Variety (December 1951)

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Although still considerably under*] the peak activity of a decade ago; the band business has Come a long way this year for a relatively big nayoflf to some of the new orchs now in the picture. Plenty of young bands are still finding the. sledding rough, but the orchs which have been sticking it out fo r Lhe couple of years, are now operating on a solid profit basis. Top coin organization in the •'new’’ category is still the Ralph Flanagan band, which has been riding on an extensive RCA Victor disk promotion. For 1951 Flanagan unit will have grossed slightly over $575,000. Breakdown of the Flanagan take reveals that the orch took out Over $260,000 on 160 one-riighters; $190,000 for radio- TV assignments arid platter royal- ties; $32,000 for about four weeks of theatre dates; and $96,000 for 25 weeks of location work. The Flanagan organization- this year grossed about $100,000 more than it did in 1950. This total, of course, is still far from the kingsized. annual revenue racked up the Guy Lombardo orch, whose estimated $850,000 gross established it as the top money- maker during '51, Flanagan’s take, however, is seen indicative of a healthy basis for a growing band market given proper promotion arid steady plugging on the one-niter circuit. Ray Anthony’s Upbeat Additional evidence of the up- beat band biz trend is also sup- plied by the Ray Anthony orch, Capitol Records crew currently in for a six-week stand at the Hotel Statler,.N.Y. Anthony’s crew has emerged as the No. 2 young band in the business with a 1951 take that will considerably exceed last year's figure. Anthony’s band has hit its stride in the last six or seven months and is now playing at considerably higher guarantees than it did last year in the same spots. Anthony, moreover, has developed into a consistent platter seller on the Capitol label despite the general downbeat for instru- mental crews on wax. The Buddy Morrow orch, a late starter this year, is also hitting a promising clip with a $62,000 gross for the four months of its exist- ence. Morrow is another band in the Victor stable which was, like Flanagan, groomed on disks before stepping into the one-niter field. Initial returns indicate that Mor- row will be a strong contender next year. Another crew in this category is the Billy May orch, Which is being primed by Capitol. ' Outfits like the Les Brown and Jerry Gray orch have also hit con- sistently high returns this year on one-niter and location dates, but, for the most part, confine their activity to radio and video on the Coast. ., TIle Buddy DeFranco orch, on the M-G-M label, and Bernie Mann’s orch, which waxed for King Records, are also developing into poxoffice names and are expected to come through for nice payoffs in 1952. to L’rille Orch; Wife to Play Louisville, Dec. 25. Hoy Harris has been commis- sioned by the Louisville Philbar- jnonic Society to write a concerto ioko^o 110 a nd orchestra for the 100^63 season; be played by Har- is wife, Johanna Harris, and con- ducted by the composer/ Sari Antone Orch in Gulf Tour. »,v ^ San Antonio, Dec, 25. rhiii 6 Sa b Antonio Symphony Op- will riake ' Guli Cowt appear in Houston, ViptnH° nt, i. G 1 alve?ton ' and Pfobribly dp? 0 *?*’ j ! 1 111 Texas. Groupis un- direction ot Vt**'£|w.. be RCA-Victor Rod Seal Advortialag. Monagor diicovraos on tho upsurged Mia cIomIco lato Mia popularity parade la on Wax V pa Informative bylina piece In Ilia 46th Anniversary Number of \ OUT NEXT WEEK Clew. Launching Bistro Cleveland, Dec. 25. Fast-clicking Johnny Ray, Okeh singer recently promoted to the Columbia Records fold, is back for a two-week return date at the Cleveland nitery that boosted him into the big folding money. A $90- per-week singing pianist less than a year ago, Ray is now working at MOe Nahas’ Main Street Chib for $1,250 per week, about $750 less than he demands from other stands this season. On his first trip here last spring, Nahas got the wax ball rolling for the $500-per-week newcomer at his spot which specializes in disk label names;. Cleveland dejays also got on the bandwagon, with result that Ray toppled club’s b.o. and at- tendance records on second visit last fall, when his salary climbed to $750 weekly. His Okeh platter on “Whiskey and Gin,’’ backed by “Tell Lady I Said Goodbye,” jumped into top brackets in local jukebox polls as result of that test promotion (cam- paign. Gratified) by the big push here, Ray voluntarily contracted to play the Mein Street Club exclu- sively, on his next two Cleveland visits, rit a salary concession. Between February arid May, it is reported, Ray is scheduled to make his Broadway bow at New York’s Copacabana. The slightly built, hungry-looking .lad wears a hearing aid while he works. The kidisk klondike, which started after World War II, hit a new high in 1951, racking up an estimated $15,000,000 sales figure. Dollar volume of moppet platters has grown to such an extent t'Rat they are running neck and neck with the classical disks’ total take, Past years’ sales topped 1950 by 100%, While the ’50 figures showed a 200% increase over ’49. Upbeat in the two-10-year-old disk market is attributed to the influx of top name artists into the kiddie field and the development away from the old styled nursery rhyme plat- ter. With such astists .as; Rosemary Clooney, Arthur Godfrey, Burl Ives, Gene. Autry, James Stewart and Milton Berle, currently on kid- isk etchings, areas of exposure have widened, disk jocks are plug- ging them on the air, and chain stores, which heretofore limited its kiddie division to 49c platters only, are now stocking the more expen- sive $1.05 platter. Indications of the kiddie boom is also evidenced by the .increasing number of top. pop recording names who’ve requested the diskeries’ kiddie division artists and reper- tory heads for juve platter assign- ments. Aside from the big royal- ties, the name etchers feel that through the kidisks