Variety (March 1957)

P^Rli^Y MUSIC 57 WedneBday, March 27y 1957, Inside Stutf-Husic Vietor-PCTie Icelands Performing Rights Society New ^'History of Jazz Series” will be issued by Lyle Griffin on his Hip label* which has heretofore concentrated on “hip” translations by Lord Buckley. Series' marks beginning of an expansion program which will take the label into the jazz and rh^hm & blues fields. Griffin is an r&b pioneer, having recorded Slim Gaillard some years'ago on a series of disks under the Atomic label. First in the jazz series will be Kid Ory’s “Ory’s Creole Trombone” b/w “Society Blues,” originally re¬ corded in 1922 by Ory’s Sunshine orch, one of the first colored bands on wax . Griffin has spent several months lining up talent and masters fpr the series, which.will be tied in with “The Jazz Scene,” column which Griffin writes for Dig, teenage magazine. NBC-TV'is launching an unprecedented exploitation push on Dean Jones, Metro actor-singer recently signed by the network for a series of eight appearances this year. Web has sent out 400 copies of Jones’ current recordings to radio and tv editors, along with a brochure plug¬ ging Jones’ initial-appearance on the Steve Allen show Sunday (24). He’s the first M-G contractee to be shared by a network. Film firm has been using him as an actor, not a singer, although he records for the filmery’s disk subsidiary. (3n tv, he’ll be spotted as' b,oth singer and actor. j . Hank Saperstein, merchandise promotional manager for Elvis Pres¬ ley, has been appointed consultant to the National Milk Bowl, the “little” football classic played each year in San Antonio. Saperstein, who does public relations work for two cereal companies and for sev¬ eral tv kiddie programs, will develop- toys,’ dolls, and games, inconie from which will 'go to crippled children. Robert J. O’Donnell, veepee, and general manager of the Interstate circuit, Dallas,' and Gordon McLendon,’ of McLendon Investment Corp., are on the board of di¬ rectors of Milk Bowl, Inc. RKO Music is continuing on its motion picture score spree. Latest background music acquisitions are “The Joker Is Wild,” “Valerie” and “Johmiy Trouble.” Deals for “Valerie,” with a score by A1 Glasser and a title song by Glasser and Hal Richards, and “Johnny Trouble,” with a score by Frank DeVol, were set by firm’s general counsel, Martin J. Machat. Irving Deutch, RKO Music’s general professional manager, is now on the Coast working out the details on “The Joker Is Wild,” film bio of Joe E. Lewis starring Frank Sinatra. Horizon Press has tapped Leonard Feather to pen a bio on Count Basie. It’ll probably be written under a joint byline and will explore Basie’s two-decade career as a bandleader. Deal for the Basie bio is part of Horizon’s deal with Feather for three jazz books during 1957-58. He’s currently working oh a reference book tentatively titled “Hori¬ zons of Jazz” with illustrations from the Norman Granz catalog. The third book will be a new volume’ in the Encyclopedia s^ties along lines similar to the recently released “Yearbook of-Jazz.” As part of Coral’s new accent on jazz albums, the label has come up with a special LP, titled “Coral Jazz Specj;acular,” for circulation among the disk jockeys. Album contains selections from each of 12 sets featuring sdch names at Nat Pierce, Hal McKusick, A1 Conn, Dick Marx, Johnny Frigo, Steve Allen, Larry Sonn, Eddie Heywood, Bob Crosby, Johnny Costa and Tommy Shepard. Sonny Lester, of Coral’s artists & repertoire department, is currently on the road to plug the “Spectacular” with the dee jays. ■ Latest in the housewife-to-songwriting parlay are Lillian D. Krug- man and Alice Jeanne Ludwig, writers of “Pretty Pretty.” It’s a first for them both in the pop tunesmithing field although they’ve been writ¬ ing musical playlets for children in their communities. A staffer in E B Marks’ classical and semi-classical division heard the tune and submitted it to Arnold Shaw, firm’s general professional manager. Shaw nabbed it and latched on tp disks by Georgia Gibbs (Mercury) and Billy Eckstlne (RCA Victor). The “Rodgers Hammerstein Fact Book,” a .compilation of the complete works of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein 2d, to¬ gether and with other collaborators, is getting worldwide circulation. Published by R&H in 1955, book has had orders from Pakistan, South Africa and Indonesia..Last week, CARE, which supplies fobd and cloth¬ ing to the nieedy all over the world, also ordered the book. Keefe Brasselle is the latest performer to enter ASCAP’s ranks as a writer. Brasselle, who played the Eddie Cantor role in the Warner Bros, biopic,. was formerly a musician with Skihnay Ennis band’and’ he’s the. composer of the score for the f^lm, “Assignment for Murder, and several songs including “Song With Beat” and FOUR ACES New Hit on Decca YOU’RE MIN E Robert Mellin, Inc. New Definition Continued from page 51 Foreign sales have grown, propor¬ tionately, as rapidly as domestic sales and with the same artists topping the