Variety (Mar 1948)

Wednesday, Maufcli 17, 194» 5$ MAKTIN FBISCO DATE DRAWS TOP COIN Hollywood, March 16. flreddy .Martin orchestra going Into St. Francis hotel, San Fran- e\vM on highest gunrantee and lircenUge deal for location date in irea since Benny Gpodman played Mark Hopkins in 1940. Goodman Sied for flat $5,600 at that time. Martin will get a $4,000 guarantee ^lu a 45% of covers, ,which as- S of at least $4,500. jlaesteo's Cocoanut Grove take is tS,()00p«s iMsccentage. Mnsic Notes Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne plefthiR tunes for Warners' forth- coming "The Gay Nineties." being pioduccd by Alex Gottlieb . . . touis Forbes set by Sam Bis(*off as^Wusical director on "Pitfall." Andtfr Prtevin assigned to do the musical score-for "Sun in the Morning" at Metro . . , Harvey Twyman and Jaeli-Oev«nay' now gl^g Dan Anderson on Capitol Beeonds' public relations , and pro- gnotloir. . . William Lava set to (fibre Warners' "The Big Punch," with Wayne JVlorris, Lois Maxwell and Gordon MacRae . . . Columbia imJsic director Morris Stoloil named George Duning to cleff the gcore for "The Return of October," Glenn Ford-Terry Moore comedy . , Miiro Technicolor musical, "A Date-With Judy," will reveal 10 tunes to . be played and sung by Jane Powell, Carmen Miranda , and ■ Xavier Cugat orch , . . Dave Chud- now has been named musical su- pervisor and Ralph Stanley, com- poserKionductor for Equity Pic- tutes" "Shed No Tears." . . . Deep Btver Boys now at Larry Potter's Supper Clubf . . . Vivian Green temporarily out of Santa Monica Ambassador hotel due to illness , . . Frankie 'Laine, now at Copa Club, Pittsburgh, follows date with midwest concert tour and then Harem, N. Y. nitery, for four weeks beginning April 8 . . . Ray ileiodorf set as music arranger- director' for musical, "My Dream Is Yours," produced by Michael Cuitiz , . . De Castro sisters play- ing Adams theatre, Newark, open- ing March 18 . . . Herbert Stothart inked to cleffi original scores for "Hills of Home" and "Three Musketeers" at Metro . . ; Mabel Scott opened at Bar nf Music for three weeks .., Doris Day records lug "Someone Like .You," "My Dream Is Yours." and "Freddy, Get Ready for School" for Michael Curtiz' film, "My Dream Is Yours." Harry Warren and Ralph Blane . cleifing additional ditties for Curtiz'« "My Dream is Yours." . . . Martha Tilton's first release on Capitol label since rejoining firm being oiTered this weok. Sides are "That's Gratitude" and "Not So Bright." . . . Sol, Bourne is putting - ABC Music on active list again. Mike Gould will head firm on West COjfist along with Bourne Music Co. Activities. Boui-ne and Gould have not set anyone for ABC job. as yet. lerm mst best seliebs Survey of retail sheet music sQlex, bused on reports obtained from leading' stores in 11 cities, and showing comparative .lale* . rattnsf jot this anti last week. National Ratine Week Ending Mar. 13 *rbls Last wk. wk. Title Publisher (11 T O T A L P O I N- T 13B "Dickie BirA Song" Robbins,.... .. .. .. .. 5 On the Upbeat Hollywood Joe Liggins' Honeydrippers en route to Florida on one-niter tour . . . Johnny Moore's Three Blazers on orie-niter trek into southwest- . . . Pee-Wee Hunt opened at Paris Inn, San Diego, Friday (12) . . . Red Ingle and Natural Seven check into Universal-International to be- gin, filming ti two-reel musical which Will Cowan will produce and direct . . . Jack Fina playing an added four weeks at Claremont hotel, Berkeley, • closing • May- 9. Russ Morgan orch had date set back at Claremont and will open May 11 . . . Leighton Noble opened Mapes hotel, Reno, Wednesday (10) for six weeks.' Uddie Fitzpat-' rick orch follows for six weeks and Joe ■ Reichman checks- in for Slimmer . . , Ray Herbeck clo.ses Rainbow .Rendezvous, ■ Salt Lake, March 27 and will play one niters before entering ■ Martinique, . Chi. . . . Jimmy Zito orch at Sherman's nitery with Nick Delano handling vocals. ' .