they can build future fans and build a record- conscious group of youngsters. Hecky Krasno, a&r head of Co- lumbia Records’ juve division who is .one of the pioneers of the kiddie- pop platter trend, claims that disk- eries have begun to realize that kid platters are now big business and have grown Out of the,n° v ®!ty stage; The same thought in pro- duction and promotion which goes into a pop release is now being, applied to the moppet etchings. The difference between a pop and kiddie release is now so thin that often a waxing is released through both divisions simultane- ously. krasno pointed out that such etchings as “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “Peter Cotton- tail,” “Frosty the Showman” and “Me and My Teddy Bear” were issued as pop and kid platters and racked Up top sales in both mar- kets. Another instance of the pop- kiddie vogue is Decca’s recent re- lease of Guy Lombardo’s interpre- tation of eight hursery rhymes. Disks are. being packaged for the toddler trade as well as the pop racks. Mrs. Giis Edwards rcminlices about bur famed longwrltur-li Mbaud 1 Like to Remember oh Interesting bylina place la the 46th Anniversary Number of P'AHIETY out Next week In U.S. for Foremost Composers in Israel Lou Levy, head of Leeds . Music, wrapped up a deal last week for his firm to become exclusive sell- ing agent in the U. S. for the top contemporary longhair composers in Israel. Deal Was made with Is- raeli Music Publications, a partial- ly Israeli government-subsidized publishing firm. •Leeds will handle sale and rental of orchestrations by such Israeli composers as Ben-Haim, Alexander Boscoyitch, Joseph Kaminski, Marc Lavry, Oedeon Partos, Karl Salomon, Menahem Avedom and others. Also included in the deal are several works by the late Arn- old Schoenberg, which were com- missioned by Israeli institutions. Levy is planning to get additional American composers to work close- ly with the Israeli longhairs for a closer cultural exchange. Levy’s deal with Israeli Music Publications is similar tp the one he made several years ago for pub- lication of works by contemporary Russi composers in the U. S. Okeh Augments R&B Stable Further augmenting its rhythm, and blues stable with religiose singers, Okeh Records parted the Jackson Gospel Singers of New Or- leans, Danny Kessler, Okeh’s artist and repertory chief, headed out on a southern trek Saturday (22). |f The Big Three (Miller, Feist, Robbins) music publishing com- bine has engineered sri overhaul- ing of its corporative ownership structure With a $500,000 buyout of three of the four remaining pri- vate stockholders. Under a deal consummated last week, the Big Three bought out the 4%% apiece holdings of Steve Levitz and Bernie Prager for $127,000 to each, and the 9% holdings of Domenico Savino for $250,000. Deal was a Capital gains transaction under which the sellers only have to pay. a 28V£% tax on each airiount to the Federal and N. Y, State Govern- ments. Sole remaining, private stock- holder, Jack Bregman, of Breg- marii VOcco it Conn Music, has re- fused to sell out his 4%% in the company that he helped co-found •with Jack Robbiqs and Levitz 33 years ago. It's understood, how- ever, that Bi'egman would be re- ceptive to selling out if a substan- tially higher figure than $127,000 was offered. The, buyout of Savino, Prager and Levitz was made in the name of the Robbins Music Corp. At the present time; the Big Three corporative setup gives Metro the majority 51% holding; 20th-Fox, 28%; Robbirts Corp;, 17% and Bregman, 4%%. The last big switch occurred several years ago when 20th-Fox bought out Jack Robbins’ 26% holdings in the Big Three from Loew’s. Both Prager, who has been with the firm 25 years, arid Levitz will remain with the company in exec capacities; Prager continuing as general sales manager and Levitz as production chief. The buyout of Savino brings to an end bis long-pending suit against Loew’s designed to force declarations of greater Big Three dividends. In recent years, the Big Three has been dividing $150,000 annually among tbe stockholders. It’s un- derstood that Savino, who entered the firm some 25 years ago via his film score composition activity, is planning to spend more time in his native. Italy. 4 Buyout of the private stockhold- ers is understood. motivated by Loew’p aim to simplify the cor- porative structure of its subsid companies in light of divorcement proceedings, Such simplification will ease the stock split once Loew’s divorces its theatre hold- ings. OUT NEXT WEEK The 46th Anniversary Number Oi Usad Advertising rates Copy aitfijNCi reservations may be sent to any Variety'office r. IW YORK If. MYMItlfc Mb. HOLLYWOOD 29 Mill Yeeea St. CHICAGO 11 412 N. Michigan Ava. LONDON. W. C. 2 • St. Martin’s ffoca Trafalgar Square New Cleve. Ballroom Gets 100G Facelift Cleveland, Dec. 25. Springing up . in a converted old bingo parlor, Alfred Flagel’s new- Superior Ballroom is filling the Cleveland gap left by the recent bankruptcy and shuttering of Mar- ty Caine’s Marcane Ballroom. Flagel spent a reported $i00,000 remodeling the building into a 1,200-capacity terp hall which Vic Stuart’s orch preemed last Satur- day (15). Spot’s acoustics Were improved by lowering ceiling and installing 25 loud speakers with automatic modulators. Although planning to import touring name: bands periodically, the Superior will run through Yule holidays with such local outfits as the Charlie Barrett, Vince Patti, Paul Burton; Henry Geer and Paul Burton Units. Frankie Yankovic’s Columbia-recording polkateers are slated for Dec. 30 as first guest attraction. Balias Guest Maestros Dasslas, Dec. 25. Three guest conductors have been lined up for the Dallas Sym- phony Orchestra while Walter Hendl, the regular conductor is on a midseason vacation. Lehman En- gel Is scheduled to conduct on Jan. 6 While Antal: Dorati wil conduct on Jan. 13. Jose Iturbi is scheduled -on the podium on Jan. 15. Iturbi will also appear his sister, Amparri ItufbL