lists. Reports from his own distributors, Chudd added-, indicate that Broadway show, al¬ bums are at a premium, much as they .are ' in this country. The smash Columbia disking of “My. Fair Lady,” for example, is selling, for seven Israeli pounds ($14) in. Israel. and . the distributor ' cannot, meet the demand. " Currently,JEur.bpe is the biggest foreign market with the continent and the United Kingdom account¬ ing for a total of 50% of the global take. Canada is next with 20% and Australia is third with 10%,. Japan contributes 7% of the sales, Mex¬ ico and South Africa, 5% each and South America, 3%. .As an indi¬ cation of the foreign interest in disks, Chudd said that Imperial was paid $235,000 in royalties ffom foreign distribution last year. PUBLIC Notice I Regret necesilty of cancelling all engagementf, of whatever . im¬ portance, for Monday, April I, due to urgent busihesi in Locust Valley. AL STILLMAN RCA’s Philly Artists RCA Victor has wrapped up some rjecording artists haling from Philadelphia. Bobby Brooks, who moved over from Rainbow Records, cut his first album for Victor last week. Also joining the roster are The Kids, a trio of pre-teenagers formerly known as the Ferrara Trio. It’s a rock ’n’ roll combo. Ed Heller, a musical director in the Victor album department, made the signings. Continued from pat;e 51 that the April release had been two years in the works. It comprises works recorded in various Euro¬ pean ^nd South Amerlc|f^ countries as well as several cut m the U.-S. Unique feature of the “World of Romance” series is that three of the albums Include a bqnus 45 EP language lesson disk at no .extra cost. Those include an Italian les¬ son in the “One Night in Venice” set; a Spanish lesson for “One Night in AcapulCo” and' a French lesson for “One Night in Monte Carlo,” Language lessons are ele¬ mentary conversational phrases designed to aid the average Amer¬ ican tourist. Alongside of the Crest promotion which will run from April through June, Victor will push its own re¬ lease with a stepped-up campaign on tv in addition tp distributing five-color streamers to dealers: Vic¬ tor is also n^aking available to deal¬ ers co-op ad mats and spot plugs for local radio use. Tojiy Martin is represented in the April lineup, with his “A Night At The Copac^bana” set. Other artists featured are Harry Bela- fonte, A1 Nevins’ orch, Lionel Hampton in'- a “Jazz Flamenco” package, and various Latin and European orchs. William I. Alexander, Victor’s ad chief who set the tieup with Crest, pointed out that the promotion will be “self-liquidating” since the 25c charge of the EP just about covers the manufacturing costs of the disk. The payoff for Victor is in the extra exposure which Crest is giving the platter product. For Crest, the coupon inserts represent' a negligible cost, while the disk tie-in is expected to boost the toothpaste sales. H2th St. Rag’ Continued from page 51 question is whether the subsequent' versions were based on the original, instrumental by Bowman or whether the later songs stemmed from the Sumner-Bowman work, Shapiro-Bernsteln is claiming that the later versions qf “12th Street Rag,” in particular one with a lyric by Andy Razaf, do not fall within the split copyright owner¬ ship- pattern since it stemmed from the original piano version by Bow¬ man. Vogel has conceded that he has no interest in this work.- How¬ ever, Vogel claims that the Razaf version and others are based on, the Sumner-Bowman work which stemmed, in turn, from a Clarence Wheeler simplified . arrangement of the Bowman original. BMI Writers . Continued from page 51 way.. One BMI-SPA cleffer. said: “Nobody forced us to join BMI. We entered BMI with our eyes op^n because we liked the deal they gave us. There’s no reason for SPA to reform ’BMI for our benefit.” ^ Over the pasK couple of years, some of the BMI writers have re¬ quested SPA to amend its basic contract so that it would be ap- pllicable to the BMI situation 'where there is no equal split iji the per-, formance money betwoe'n writers, and publishers. SPA has' refused;. The 50-^0 split of performance' money and the coadministration of the licensing organization is one; of the. cardinal reasons SPA was formed in the first place, according to an SPA spokesman. Cold tb Cuffoii^ USAF Broadcasts New Battle of Britain Blapkpool, Eng., March 26. Two leading U.S. groups will be rivals at concerts here on Easter Sunday. (April 21). The Count Basie orch will play two concerts' at the Palace • Theatre. The Platters are booked for concerts at the Opera House, Atlantic Hedging Its Bet on $4.98 Packages; New Album Line at $3.98 Atlantic Records apparently doesn’t want to stray too far from the $3.98 album price base. After hiking its entire' albtim catalog to $4.98 last week, the diskery is now propping a new package goods line at the $3.98 tab. The new line, which will be placed in Atlantic’s 8,000 series, will kick off during the first part of April. The first seven albums in the release will be by rhythm & blues