Variety (April 1953)

I Con-Edison to Bankroll 54 Cuffo Concerts in N.Y. For the 12th consecutive year New York's Park Department in association with Con-Edison will sponsor a summer season of cuffo dances in the city's parks. A sea- son of 54 dance dates has been scheduled running from June 18 through Sept. 4. Teeoff date will he held at Central Park in Man- hattan. Howard Sinnott, one-niter head i 1e *} eral Artists Corp., who has the park season since its , curr ently is setting up inc hand lineup. Among the orchs pin »/ or P ar ^ schedule are Iy May, Buddy Morrow, Ralph Mai'teri e , Art Mooney, Tony Pas- lor » J °hnny Long and Jerry Wald.. Wednesday, A pril 15, 1953 B. G. Orcfa Pulls 10G in 2 Dates Benny Goodman's reorganized orch got off to a winging start on the first leg of its six-week tour in two dance dates in New England over the weekend. Orch teed off Friday GO) at the Carousel Ball- room, Manchester, N. H„ drawing 2 300 people at a $2 top for a socko $4 600 gross. Following night in the South Portland Armory, Portland, Me band racked up a $6,000 gross, drawing 3,000 terpsters. Louis Armstrong teams iy> with the Goodman orch today (Wed.) for their joint kickoff concert appear- ance in New Haven. Package plays the Mosque, Newark, Thursday (16) and moves into Carnegie Hall, N. Y., the following night for a two- concert session. Marterie’s Disclicks Up Band From $450 To $2,500 on 1-Niters Chicago, April 14. Resurgence of bands on wax dur- ing the past year is helping push the Ralph Marterie orch into the big money bracket. Marterie, who/s been turning out a flock of clicko wax for Mercury Records, now is asking $1,500 on one-nighters as compared with his $350-450 price about 18 months ago. At a U. of South Carolina, Columbia, one- niter next month* band’s getting^a hefty $2,500. Orch currently is riding high with two top-selling platters, “Pre- tend" and “Caravan,” Latter slice has passed the 400,000 sales mark in only six weeks on the market while “Pretend,” which was re- leased about a month previously has reached 500,000 and is still going strong. General Artists Corp., agency booking Marterie, reports that the disclicks have sparked a steady string of one-niters (especially from colleges) and location dates. Marterie’s now on a college swing through th§ midwest and southeast working his way to Meadowbrook, Cedar Grove, N. J., for'•a" three- week stand beginning May 14. He hits the one-niter road again, after the Meadowbrook engagement, heading west for a five-week date at the Palladium, Los Angeles, be- ginning Aug. 1. The Palladium stand, incidentally, will be orch’s initial Coast appearance. ‘Blue Tango’ Leads French Disk Bestsellers Paris, April 7. Bestselling 'disks here during last month in the pop field were “Blue Tango” by Leroy Anderson and Ray Martin, and the Gallic version, “Le Tango Bleu” by Line Renaud; “High Noon” in the Amer- ican version by Tex Ritter and the French rendition, “Si Toi Tu M’Abandonnes,” by John Williams; “Jambalaya” with waxings by Aime Barelli and L. Delyle; the “Rose Marie Polka” by Andre Dassary and Jacques Helian; the existen- tialist ballad “Comme Un Petit Coqulicot” by Mouloudji; “Kiss of Fire” by Louis Armstrong; “Sep- tember Song” by Sidney Bechet; “Flamingo,” by Earl Bostic, and the folksong album by Georges Brassens. Longhair bestsellers were Bee- thoven’s 9th by Toscanini; Brahms Violin Concerto by Issac Stern; the ‘Porgy and Bess” score, and Mo- zart’s “Jupiter” Symphony by Hewitt. PfiSiEFf ORCnESTItAS-MUSXC SI Scoreboard OF TOP TALENT AND TUNES Compiled from Statistical Reports of Distribution Encompassing the Three Major Outlets Coin Machines Retail Disks Retail Sheet Music as Published in the Current Issue E. The current comparative sales strength of the Artists and Tunes listed hereunder is arrived at under a statistical system comprising each of the three major sales outlets enu- i; flooue. These findings are correlated with data from wider sources , which are exclusive with Variety. The positions resulting from these findings denote the OVERALL IMPACT de- Ve ^u ' rom ratio of points scored: two ways in the case of talent ldisks, coin machines), and three ways in the case of tunes (disks, coin machines, sheet music)* POSITIONS This Last Week Week 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 3 8 9 10 8 4 10 POSITIONS This Last Week Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 7 6 8 10 9 TALENT ARTIST AND LABEL TUNE PATTI PAGE (Mercury) Doggie in the Window TERESA BREWER (Coral).. Till I Waltz Again NAT (KING) COLE (Capitol) Pretend. FRANKIE LAINE (Columbia) ^? eHe ^u v.tx . 