Variety (January 1950)

trcdncNkrt JamiMy as» M>SO OBcnBS'niAS^iiirsHic 49 THE-COIN SPAT lo a$ ; American Sbclety of ;C(Mnposers,-f Aiith(V3 and Publishers hile limit- ing the run of its president to two cphsecutive one-year terms may he pushed aside this spring, when current prez Fred Ahlert’s second terih expires. ASCAP is in the middled of such importarit negotia- tions which may not be completed by then, such , as; the 'Dept. ot‘ Jus- tice consent decree, teleyision negotiations, etc., thalt Ahlert ihay •'be held ;pver^. ' ASGAP board mehibers appar- ently have begun to consider the possibility for ; they are talking about a third term for hirri, despite the tw6-^year rule. Ahlert's two years as head of the: Society has been the hottest period of the: orr ganization'S:, existence; draym-out negotiations with . televisioni the decision by ' Justice Vincent E. Leibell barring ASCAP from col- lectirig theatre performance fees, and the revision of the Consent de- cree all occurring, during that period. Only the network tele pact Is completed, the others still pend-^ tng., Denton, Tex., Jan. 24. Threes more North Texas :State Vic bamone is headed into the Lopg-Simmering dispute between writer members of the American Society of Composers* Authors arid + Publishers; over a change in the ' ^ . . . . method by which the society clas-; uiusic publishing . business in as- college students will join band- I sifies its .composers and authors,' with Shapiro-Befnstein,. leader yaughn Monroe’s show on i and pays them off accordihgly, ex^ Singer apd the estabiished music March s. 1 ploded into;a hot fight last \Veek ; b9US6- h^ set-up an, outfit titled, bipsy ppodlers, hillbilly . bur- j in New York.- Because the revising j Sandra Music, imo which m lesque trio composed of Robert: of the Society’s consent decree ; picked tip _ by^ the singer or S;B Irby, Adrian McClish and Reuben i with; the U. S. Dept, of Justice i Iqdg^. Mar^^^^ Gane will Noei; will join three; other exf-stur dents already With the. band. They insists on a different ihetHbd of al-1 ®P®firm, under the aegis locating writer income Jthah jtiow yt ^-B; execs. : . u comprise three-foufths. of the i in existence, the subject must be ' , New company as yet hasn t a MpOnmaid quartet, vocalist group resolved; tune.-, \ with Monroe. I In three hitter, explosive meet ings last week, One lasting until 2 | a.m., apparently picked members; I of the writer class fought it out. At one time the: Society’s execs were in favOr of and were talking I with the government about a plan I calling for distribution on the basis ; of 20% for performances; 20% for semorlty; in itself based on per- ! Record sales continue to rise when fiist explained: to the yOung-; larger number of recordings, . J V.- u At. f ! er element of the Society, which which disk executives feel is the semCrosby, Inc;, a new publishing i sleihed to saS‘ them^HowcTOr’ ^ Victor’s best-selier iist firm that will handle the score'of , L >j,e |,„st few weeks the SoCietv’s last week, for example, not only all BingCrosbys films, written by j^op execs have for ah unexplained I accounted for a greater number of Burke-VH. Latter pair have been returned to the George W. . unit Shipments, but covered a Mwer plan, Revised By atop^atedl^j^^^^^^ number of recordings. rent method of splitting up the Records, which two weefe AM* MM M.M *'• ■ - ''1 « A .^4.9 'J .. .*.1 M-G-M; Records markets Its first MicrogroOve Long-Playing platters March 1. Initial release will, cover four eight-song albums on 10-inch disks that will sell for $2.85, the Paramount Music and songwrit- ers Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heiisen have finally signed an dickering with: Paramount for Weeks on a: setup, following the breakup of a previous agreement Des Moiiies, Jan. 24,; A decision was given by Federal Judge ;Henry N. Graven; at Foi*^ bodge; la., last week, which though local: at the moment and which undoubtedly will be appealed, ney- ertheiess can have sharp effect pii the pperation of ballrooms through- out: the entire country. Judge; Graven ruled that; In his opinion dance palaces are riot required to collect; the Goverriment’s 20% cabaret tax oh food and drink cpri^ Slimed cn the preriiises. Decision resulted from an action filed by Lariy y. and Margaret Geer, of Fort Dodge, who own a string of ballrooms, against Col- lector of' Internal R:evehue E. H, Birmingham, Actiph was a test suit, contending that the service of food and drink in a ballroom was incidental to the 'primary pur- pose of operation arid is not a cabaret or riightclub within the meariing of the law. Judge Craven agreed; in a 75-page opinion, stat-* Ing that *‘the wprd cabaret in its well-knowri and coriimpniy under- stood sense does not include ball- rooms.” He added that if Congress had intended the