artists. Atlantic expects to put some jazz and some pops into the $3.98 line in addition to the r&b’ers. Bulk of the 8,000 seizes albums will be made up of previously released single product which will’ enable diskery to keep its album production costs down. Highlighting the initial $3.98 re¬ lease^ will be “The Greatest Rock ’m Roll,” a compilation of At¬ lantic’s recent top-selling singles. There also will be sets by LaVern Baker, Ray Charles, Ruth Brown, Clyde MePhatter, Joe Turner and Ivory Joe Hunter. Waily Schuster GPM’ing For Patricia-Kahl Firm "Wally , Schuster takes over as general professional manager of Patricia-Kahl Music this week. Schuster, son of the late tunesmith Ira Schuster, had been associated with the professional department of George. Paxton’s, music firms for the past few years. He’ll head up a professional de¬ partment . which includes Dave Bernstein in New York, Joe Draca in Chicago -and Julie Losch on the Coast- Meantime, Patricia-Kahl toppers Phil Kahl and Morris Levy are. oh a cross-country trek to o.o. «the national music biz scene. Applewhite Returning Pvt. Charlie Applewhite will swing into mufti as a crooner Jtor the RKO-Unique label. He’s due for discharge from the U. S. Army in a few months. ' Before going into the service, Applewhite recorded for Decca and MGM. iMarx-Cadence Deal . Aibert Marx,: indie ; record ; pro¬ ducer, has .set a. deal with the Cadence label to prep',t\Vo jazz al¬ bums. Marx will ciit packages - with Marty Paich and the Chamber Jazz Sextet. Both albums wil be grooved on the Coast. Reykjavik,- March 26. The right of the U.S. Armed Forces radio stations abroad to play copyrighted music without payment of license fees to the per¬ forming rights society of the. par¬ ticular country involved has been successfully challenged to Iceland, The City Justice of Reykjavik, Einar Arnalds, ruled recently that the U.S. Army must pay $50 for each of three non-American tunes which were cited by the plaintiffs to the Icelandic Assn, of Compos¬ ers & Owners of Performing Rights (STEF). A fourth tune, “On The Sunny Side of the Street,” written by Jimrpy McHugh and Dorothy Fields; was stricken from the judgement because they are inembers of ASCA’P. Existence, of the U.S. bases abroad has been a persistent head¬ ache as far as the European licens¬ ing societies are concerned. Un¬ like the U.S. Copyright Act, which only grants licensing rights where performances are for profit, the foreign societies collect whether or not profit is involved. The foreign societies have been trying to col¬ lect for years from the Armed Forces radio stations abroad and, in the case* of France at least, succeeded before the Icelandic is¬ sue was brought to trial. ASCAP’s Waiver In its defense in the Iceland court, the U.S. Army cited the fact that in 1943, the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publish¬ ers and other societies granted it the right to use its music without remuneration throughout the war. In 1950, when the Korean conflict broke out, ASCAP again made its catalog freely available to the Armed Services “for the duration of the present crisis.” Since the end of the Korean War, ASCAP has notified the Ice¬ landic society, with which it has a licensing agreement, that the “cHsis” had obviously passed, but ASCAP. never has withdrawn its. blanket okay to the U.S. Armed Forces to play its music. For that reason, the McHugh-Fields tune was dropped from *the suit. The other tunes involved_ in the action were “Tango Jalousie,” by the Danish composer, Jacob Gade; a Puccini aria from “Mimi”; and “O Mein Papa” by the Swiss com¬ poser, Paul Burkhard. Jon Leifs, president of the Ice¬ landic society, was dne of the prime movws against the cuffo playirig of music by the U.S. Armed Serv¬ ices. Back in 1956, he urged that all societies in countries where U.S’. troops were stationed to ex¬ amine the performances oJ^ music for possible legal action. He also urged that license, fees betwedn the Armed Forces and the individ¬ ual licensing societies be set after consultation among themselves, i ATTENTION / FACE IN THe\ CROWD ( IVIAMA GUITAR/ REMICK MUSIC CORP. Cap Dickers Alberghetti Hollywood, March 26. Deal is being negotiated for Anna Mafia Alberghetti to join theo] roster of Capitol- Records artists. Actress-singer most recently re¬ corded for Mercury. Miss Alberghetti recently fin¬ ished “10,00 Bedrooms’’ at Metro and has other film deals and a pos¬ sible Broadway legit debut in the offing. Contract would give Capitol an added starter in the list of film diskers and thus give the Coast la¬ bel another inside track on sound¬ track albums. David Whitfield, a top British recording star frequently featured in the Ed Sullivan tv’er, is to sing the specially composed, theme song for the “William Tell” tele¬ film series, now in production in I England, , 1- Aflother BMI ‘Pin l/p' Hit MAMA LOOK A BOOBOO UABBv recorded by harry belafonte king flash & CALYPSO .al"""'"- . . «OK«T.Mnc»UM .. ^ PUkiSHED BY duchess music corporation