1 Your Cheatin’ Heart PERCY FAITH (Columbia) (Song from Moulin Itouge ) Swedish Rhapsody PERRY COMO (Victor) JONI JAMES (MGM) l® ave You S 6 ?™ . /Your Cheatm Heart GAYLORDS (Mercury) Tell Me You’re Mine F. LAINE-J. BOYD (Columbia) Tell Me a Story KAY STARR (Capitol) Side by Side TUNES (*ASCAP. tBMI) TUNE PUBLISHER ♦DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW ............ Santly-Joy tTILL I WALTZ AGAIN Village ♦I BELIEVE Cromwell ♦PRETEND Brandom fDON’T LET THE STARS GET IN YOUR EYES Four Star tYOUR CHEATIN’ HEART Aeuff-R fTELL ME YOU’RE MINE ! Capri ♦SIDE BY SIDE Shapiro-B ♦KEEP IT A SECRET '. Shapiro-B fTELL ME A STORY Montclare Solons Vote RCA System Ready Continued from page 1 visit, which included a tour of RCA research facilities here, was de- voted to viewing a 20-minute show originating at the Colonial Theatre in New York, NBC’s color TV headquarters, 50 miles away. It was beamed via the NBC transmit- ter atop the Empire State Bldg, and was also on view in black-and- white on WNBT, Channel 4 in N. Y., during its 12-12:20 p. m. du- ration. Program, produced by Worthing- ton W. (Tony) Miner, was received here on both color and black-and- white receivers. Introduced by Ben Grauer, it featured Dolores Gray, clad in a black dress and red belt, in two songs; two' dance produc- tions by the Hit Parade Dancers; George Burton’s Love Birds and Kukla, Fran & Ollie. Good Color Color was bright, brighter than life, with vivid reds, blues, greens and purples in production num- bers, and with, subdued colors (as Miss Gray in a pale yellow net) and depth shots showing well. In costumes in distant shots, even during motion, color held well. On contrasting black-and-white sets, definition was unusually clear and sharp, proving the compatibil- ity of the RCA system. However, color sets, when receiving regular black - and - white transmission picked up from. WNBT before and after the color shdw, lost sharp- ness in a greenish tint. The NTSC specified signal car- ried black-and-white, color and au- dio information transmitted simul- taneously in a six-megacycle-wide channel. The House committee, after visit- ing the Colonial Theatre today (Tues.), will examine the Chro- matic and CBS color systems to- morrow in New York. Costly 1-Day Stand RCA’s color TV production yes- terday (Tues.), for demonstration of its tri-color compatible tube sys- tem, had all the aura of a Zieg- field product^. Entire New York end of the iffair, which was beamed to House Interstate & For- eign Commerce Commitee mem- bers and FCC reps at Princeton, was under the direct supervision of RCA veepee Manie Sacks, and was weeks in preparation. Program, which came from the Colonial Theatre, N. Y., is sched- uled for a repeat tomorrow (Thurs- day) for the benefit of CBS execs, including president Frank Stanton, who, a couple of weeks ago, an- nounced CBS was dropping its non- compatible system. Also scheduled to view the RCA system are top- ipers of the Radio-Television Manu- facturers Assn. Thursday demon- stration will be the third show for day’s performance was preceded by a dry-run on a closed circuit last Thursday (9). Show was staged by Sacks, with Dave Terry batoning a 28-man or- chestra through two weeks of rehearsaJs until yesterday's per- formance. Choreography was handled by Tfiny Charmoli, who is staging director and choreographer for Lucky Strike’s “Your Hit Pa- rade” on NBC-TV. Terpers were the regular Hit Parade Dancers, augmented by number of others. Performers included Dolores Gray, George Burton and His Love Birds, Kukla, Fran & Ollie, Ben Grauer, emcee. All worked for scale. Hits Are OK But There’s Gold in Them Thar Teeth Omaha, April 14. Omahan Dr. Royce C. Swain last week announced he’ll continue his dentistry practice