N. Y, last season, brings in a group of 30 or more soloists for an infor- mal recital of hot music, v. House has been scaled from $1 to $2.50 (plus tax) with entrepreneur Ernie Anderson relying oh ads in dailies and radio plugs to fill the house. It's first time jazz has gone into Carnegie without the pull of a big name. Heretofore, Benny Good- man, Duke Ellington and the late Fats Waller provided such b.o. help. Nucleus of the performing group is the Condon aggregation currently heard Saturday afternoons on the Blue network "Jazz Concert" .series. Featured will be Cosy Cole, drum- mer; George Wettling, Billy Butter- field, Jess Stacy, Red McKenzie, Lee Wiley, Muggsy Spanier, Peewee Rus- sell, Miff Mole, Joe Marsala, Max Kaminsky, James P. Johnson, Ed Hall, Benny Morton, etc. ... Frankie Carle Digging Into Anonymous Sales Of Discs Claimed as His Discovery of recordings being sold on the Coast under the Philharmonic label, which Frankie Carle claims are identical with ones he .made for Columbia Records, has the bandr leader up in arms. Philharmonic is the former Firestone label and the discs Carle claims are his carry matrix numbers identical with the numbers of his . Columbia perform- ances. They are being sold simply as piano solos, carrying no artist name credit. Columbia admits having a deal at one time with Firestone, similar to one with Sears, Roebuck. Company is uncertain about the disputed re- cordings and how Philharmonic got them, if they are identical with the ones the leader made for that com- pany. Carle is clear as to whether they are his. Columbia items or not and he wants to be paid royalties on their sale. His attorneys are in- vestigating the matter and a suit may be forthcoming. WARNERS BOWS TO AFM ON 'STRIKE CLAUSE' Warner Bros, theatres apparently have bowed to the American Feder-. atioh of Musicians' insistence that henceforth every contract between a bandleader and employer carry the union's recently instituted .''strike" clause. Contracts affixed with the clause are now being signed by WB after the latter had for several weeks refused to honor them, or struck the clauses but before do- ing so. ' AFM had ordered every booking agency which might do business with the theatres that the clause had to be affixed to all contracts or the agreements were not valid. Johnny Morris to MCA Johnny Morris' new band was signed to a Music" Corp. of America contract last week, and plays its ...... m i n at the Palomar Ballroom, uscript form, as recorded by Kaye's Sammy Kaye Music Into Library of Congress -.. .f : Washington, Oct. 10.. Library of Congress is preserving the manuscripts and arrangements of Sammy Kaye and his orchestra, the music ranging* from Kaye's theme song to the oldies, "Avalon," "Melancholy Baby." and the more recent "Remember Pearl Harbor," ; ' Phonograph records of all the songs which the library has in man Pamphlet Defines ASCAP's Purposes Due to increasing requests for in- formation as to the function of the American Society of Composers, Au- thors and Publishers, the latter has gotten up a 15-page pamphlet cov- ering every aspect of the Societyls purposes. Ready for distribution, the "Story Of ASCAP" explains in de- tail the various. phases of the .or- ganization's functioning as a non- profit, performing-rights group. ; . * ASCAP for years has, received re- quests, directly and through its vari- ous representatives throughout the country,.for information on what the. Society is and how it.works. These queries come in from all sorts of people. Included are the number of writer members .< 1,597), publisher members (206) arid the number of licensed establishments. 128.577)' of all knids using its music. '"■'. :., Norfolk, Va., -starting tomorrow (Thursday). Morris previously had « tentative arrangement with Gen- eral Amusement Corp. Morris is former drummer with Tony Pastor. crew, are also included in the; col- lection, which is the first of its kind in the history, of the library. May well be the start of a collection of arrangements by popular band lead- ers. •' .'.:.'. Scranton Record Setup' Albany, Oct, 10. Scranton Record Company, head-, quartered'-atHScrahton,—Pa.-, and now I maintaining' .New York offices, has a I capital stock of $106,000,.according to ' papers .filed here. Of this', 1.050 'shares are perferred at $100 par ; value, and 1,000 are common at $1 i par value.. . Music Publishers Preparing V-E Day Songs For Fast Marketing Van Alexander Joins WMCA, N. Y , As Maestro Van Alexander, arranger and for- mer bandleader, starts work at WMCA,. N. Y., Sunday (15) as a conductor. He'll, work three shows weekly,- the "Five Star Final," "Three Little Sachs" and Dean Mar- tin broadcasts. Jerry Sears is musi- cal director of the station. Since dropping his band months back, Alexander has been confining himself to arranging, a chore he'll continue. -- ', Benny Goodman Quartet Solid Click at New 0. Native Jazz Concert New Orleans, Oct. 10. - Initial jazz concert of the National Jazz Foundation, Inc., a newly or- ganized group to give recognition to New Orleans for the native jazz which has so influenced musical de- velopment in America, was presented Wednesday night (4). ' Star of the proceedings was Benny Goodman, imported from N. Y. for the pur- pose. Very much the master of the clarinet, Goodman brought along Teddy Wilson,, pianist; Sid Weiss, bass, and Morey Feld, drummer. Quartet highlighted the concert with a pair of precision performances of about a half-hour each. Goodman and his men had to beg off in a deafening cjin of apprecia- tion. They offered such faves as "Limehouse BlueV "After You've Gone," "Body and Soul," "Embrace- able You," "Rose Room," "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" and many others. Wilson's pianistics were fine. His playing is expressive, clean and precision-perfect. The smooth sup- port produced by Weiss and