■' Club Copa Saturday (20) . . . .lack Kent orch replaced Bob Rhodes outfit at Johnny Brown's Club . . . Jimmy Willis Quartet and Farmer & Wayne have joined Belva White at Hollywood Show Bar , . . George Shearing, blind English pianist, into Mercur's Music Bar for couple of weeks . ... Pianist Bob.Barry has started his' sixth month at lounge of Keystone hotel ... George Wells' orch gets opening shot at Ankara when that spot feopens March 25 after four-month shut- down. Pittsburgh Guy Lombardo booked Into the Grotto ,fOf a one-ftight dance stand March'30 . . . .loe Mooney Quartet, opens two-week engagement at Chicago Skitch Henderson headlines a two-week engagement at the State- Lake theatre, April' 2, to' be fol- lowed by Peggy Lee . . . Fred Niles "Hot Club," formerly on WAAF, will be resumed April 3, in the 3:00-4:00 p.m. .slot on- Saturdays over WCFL. First half-hour will be sponsored by Dublin's Music Shop . . . Ray Herbeck, currently at La Martinique, has switched from Frederick Bros, to Associated Booking . . . Dave Garroway, WMAQ'jocfcey, will emcee a one- night stand for the Charley Ven- tura orch at the Edgewater Beach. March 29 , .. Clyde McCoy, Johnny Long and Charlie Spivak set for two weeks each at the Club Car- nival, newest Minneapolis nitery, beginning the first of May . . . Tommy Carlyn, now at the Trianon Ballroom, flew to Pittsburgh-over Majestic ta Distrib Majestic Radio and Records, cur- rently going through the throes of reorganization under chapter 11 of the Chandler act, is folding its New York distributing branch and is arranging to turn over the exclu- sive distribution of its products to an independant Record promotion will b6 han- dled out of the Newark plant for the eastern area. Victor Cteans Shelves Of Black Pops, Red Seal Classics in Price Boost BCA-Victor's recent decision to' increase the retail prices of its pop- ular black label series from 00c to 75c, and Red Seal classical disks to a $1 minimum, cleaned its own and distributors' shelves of a fair- .sized portion of inventory that might not have been moved other- wise during, the current'Lenten-and forthcoming summer tieason. It was not the boost itself but thq manner in which it was done that turned the trick. Victor gaves its sales forces a 10-day warning of the in- crease. Last year, when Columbia Rec- ords hiked its pop price from 60c to 75c-it withheld news of its-inten- tion until the start of a weekend, and made the changes effective the following Monday morning. This prevented dispensers of its disks all the way down the line to the coim- ter from submitting large orders at the old wholesale price and imme- diately moving them ou,t to the consumer at'the end of the liAe at the higher retail tap, thus bagging a tidy profit. Columbia, however, made its move when disks of all kinds were moving at a fast sales clip. Currently, the disk business is still big, but hits only are in de- mand. RCA, however, overcame t4ie stagnation of its shelves by giving distributors an opportunity to load up to whatever extent they de.sii-ed , at the old wholesale price and re- selling at the higher price. And there's only 5% return privilege. In the 10-day interval between the citing of its price aims and the ap-^ plication,of them^ on March 1, the conyjany got rid of a ne&t bundle of disks. i Latouche-EUingtoA Tuoie for Robbins Jjck Bobbins' music firm, set up more than a year ago following the sale of his 26% interest in the Big 3 to his partner, Metro, is launch- ing its first pop tune, "He Makes Me Believe He's Mine," by John Latouche andrDuke Ellington. ' Since setting up his J, J. Robbins firm, Robbins has been devoting" himself to educational and similar forms of music rather than buck the major firms which dominate the pop field. the weekend to visit his mother, who was suddenly stricken seri- ously ill in local hospital ... Buss Morgan will be initial feature at a new dub in Springfield, 111., April (Continued on page 56) COAST mis NEW HIGH MTHisemwrs Hollywood, March 16. West coast music t>i2 boasts an alltihte high of ISO songpluggers. Current number is 32 over last year's 118 figure. Boom in songpluggers has been caused by new publishers which have popped up during the past year plus- additional staff which has been added to some of larger firms. It is also reported that five more contactmen are due here from N:Y. On a pertnanent change of address. Chi Swingsters Soft Touch for Stan Kenton .Chicago, March 16. Stan Kenton, who played to more than 4,000 in Chi's Civic Opera House recently, returns to the same house April 20-21 for the third tune since November. Net date is a two-day concert. Orchestra is alsb set for a dance date at the south side Savoy Ball- room April 18. •■ Demand Performance ... In response to the requests received from thousands of radio fisteners The ANDREWS SISTERS will REPEAT their sensational super-sonic lyric version of (Every Time They Play The—) ''SABRE DANCE" Lyric by ALLAN ROBERTS and LESTER LEE-Music by ARAM KHACHATURIAN "F/iey said no one could wrife words to the Sabre Dance!" Friday, March 19-Bob Crosby's 'CLUB 15"-CBS, 7:30 PM, EST LEEDS MUSIC CORPORATION-RKO BIdg., Radio City, New Yo rk 20, N. Y.