Variety (March 1956)

MUSIC JSariety Wednesday, March 21, 1956 48 On The Upbeat New York Mitch Miller, Columbia’s pop a&r chief, set for a profile by Dean Jcnning 4rt the April 21 issue of Sateve Post . . . Paul Kapp’s daughter Judith, a senior a Swarth- more, awarded the Henry Fellow¬ ship to Oxford . . . Dick Linke, head of pop singles promotion at Columbia, to chairman the Music Publishers and Records Division of the 1956 Red Cross campaign . . . Johnny Mathis, new Columbia pactee, opens at the Blue Angel March 27 . . . Greta Keller back in town after an engagement at the Crystal Palace, St. Louis, to pro¬ mote her new Dolphin album. Orch leader Jacques Belasco touring the deejays in the east for his debut MGM waxing . . . Ar¬ ranger Ray Ellis whipped up a nitery act for the DeJohn Sisters . . . Dick Duane, ABC-Paramount crooner, into Blinstrub’s, Boston, April 2 for two weeks . . . Hill & Range and Hi Lo Music now joint¬ ly publishing “Blue Suede Shoes’' . . . This year’s Ballroom Dancing Championships will be held at the Arcadia Ballroom March 23-25. The Avalons, Groove Records combo, inked to a personal man¬ agement pact by songwriter Fanny Wolf . . . Vocal coach A1 Siegel readying a new thrush, Jacqueline Taylor . . . Ray Carroll exited WMCA to work on a pilot film for a new tele series . . . Nat (King) Cole kicks off his tour with the Ted Heath orch in San Antonio April 1. Hollywood Vet songplugger Sammy Fried¬ man mending slowly at Queen of Angels after a heart attack and will be hospitalized for another week . . . Vincente Gomez prep- ping a guitar album at Decca . . . Four of the original Bobcats, Ed¬ die Miller, Charlie Teagarden, A1 Hendrickson and Moe Schneider, are with Bob Crosby at the Sahara, Las Vegas . . . Liberty Records has inked Rod McKuen to a term pact. through April 11 . . . Gloria Hart subs for Lurlean Hunter at the Cloister Inn, Chi, Wednesdays and Thursdays . . . Batoner Lou Breese to Palm Springs last Sunday (18) for a two-week respite . . . Mercury Records veep Art Talmadgc off to Florida last week for a couple of weeks in the sun . . . The Nu-tones open at the Palladium, East St. Louis, March 30 for two stanzas. Kid Ory set for Tutz’ Lounge, Milwaukee April 13-29 . . . Shar¬ key Bonano pacted for the Crest Lounge, Detroit April 1-15. Pittsburgh Another rock ’n’ roll package headed by Clovers, Ruth Brown, Cadillacs, Fats Domino and Little Richard booked for two shows at Syria Mosque night of April 11 . . . Larry Faith band, now at Melody Mill Ballroom in Chicago, has re¬ placed Mary Lou Haugh on piano with Wilbur Hildebrand and added a girl singer, Jeannie Claire . . . Bill Bickel okay again after major surgery, back playing organ at Shamrock Room; Frances Faye hired Joe Negri tr ; o to play with her for two weeks at Sonny Boys Athletic Assn. . . . Walt Harper wound up long run at Crawford . Grill Saturday night and plays two weeks of one-nighters before re¬ turning to Sky Vue on April 2 . . . Bill Haley & the Comets set for Twin Coaches week of April 2 . . . Virgil Sambuco, pianist and accor¬ dionist, rejoins the Dick Hulbert Trio in New England . . . Frank Yankovic’s polka combo set for a one-nighter at West View Park April 2. . Mary Lou Valle is the new vocal¬ ist with the Baron Elliott band, re¬ placing Bobby Blanque . . . Bill Tabbert will be one of the soloists with the Pittsburgh Symphony^ under Karl Kritz, when it presents a Rodgers & Hammerstein night at Syria Mosque March 24 . SAG s New Glauses Chicago Billy Williams Quartet closes at the Safari Room, New Orleans next Sunday (25); the Gaylords segue into the Safari Monday (26) fnmmmist I <»■« 1 I MARY HEALY’S | Great New Record (Kapp) I FOR EV’RY | 1 DROP OF 1 1 RAIN | § (The Sun Will Shine Again) I By PAT BALLARD "I | asca P- | | BREGMAN, V0CC01 | and CONN | ;s—■ Continued from page 5 j— coin except that such work can not be for principal photography or recording. Th$rt last clause actually means such players can only do publicity stills or rehearse on Saturdays; not appear in actual shooting. Guild also obtained upped rates for singers, stunt men, airplane pilots an'd termpact players. Beginning Feb. 1, 1958, overtime provisions of pact which now bene¬ fit actors up to $1,250 a week will be extended to $1,500 a week, and for termpact players, up from $600 a week to $750 a week. Precedental regulations cracking down on hitherto unlimited work for teleblurbs for pix limit such trailers to film of not more than 400 feet (4V£ mins.) and not less than two scenes. Purpose of the “two scenes” phraseology is to eliminate one big production scene, which could be shot in the time limitation. Narrators for trailers used either in theatres or on tv are to get not less than $100 a day for two trail¬ ers, and $50 for each additional trailer. Old pact had no limitations on the number of trailers on which a narrator would work dur¬ ing a day. Ballots on the agreement will be mailed to members for ratification the end of next week. Pact is retro¬ active to last Feb. 1 for new mini¬ mum rates, with new working con¬ ditions effective April 1, and runs to Jan. 31, 1960. EUROPEAN TOUR—Continuing GERRY MULLIGAN SEXTETTE