law to cover ball- rooms, “it would have been a sim- ple matter to add the word “ball- room” to the Pniimeration of the establishments subject to the tax.” Crosby was a silent partner. Deal will start Feb.: 15, and the first scpre the hew film Will handle is Crosby’s fpirthcpming “Riding With .Edwin H, Morris, in which | ' ago had 20 disks In its best-seller Meyer’s plan calls for a system class, now points to 32 separate based on a norm of 1,000 points as disks selling heavily enough to be against ^e current method of counted as best-sellers; . _ using 100^points as a base figure. Victor’s narade is led bv the High,”, to be follow®d by his ‘Mr. ■ Under it there would be 25 steps Tony Martin-Fran Warren cutting Attt aV -au b/t • • , iup or down and an individual of “t Said My Pajamas,” 55,000 of Burke-VH tie wrih Mori;^^^^^^ not slip or gain more than ^ ^-hich distributed on order. ^points ih a given year. In , That’S Toughiy 13,000 copies better Tony Martin’s disking of tnat WH seu «or jA.«a, the old BurkeWH company. .This were drawing low performances, i ledfirilst the nt^ioSs week^^^^ bot-lil'^SS ind which^ Four albums coyer sound tracks of three already issued Metro films—*^TiU the Clouds Roll By,” “Easter Parade” and the forthcom- ing “Nancy Goes to Rio.” Fourth will consist of David. Rose’s “Holi- day For Strings” set, which has been: out for sbirie time ori regular 78 tpm platters arid has been an M G-M best-seller. All four were; re-ciit on 33 rpm masters, the film trio, of course, transferred from the original sound track rather than from the 78 source.: “TiU the Clouds Roll By” in- cludes tunes by Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Jurie Allyson, Kathryri Grayson-'Toriy M a r 11 n, Virginia O’Brien, G a le h Peterson arid chorus and orchestra under Lenrtie Hayton. “Easter Parade” covers songs by. Judy Garland, Fred -AstairerAnriMiller-and-^PGter-Law^ ford, with Johnny Green’s orches- tra. “Nancy” uses melo.dies by Jane Powell, Ann Sothern-Danny Scholl, Carmen Miranda',' with Georgia Stoll’s orchestra. few weeks. IncIiiriQn of ‘Baby' As OscarD Burns Film Hollywood, Jan. 24. Top film songwriters are burning oyer the Academy’s music branch change Of rules which makes Frank Loesser’s“Baby, It’s Cold Putside tom. In . 42.600 and which itself jumped this: week to over 43,000. All told, aniount Gqual to 12% would he : y^pjilQj. 3.7 platters on which taken off the top, (ff the writer ; shipped over 10,000 copies last income and allocated among the I!^ old-line writers purely to cbmpen- ' sate them for authoring works of value to the Society, but which are not frequently performed. This system would be controlled by a division: Of credits based on 20% ! for seniority, limited to 56 years, 20% for performances. The two to Man’ Restrictions figures added together would Intlu-1 MajOl BU LL» ®rice a writer’s standirig Under the Joe Glaser, head of As.sociatcd eligible for ah Osdar Tunesters ' remaining 60% of credits. Few. Booking Gorp., flew to Florida for Stih^pofnt ouUhat tte sou" I ASCAP UTiters clea^^^^ was written in 1947 under title of the System, incidentally, Myer elude a, trip to Havana. He left "Dialog,” when Loesser was at! p!®|* and Satuiday 21). pHrd.rn6unt. » tic bought th.6 tuil© clflssificfltion for fl hfindiul t Wliil© Gl3s©r*s trip soutli is ©S“ back from Paramount and sold it! pf outstanding writers such as Irv-1 sentially for a rest, his side-jaunt to Metro for “Neptune’.s Daugh-: log Rerlin, Oscar Hammerstein II, to Havana, is for the purpose of ter ” ■ ietc. ' looking over the possibili{ie.s for This some of the cleffers say, j fntroduction of this system got bookings there. Cuban Capital has makes * it ineligible to rec elve~~an~^^v^iQioo^-^-o^o^^^o-^R-oo^Rl^ yooo^ - all agencies award fbr a song written for a pic t u r e. Another ineligibility gi’ound, they allege, 1$ that Loesser had 500 copies printed and some recordings made for his friends and that It was perforriied many tiiries before “Neptune” was . re- leased.. . 'a:, Situatibri Is similar to one ..in (Continued on page :56) R0SEUIII),N.Y., SHIFT WIOKS SET tFAE In recent months. Tommy Dorsey s ' orchestra Is current at the Saris • Souci, outside Havana, but it Is 'the last IJ. S. name band that Wiir play the city because of tightened Cuban Federation of Musicians -rules;.;’. i Gene Krii pa’s orchestra had been ” booked to play thb Tropicana, iri Restrictions on the release of recordings of the“Third Mari Therne” were IHted as of 'Monday (23) by the Selznick Releasing Or- ganization and Chappell Music, al- though restrictions against per- formance of the music by disk jockeys still is In fbree. Move at least eliminates the squabbling that has been, going on the past month or more between SRO, Chappell and Tecbrding coinpariies. Selznick’s move apparently was prompted by the discovery by Gb- hiinbia Records execs that Lon- don’s recording of the music had been released. Rather than go through a legal fight, or even threatening one, against London of jompanies who might follbw the latter without authorization, SRO okayed the marketing of the disks. Kntckerbockef Miisio Co., Inc. y,bartefed to conduct a music pub- lishing business In New York, AVith capital stock of 200 shares, no par value. Milton M. M6kotoff, was flllng attorney. Roselartd Ballroom, v^xiunkAuia. xo 0X1....MX xv , m^y bo shlftcd loto its. new 6,000“ . 