Variety (April 1953)

Pffinffir OHCIIKSTnAS-MrSIC Wednemlay, April 22, 1953 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 NOTE: The current .comparative sales strength of the Artists and Tunes listed hereunder is trnved at under a statistical system comprising each of the three major sales outlets enu- mifhvf are u c . orre } ated with data from wider sources , which are exclusive with Vamety. The positions resulting from these findings denote the OVERALL IMPACT de- retoped from the ratio of points scored: two ways in the case of talent (disks, coin machines) and three ways in the case of tunes (disks, coin machines, sheet music). POSITIONS This Last Week Week 1 3 4 5 1 4 3 2 9 8 9 10 8 10 TALENT ' * ARTIST AND LABEL TUNE PATTI PAGE (Mercury) Doggie in the Window FRANKIE LAINE (Columbia) J 1 Believe ,1 Your Cheatin’Heart NAT (KING) COLE (Capitol) Pretend TERESA BREWER (Coral) Till I Waltz Again F. LAINE-J. BOYD (Columbia) Tell Me a Story JONI JAMES (MGM) J Have You Heard /Your Cheatin’ Heart PERCY MR. (Columbia) jlSSf fDon’t Let the Stars PERRY COMO (Victor) A Wild Horses (Say You’re Mine . GAYLORDS (Mercury) Tell Me You’re Mine KAY STARR (Capitol) Side by Side POSITIONS This Last Week Week 1 1 2 3 3 4 4 2 5 6 6 8 7 10 8 .. 9 5 10 .7 TUNES (*ASCAP. fBMI) TUNE PUBLISHER ♦DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW Santly-Joy *1 BELIEVE Cromwell s ♦PRETEND Brandom tTILL I WALTZ AGAIN Village fYOUR CHEATIN’ HEART Acuff-R ♦SIDE BY SIDE Shapiro-B fTELL ME A STORY ; Montclare fSONG FROM MOULIN ROUGE Broadcast fDON’T LET THE STARS GET IN YOUR EYES Four Star fTELL ME .YOU’RE MINE , Capri WEST SHOW’PULLS HEFTY 16G IN INDPLS. Indianapolis, April 21. '‘Biggest Show of 1953,” with Frankie Laine, Ella Fitzgerald and the Woody Herman orch grossed a hefty $16,200 in two sellout per- formances at the Indiana Theatre here Thursday (16). Package, which has been heading cast, moves into Carnegie Hall, N. Y., Friday (24). 'Biggest Show* to Detroit Detroit, April 21. Frankie Laine, Ella. Fitzgerald, Louis Jordan and Woody Herman’s orch will appear in the “Biggest Show of 1953” for one perform- ance May 3 at Olympic. ' Detroit has been the top gross- city for the three previous Biggest Shows.” Freddy Mjirtiii Repacts For lCHi RCA Year Freddy Martin, senior artist ii tlle RCA Victor pop artists’ stable was inked to a pact renewal las ***. Martin’s orch has beei with Victor for .the past 15 yean and currently is riding with hii cllcl 5 April in Portugal” slice. Victor also re-signed the Wayn< King orch. B. Feldman Ac Co., Ltd., are Biitish publishers of “Fall Asle ■ lc Jj was recently listed an :^ e , British bestsellers and in icctly credited to Reine Music Abeles to Japan Music biz attorney Julian T. Abeles (& Bernstein) takes off for Japan Friday (24) in behalf of Harry Fox, publishers’ agent and trustee.. Abeles will represent Fox in or- ganizing machinery in Japan for the collection of disk royalties for the major U. S. publishers. These royalties have been paid haphaz- ardly or not at all since the end B of the war, and Abeles plans to put "this operation on a systematic basis. Bluebird Shaving Price On Classical Labels RCA Victor, Which launched its low-priced Bluebird classical label last fall, is cutting prices on this line by about 15c. to bring the list to $2.98. Move is being made simultaneously with the second Bluebird release which has been moved up to June Instead of Sep- tember as originally scheduled. New release will.include 10 sets on both long-play and 45 rpm plat- ters. Victor is following the policy of issuing Bluebird selections that are most in demand from the gen- eral classical repertoire. Garber, May to Ban Antone San Antonio, April 21. Club Sevenoak* her* has set the Jan Garber band for a one-nighter May 9. It will J>« followed on May 15 sifllM Billy May FRED MOORE LOSES 25G SUIT VS. FRED WARING Second of the Glen Moore vs. Fred Waring suits, alleging dam ages suffered by Moore to the tune of $25,000, ended in Waring’s favor last week (16) when a Federal Dis- trict Court jury found in favor of defendant Waring. Moore’s origi- nal slander action also had fizzled. Moore, a member‘of the Waring ensemble, was dismissed from the band