Feld are something to shout about, although Feld was working under the handi- cap of an imperfect set of drums. Goodman, however, was the stand- out. His name was the magnet that brought the huge crowds out, too. His playing is smooth, effortless, and to one who knows clarinet, nothing short of amazing. At no time did he grab the spotlight for himself, shar- ing it all evening with the rest of his quartet. Show "was opened by Claire Nunn, New Orleans; pianist, who sang "Careless Love" and "Basin Street Blues." Personable, pleasant and capable, she is definitely clicko. She was followed by Pinky Vida- covich, a clarinetist of no mean abil- ity himself, and his jazz band of hand picked New Orleans musicians. Playing with the band were two members of the Original Dixieland band, Chick Martin, bass, and Emile Christian, trombonist. Featured also was Irving Fazzola, formerly with Bob Crosby, Horace Heidt and other name outfits. Companion big band was led by Sidney Dcsvigrie. Opening with their, theme song, "Congo Madness,", they gave out with "Back Beat Boogie," ' "Shuffle Rhythm," "After Hours," featuring William Houston at the keyboard, and several others which brought continued shouts for more. Myrtle Jones, vocalist, has the foundation for a good blues style but needs more coaching. Thursday <5). Goodman's, quartet presented a 50-minute concert for wounded vets at LaGarde hospital: The day before- they, played . at the Naval station and at Camp Plaucbe. National Jazz Foundation, Inc., has as its immediate goal the estab- lishment of a National Jazz Museum here. In it will be preserved a com- prehensive collection of jazz rec- ords, historical relics of jazz, Instru- ments, books, papers; etc. Service Leaders Have The Old Civilian Squawk This is the kind of squawk that's become '-totally unexpected.. .Lead- ers of service bands lately have been griping about their inability to keep dance outfits intact.'. Sinte recent rules that all able-bodied .men are liable for active service, frequent replacements are necessary, caused by ■ reassignments. Since the- outbreak of war,- there isn't' one civilian bandleader who had been, able to maintain a com- bination intact for more than a few weeks at a time.' They envied serv- ice i<V('f '^vfof'th'sTprson; ' ■ Cueing their policy to V-E day", music publishers are currently lin- ing up songs marking the celebra- tions which will take place when U. S, troops return home—if such a development actually materializes. At least four Tin Pan Alley houses have numbers using the back-home- again theme. Leeds Music has "When My GI Guy Comes Marching Home," by Henry Nemo; Saunders Music has "Wish You Were Waiting For Me," and House of Melody has "Pretty . Soon," by Bobby Worth. Also in the ; works is "When He Comes Home," which Frank Loesser, now in the Army, is working on for Famous. "Waiting" and"Soon" have both been published recently. Also heard on several air shows late- ly was the oldie. "When: Johnny Comes Marching Home," in the pub- lic domain. ; In view of the; Official Govern- ment policy frowning on any bally tending to build undue optimism with an attendant drop in the war effort, there's a difference in opinion among pubs as to whether the wel- come-home numbers should be pub- lished. Leeds is holding up release of "Guy" until the situation really calls for it. Other pubs say that the ..'numbers reflect actual public sentiment and are therefore going ahead, -. ;: ... . Question of attitude being taken by radio networks is also figured. Blue and CBS have both decided on playing down V-E day as a cause for celebration^ stressing instead the theme there's still plenty to be done to beat the Nips. This approach is leading publishers to the opinion that, if they do put out. their V-E numbers, they may wind up being unable to get air plugs.: RCA Quarterly Royalty Payments to Publishers Big, Due to Reissues RCA-Victor dispatched quarterly royalty checks to music publishers last week. Sum dispensed, is undis- closed but the total payoff is corn- parable to past payments, which haven't been too far off prewar figures. , Virtually the entire sum distri- buted is based on. reissues. Victor has not had any new material to rer lease, aside from the few discs made without musical accompaniment by Dinah Shore and the King Sisters, for about a year. Such things as Tommy Dorsey's "I'll Be Seeing You," King Sisters' "I'll Get By" and many other items by Glenn'Miller, Artie Shaw, et al, account for the comparatively healthy payoff. BOBBINS, OBERSTEIN START RECORD DEAL Jack Robbiris and Eli Oberstein have finally gotten together on their agreement to record artists tied to. the publisher's Robbins Artists Bureau. Oberstein last week . rep- corded Chu-Cho Martinez, one of Robbins' people, and the deal will proceed if the discs turn out well. Per the arrangement, Oberstein is to allot Robbins 1,000 discs of what-' ever is recorded, affixed with a Lion label, the title of Robbins' projected postwar disc company. Alter . the 1.000 copies, the masters revert tb. Oberstein who will... release them Under his.own Hit label.. .". • .-.,.."'- - 9 Fiddling Swooners For Sinatra; Just in Case? There are nine femme fiddlers in the : 38-piece orchestra made up by Raymond Paige to work with Frank Sinatra on the stage of the Para- mount theatre, N. Y„ opening'today (Wednesday^ ( Par stagers were having a time late last week and early this week solving the problem of how 38 in- strumentalists were ■'. going to be fitted onto the house's pit elevator. Duke's Concert Encore Duke Ellington's orchestra will do another series of concerts the first two weeks in December. No dates have been booked and the territory he will cover has not been, deter- mined. He will tift play any in N. Y. ' .-. '.• - '.-' . ';. ,:.-.•'.; Ellington has found .the concert r„.\ r \ , i;..: V |i,,.r;-iiv" il-.tb*' pa-.t..