After Principal Cities of ITALY Now Concluding 3 WEEKS at OLYMPIA, PARIS to Be Followed by Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Holland MERCURY RECORDS ★ * ★ * ASSOCIATE? BOOKING CORPORATION JOE GLASER, Pres. New York I Chicago I Hollywood FL 5.J60C I 203 No. Wabash | 8619 Sun*ft Blvd G’wich Village Spot Doubles As Studio The Cafe Bohemia, jazz club in New York’s Greenwich Village, is doubling as a^ recording studio. Three disk firms have come down for on-the-spot sessions. On the market are such albums as “Bohemia After Dark” with the Kenny Clark Septet on the Savoy label, “George Wallington Quintet at the Bohemia,” cut by. Progres¬ sive Records, and “The Jazz Mes¬ sengers at Cafe Bohemia,” on the Blue Note label. MGM Disk Sub Service Covers 1,900 Stations MGM Records’ newly formed subscription service has brought up the number of stations serviced by the diskery to 1,900. This in¬ cludes stations receiving platters on a gratis and paying level. Since the launching of the sub¬ scription service, a heavy response has been coming in from college stations subscribing to the paying service. The diskery also has set up a special subscription depart¬ ment, headed by publicity chief Sol Handwerger, to concentrate on promotion in fringe areas border¬ ing large markets. Supermarket Continued from page 43 vary regionally, which is partic¬ ularly true in the packaged record business.” Unlike the book business—Kana- ga cites 15,000 book dealers have dwindled to 1,700 local book out¬ lets because the book business has become a mailorder and/or “club” business— the record dealer should be perpetuated as the backbone of the music business. “For one thing, you can't wait for a mailorder because record tastes are so mercurial. When your customer wants an item he wants it pronto, and. not by carrier pigeon. There are 10,000 record accounts of which 7,000 are ‘good,’ i.e. they are the real backbone. And in a business where 80% of the units comprise popular items, you can see how important the local dealers are to service their clien¬ tele. And quick! Kanaga’s bullishness on horizons unlimited are predicated on two factors: 25% population increase in five years and a 50% upbeat of disk customers within the same period of hi-fidelity, along with the new-generation buyers. Kanaga is also quite vocal about dishonesty on charts and polls and the general technique of mislead¬ ing trade information. The manner in which certain “information” can be fed the. trade “just because some slick distributor throws in an extra box of free records, in order to say this or that one is on top, or ‘breaking for a hit,' fools nobody but themselves. Real sales figures don’t lie—only the claims that this or that item is ‘on top.’ ” Inside Stuff-Music Hi-fi went to school last week when RCA Victor made a gift of its $1,600 Mark I phonograph to the High School of Music & Arts in N. Y., RCA artists Morton Gould, Zinka Milanov and Rise Stevens made the presentation to the school in behalf of the diskery. Alan Kayes, man¬ ager of classical artists & repertoire, addressed the student body on the development of the phonograph over the years, illustrated with the help of actual instruments. Kayes pinchhitted for RCA exec George R. Marek, who was delayed in arriving back from England in time to make the address. Victor, incidentally, is also cuffoing the Mark I to most of its longhair artists. Flaud Repeats, Ignores Mayer ——— s Continued from page 5 s——■—a specialized jfilms, but using IFE Releasing Org where necessary. Also, they hope for more goodwill on the part t)f the majors in tak¬ ing on the few Gallic features that lend themselves to dubbing and wide distribution. (2) Creation of a tandem of French owned or leased houses in key U. S. spots to allow for show¬ casing. At the same time, the French under no circumstances will invest in any distribution out¬ fit. (3) Activities to be undertaken by Joseph Maternati’s French Film Office, which will attempt to make the hinterlands more conscious of French pix as an entertainment and cultural force. Mayer’s Previous Reply In substance, these are the same points made by Flaud some time ago in a Variety interview when he was in New York. His state¬ ments then netted him a sharp letter from Arthur L. Mayer, prez of the Independent Motion Picture Distributors Assn., in which Mayer noted that he had been associated with two Italian pictures that grossed $1,000,000 in the American market. ^ “If the business which we are doing with French films is far in¬ ferior, possibly this is not entirely due to lack of ability on our part, hut has at least some' connection with the nature of the product and the failure of the French to afford as effective publicity coop¬ eration as have the Italians and English,” Mayer wrote in defend¬ ing the indies as the best releasing channel for foreign pix. Mayer said that the Flaud term of “distribution in depth” was “so intangible that I do not know ex¬ actly what you mean.” He thought the next step should be to build up the reception of French pix in key cities other than New York, and he pledged the indies’ coop¬ eration with the French film office.