in 1947. Subsequently, War- ing was served with a summons and complaint for $25,000 in dam- ages for material which Moore claimed to have submitted to War- ing and for which the latter never paid him. When Waring allegedly laced down Moore, before the en- tire band, his remarks later formed the basis for the slander action* - Jury trial in damage suit was held before Judge Sidney Sugar- man and lasted one week. It was- Waring’s contention that, like all other " members of the Waring j group, Moore submitted ideas and was paid for them accordingly, j Moore had maintained that he. was the originator of the format for Waring’s morning broadcasts dur- ing the forties. Edward C. Raftery was trial counsel for Waring, with Milton M. Rosenbloom assisting. William J. Rapp was the attorney for Moore. Florian Zabach, violinist and Decca Records pactee, goes long- hair May 3 when he’ll appear as guest soloist with the Rochester Civic Symphony under the direc- tion of Dr. Paul White. 43 Goodman-Armstrong flashback’ To ’38 Jazz Idiom Dimmed by Time By HERM SCHOENFELD .... Benny Goodman and Louis Arm- strong, in tandem, tried rolling the : jazz calendar back some 15 years at New York’s Carnegie Hall last Friday night <17). It was a flash- back to Jan. 16, 1938, when Good- man, the reigning king of swing in the heyday of the dance band era, rocked this longhair audi- torium, along with Count Basie’s : orch, with its first jump-and-jive ! concert. So much for nostalgia, j The latest concert paid off strictly i at today’s inflated prices with a $24,000 gross, at a $6 top, for two SRO performances. Armstrong, of course, has played Carnegie Hall several times in the intervening years as have numer- ous other jazz names such as Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, and, most regularly, Nor- man Granz’s “Jazz-at the Philhar- monic” troupe. Goodman’s come- back to this podium stemmed from the spectacular click of his Colum- bia Records’ album taken from tapes of the 1938 concert when his band numbered such topflight side- men as Gene Krupa, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Ziggy Elman, Ar- thur Rollini, Hymie Schertzer and Vernon Brown, among others. Goodman has reassembled sev- eral of his old crew members, in- cluding Krupa on drums, Elman on trumpet and Brown on trom- bone, and filled in the other music stands with a group of equally standout sidemen. But 1953 isn’t 1938, and the excitement of the old B. G. organization was refract- ed and somewhat dimmed through the veil of time. Years Plus Bop- Not only the years, but the in- fluence of such post-swing phe- nomena as bop and progressive music has taken its toll on the tightly-integrated, freewheeling Fletcher Henderson arrangements which trademarked Goodman’s original combo. Those trick riffs by Charlie Shavers, on trumpet, in the latter-day version “Sing Sing Sing” number were glaringly out of place. Even Goodman was sty- mied by Shavers’ antics and must have yenned for thajt old Harry James’ horn which so perfectly complemented his clarinet solos. Apparently, the past epochs In jazz can most easily be recaptured on wax. The fact that the historic disks of Goodman's 1938 band out- sell his recent sides by far and were one of the main factors in the current renaissance of jazz interest as indexed by the steady flow of classic reissues from the archives of Columbia, RCA Victor, and Decca. Suffers By Contrast Goodman’s new band only suf- fers by contrast with the old. It does, however, give out with a better sound than any other orch now around. When it wanted to, as on “Don’t Be ‘That Way” and “Roll ’Em,” the band hit with power and precision in a clean swing groove. It completely by- passed the saccharine tempos which are now commercially re- quired for dance dates. If Goodman could maintain this band beyond the„projected tour, a doubtful development in view of the high-priced sidemen involved, he might revive swing, as tradition- ally understood. But even that’s conjectural since the Carnegie Hall hepsters, schooled in modern jazz frenetics, seemed to chalk up pure swing as corny. They wanted pan- demonium more than anything else and that was supplied by Shavers, a “Jazz at the