despite his re- cent songwriting effort, “Twice as Much,” which is moving up in the pop lists. However, Swain has moved an organ into his office and calls it a day when a song idea comes. Swain was honored last week at .the Omaha Dental Society meeting as their “musical celebrity,” he said he nearly gave up trying to crash Tin Pan Alley last summer, after a diskery exec told him: “It costs quite a bit to go through dental college. Why don’t you go back to Omaha and fill teeth and Leeds’ Walking’ Hot For Waxings Bucking the accent on exclusives by the disk companies, Leeds Mu* sic’s new tune, “I’m Walking Be- hind You,” is getting full wax cov- erage .by all the companies. Tune has been cut by Frank Sinatra as his first for Capitol Records, Eddie Fisher for Victor,’ Champ Butler for Columbia, Vic Damone for Mer- cury, Donald O’Connor for Decca, Dorothy Squires for Coral and Jimmy Young for London. Tune was cleffed by Billy Reid, British songwriter who clicked with “The Gypsy” in 1946. It’s getting a simultaneous exploitation campaign in Britain via, the Peter Maurice firm there, a Leeds’ affil- iate. The Chappell firm’s instrumental, “April in Portugal,” is also getting unusually wide coverage on wax, although not on a day-and-date basis. Number was kicked off orig- inally last fall when- Dave JCapp, Victor's pop artists & repertoire chief, assigned it to Freddy Mar- tin’s orch. .In the months follow- ing, tune was picked up successive- ly Jay Capitol with Les Baxter, Mer- cury with Richard Hayman, Decca with Florian Zabach, Columbia with Ken Griffin, and additional lyrio versions by Tony Martin for- Victor, Vic Damone for Mercury. Tune was written by Raul Ferraro with lyric by Jimmy Kennedy. 40GG Rockefeller Grant To Louisville Symph Will Promote Modern Longhairs Louisville, April 14. Mayor Charles F. Farnsley last week announced that the Rockefel- ler Foundation has made a $400,- 000 grant to the Louisville Philhar- monic Society, to span over a four- year period for a unique musical project. Grant is for activities en- tirely apart irom the orch’s normal program, and provides for the com- missioning of 46 new orchestral compositions each year, to be played in weekly concerts in Co- lumbia Auditorium at pop scale. Grant also provides for issuing of a record each month, to bo etched by Columbia Records and distributed through the Philhar- monic Society; distribution of re- cordings to the “Voice of America," educational radio stations through- out the U. S.,-and to radio stations throughout the free world which desire to air the new works. There’s a possibility that the Louisville orch will be heard play- ing the new music each Saturday afternoon over CBS radio. let those fellows who studied song- the color company, since yester- writing write songs?” N.Y. Orch Sets 2-Wk. Tonr Due to Hiked Union Pact New two-year contract recently signed by the N. Y. Philharmonic- Symphony with the American Fed- eration of Musicians has extended symph’s season from 28 to 30 weeks. As result, orch’s manage- ment has set a two-week tour of the south next spring, first tour of the symph in five years. A simi- lar trek to another part of the country, is planned for ’54-’55. Management' feels it will do better on the road than in N. Y. with a lengthened season, Orch's ’53-'54 season will open in N. Y. Oc{. 8 and end May 2. Spring tour will run from March 29 to April 11, with orch visiting Huntington, W. Va., Lexington, Ky., Knoxville, Chattanooga, Birming- ham, Montgomery, Ala., New Or- leans, Atlanta, Clemson and Co- lumbia, S. C„ Charlotte, Greens- boro, Roanoke and Washington. Orch has never played before in several of these cities. Kinn Exits British Band feiz for Trade Paper Post London, April 7. Maurice Kinn, 29-year-old band- booking personality, who recently brought Sarah Vaughan over to England for a tour, is giving up handling hands. He is relinquishing his exclusive representation of five of the most important bands in the country—those of Cyril Stapleton, Stanley Black, Ambrose, Billy Ter- nent and Freddy Randall. Kinn is joining the business side of the The New Musical Express, J which lately % changed hands. /j vf44444^~>>4-44 4 - miti