1 %,.a ,i?/i n/\f 1944, when Warner Bros, used Cole j capacity home this fall. Construe- tW Porter’s“Dbn’t Fence Me In.’’; At, tion work on the hew spot, whic that time the : song was ruled In- /will be in the building which is currently at Bop City, eiigibie. Later, however, Jerome • housed the Gay Blades skating rink, ^ ®^ ^ Kerri’s ‘‘Last Time ;I Saw Paris” i jg moving ahead steadily and may ; wbri ah QsearV althpugK it was pp.p- be coriipleted: by : theri;. Whether ularized before being u.sed on the j the spot will be called the Rp.se- screen. “Baby” has a good :chance j land isn’t decided: It originally ! to wiri ah Oscar, since 1949 was a j was. to be riained: Palladium, after lean year for outstandirig pictufe l the Hollywood ballrOorii, with A commiittee of RCA- Victor executives met with American Federation of . Musicians topper* TO days ago in New York to discuss what has been described as a “special rate for the use of music in tape.” Neither Victor nor the AFM will confirm the meeting let alonedisGussitspurpo.se. The few disk people who know of Victor’s talks with the uriion heads are doing some deep pon- dering on what Victor could be up to. It’s felt that a request for a special rate for music on tape could be related only to the AFM’s collection frorri disk manufacturers of royalties on each regular re- cording sold. Arid there’s much speculation as to whether Victor intends marketing, pop apd other forms of music on tape, a Held all diskefs have carefully avoided so far. It may be, however, that the meeting had something to do with a plan Victor is said to harbor of dispensing a service similar to Muzak, on tape. songs. TO Duke Ellington tViiVmak^ 15-20 week tour of Europe beginning iri March; according to Jules Bprkon, general manager of Paris’ Produc- tibns Arts Et Spectacles. Bprkon, Who’s ciirreritiy in New York, said that contracts are scheduled to be signed within the week. Ellington will travel with his own band and acts, comprised of , 26-25 people. Overseas engagement, which will be handled by Borkon, will begin in Italy. TOBMI which Roseland operator Lou I Broadcast Music Inc. last week Brecher is conrieCted. signed songwriter Bernie Wayne to What may decide the moving a contract to write exclusively .for date into the larger dancery is the that organization. Wayne, who has /act that the Broadway building been writing and publishing songs housing the current: Roseland was ^ through firms affiliated with Amer- sold some time ago and was to be j ican Society of Composers, Authors tom down to make way for a new arid Publishers in fecerit years^ office bulding and theatre. Those was one Of BMI’s; original connec- plans are teiriporariiy in abeyance, tions. He Was one of the writers Meanwhile the Roseland is on a of that organization’s first hit, month-to-month lea.se. If decision i “Laughing On The Qulside.” is iriade to remove the building, | Wayne's signing is part of BMTs the dancCi’y will shift to the new drive to corral a stable of writers quarters this fall. ! who will be paid on a peiTorinance Major band bopkirig agencies basis; The material they turn out are figuririg that will happen. They i can he iriarketed either through have been talking to narne; band-; the main BMI outfit or any one leaders about the possibility of dc- ,of its affiliated publishers, which- buting the spot. l ever Is expedient at the moment. : Mexico City, Jail. 24. Many Mexican musicians and stage; pic, radie performers are protesting .penriit granted by Ro-, clolfo Landa, acting head of the national actors union, for Cab Galloway arid his cavalieirs to play El Patio niterie here. Gripe stems from James :Petrillo’s objection to Mexican tooters playing U. S. spots. Lauda is filling in for Jorge Negrete who, with his wife.: Gloria Maria, pic Setress, is currently Vacationing in Hollywood. However, seeiris that the gripe won’t go further than talk. Vicente Miranda, El Patio impresario, assures all concerned that Callo- way and his quintette won’t In any way interfere with spot’s two regular Mexican orchestras nor in any way harm any Mexican topter or stage, pic or radio player. Besides, ho protest has, as yet, been made by Mexico’s two tooters unions. Miranda sees Calloway & Co. importantly hypoing biz.