Philhar- monic” feature, and, to a lesser de- gree, by Georgie Auld on tenor sax. The old Goodman trio, with Krupa on drums and Teddy Wilson on piano, came back in toto for some small combo jazz. Once again, there was a disappointing lack of drive and excitement, al- though Goodman played flawlessly. Fully measuring up to memories, however, was B. G.’s old vocalist, Helen Ward, who delivered a group of oldies with a savvy that makes her absence from the current disk field a complete mystery. Satchmo rocked ’em as of yore. Considerably heftier in avoirdupois, he is now working with a sextet comprised of Barney' Bigard on clarinet, Trummie Young on trom- bone, Arvell Shaw on bass, Cozy Cole on drums and Joe Bushkin on piano, with Velma Middleton i still sharing the vocals with Arm- strong. Satchmo is only serious when he blows his horn arid for the rest, he clowns through his vocals .with muggings, ad libs and scat pas- sages which have made him an irresistible showman for the past three decades. His combo’s re- pertoire covers all the New (JDr- leans favorites from “Indiana” to “Back of Town Blues.” The Goodman-Armstrong parlay is hitting the cross-country trail until the middle of May, Goodman, however is bowing out of the tour as a result of his respiratory attack in Boston (see separate story). Goodman’s combo will break up afterwards except for similar short-term annual junkets. The jazz concert route has been worked steadily over the last five years by numerous other groups with generally solid boxoffice pay- off. In some cities, however, over- lapping bookings of rival units have seriously cut the concertizing troupe's take. Two other concert packages are currently in transit. Like the Tour Goes on Sans B.G.* The Benny Goodman-Louis Armstrong concert package wiH continue Its one-niter trek, for the time being, with- out Goodman. Goodman was felled by an acute respiratory attack Sunday (19) in Boston following a drive from Provi- dence where he had con- certized the night before. The Boston concert skedded for Sunday evening at Symphony Hall played as skedded with Gene Krupa taking over the orch for the ailing Goodman. Krupa will continue to head the orch until the maestro’s return. Package played two sellout , houses grossing nearly $13,000 at a $3.60 top. Georgie Arild, saxist, filled Goodman’s solo spot and saxist Willie Smith subbed in the trio spot. Good- man currently is resting un- der doctor’s care and will re- join the package when he gets the medic's go-ahead. Tour has six weeks to go. Goodman setup, which Is capitaliz- ing oq the hot disk sales for his old band, the other troupes also are headlining top platter names. The “Biggest Show of 1953,” an annual .attraction, is riding with Frankie Laine, Ella Fitzgerald, Woody Her- man o Louis Jordan and a trio of vaude acts, and comffs into Car- negie Hall, Friday (24). Except for the “Jazz at the Phil- harmonic” tours, however, the straight jazz concerts have become a relative rarity in recent years. At the height of the bop movement right after the end of the last war, Dizzy Glljespie, Charlie Parker, Stan Gets and other luminaries of this trend, made a stir In the jazz field. With bop’s fade into «a nar- row cultist groove, the vacuum has since been filled by the revival of the old jazz styles by Dixieland and swing exponents. Goodman-Satchmo P’kge Set for 5 Coast Dates Hollywood, April 21. Gene Norman, local deejay and jazz promoter, has set the Benny Goodman-Louis Armstrong show for a series of five one-nighters along the California coast. Unit opens in San Diego, May 3, and plays Balboa Beach, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland on suc- cessive nights. Los . Angeles date will either be at the Shrine Audi- torium or Hollywood Bowl, with a decision to be made this week. In recent weeks Norman has been promoting local stands of the Gale Agency’s “Biggest Show of 1953.” Most recent package was Frankie Laine, Ella Fitzgerald, Woody Herman, Louis Jordan and three other acts at the Olympic Aud. Outfit grossed $12,000 at $3.60 top. Norman has an unusual arrange- ment with the Gale Agency, get- ting $1,000 against 5% of the gross, whichever is higher, fof the use of his name. t: