Variety (March 1959)

MUSIC P^rIETy Wednesday, March 11, 1959 On The Upbeat New York Harold Orenstein has taken on Allen H. Arrow Shd George Schif- fer as partners in his lawfirm . . . Joe Glaser has tapped pianist Ah¬ mad Jamal to a five-year deal with his Associated Booking Corp. . . . Joe Sherman, Epic’s a&r boss, cut¬ ting an album with Jack Lemmon of tunes from the pic, “Some Like It Hot” .. Four Aces are now on an extended road tour including a three-week date at the La Fiesta Club, Juarez, Mexico, beginning March 16 . . . Jack Scott, Carlton disker now a private in the U. S. Army, hospitalized in the Ireland Army Hospital, Fort Knox, Ky., with a stomach ailment. Connie Francis, MGM thrush, currently in Great Britain for dates in Glasgow’, Liverpool and the tv show, “At The Palladium” . . . Thelonious Monk’s orch set for an¬ nual New’port Jazz Festival. Mean¬ time. Riverside Records is prep- ping an LP of his recent Towm Hall concert . . . This year’s Randall’s Island jazz festival, to be produced by Frank Geltm»n, has been set for Aug. 21-23 . . . Four Lads begin a four-week engagement at the Thunderbird. Las Vegas, March 29 . . . Thrush Arlene Tye is plaving a two-weeker at the Golden Slip¬ per, Glen Cove, L. I. . . . Singer Lee Laurence joined the revue at, Cafe Sahara. Israeli nitery . . . Stan Hoffman, formerly promotion manager of General Distributing in Baltimore, named general man¬ ager of Marnel’s Maryland opera¬ tion. Igor Kinm's will appear ?s harp¬ sichord soloist m a concert given bv the Village Civic Svmoh March 18 at Jndson Memorial Church . . . Eddie Harkness o^ch winding up a tw’o-week run at Squaw Valley. Lake Tahoe. Calif. ... Personal manager Michael Corda has set Ne^ro folk^inger Tedd Browne with Capitol Records . . . BUI Far¬ rell now’ at keyboard at Bird ’n’ Hand, eastside eatery. He alter¬ nates with Pa»e Morton . . . Georee de Witt on the Coast plugging his new’ Epic LP . . . Dallas Andrews, project engineer of the radio and victrola division of RCA. will dis¬ cuss “Four Track Magnetic Tape Cartridge. System” at Audio En¬ gineering Society meeting at John¬ ny Victor Theatre March 17 . . . Raymond Lowery, entertainment editor of the News and Observer (Raleigh. N. C.) penned a full-page piece on “Twelve Swinging Tar Heels” in the March 1 edition. Gina Lombardi, Il-year old sing¬ er. cut “Dancing Teen-Age Style” for the indie Mark label . . . Hillel & Aviva, folk singing-instrumental duo at Cafe Sahbra, to concertize lat Town Hall March 29. Fay Rndin has joined Frank Music as professional secretary for K •SWEET LORRAINE f* • KISSES (Tho Sweetest Kisses Of Them All) • GIRL OF MY DREAMS MILLS MUSIC, INC national public relations. She was formerly with the Music Publish¬ ers’ Contact Employees Union . . . Theodore Bikel, Elextra disker, w’inds his concert tour April 5 at Town Hall . . . Bobby Freeman signed for another weekend engage¬ ment at the Boulevard, Queens, March 13-15 . . . Gene Edwards, KILT, Houston, deejay, joining WROW, Albany, as program man¬ ager . . . Lori Knight appearing at the Cafe Bohemia . . . Mills Music has acquired publishing rights for U.S., Canada and England of the background music from the pic “Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud,” written by Miles Davis . . . Joe Glaser has booked Turk Murphy’s San Francisco Band into the Round¬ table for five weeks. They started Monday (9) . . . MGM Records has taken over the whole fourth floor in the Loew’s Bldg, on B’way . . . Dnrgon-Katz set as personal man¬ ager for the Newport Youth Band. Group debuts as Carnegie Hall March 15., London Ted Heath’s fifth U.S. tour looks like being skedded for October, taking in his bow in San Francisco. . . . Noel Rogers has moved in as managing director of Dominion Mu- < sic from Kassner Associated Pub¬ lishers Ltd. where Cyril Shane, ; general manager for four years, shifts up in replacement . . . Josh I White, Dinah Washington and ! Abbey Lincoln have been booked i by Granada-TV for spots in the j “Chelsea At.Nine” skein of vaude programs. First tw’o may also make : appearances «t Granada theatres. • Miss Lincoln is skedded to do two ! w’eeks at London’s Colony Restau- \ rant in June ... Songwriters’ Guild ; of Great Britain holds its 10th I annual “Our Friends The Stars” • concert at Victoria Palace April 12. . . . Italian musical group. Marino Marini Quartet, makes debut on ABC-TV’s “Oh Boy!” March 28 BBC Concert Orchestra goes to The Netherlands next month, in its first tour abroad . . . Campbell Connelly 1 Ltd. has taken over distribution and other functions previously handled by Mills Music for Plane- tary-Kahl Music and its associated company. Tin Pan Alley Music . . . Singer Michael Holliday has lined up a trip to the U.S. on May 21. Hollywood Morton Downey Jr. joined Ten¬ der Records as both an artist and a&r -man . . . Don Ralke orch cut a new rock 'n’ roll instrumental at Radio Recorders for the Warners label „ . . Columbia Records has set March 15 as the national release date on the Shirley Jones-Jack Cassidy album, “Love From Holly- i wood” ... Russ Molloy, exec veepee of Bel Canto Records, back from Chicago where he attended an in¬ dustry-wide meeting on tape . . . Vanguard Records has taped Carol Chapning’s nitery stand at the Fair¬ mont Hotel In Frisco as a new album release. It will mark her first LP since the “Gentleman Prefer Blondes” show album. Chicago Martin Denny to London House April 14 for a month . . . Sarah Vaughan returns to Mister Kelly’s March 24 for a pair, after a week at the Key Club, Minneapolis, starting the 16th . . . Signatures play Club Laurel here March 11 ... Florian Zabach orch has a Wisconsin tour in March, with a July 2 date at Chi’s Aragon Ball¬ room ... Count Basie, back from Europe, makes his first stop the L.A. Crescendo, opening March 12, then to the Flamingo, Las Vegas, March 26 . . . Barbara Dane set for the 3525 Club, Dallas, March 25 for two frames . . . Larry Green orch to McCurdy Hotel, Evansville, Ind., April 20 ... Marian McPart- land Trio pacted by Freddie’s Cafe, Minneapolis, March 23. Carmen Cavallaro comes back to London House March 18 . . . Duke Ellington set for a Blue Note return May 6 for three frames Oscar Peterson threesome-to Fred¬ die’s Cafe, Mnneapolis, May 25 for a pair . . . Larry Green orch opens a longtermer at the Embers, Evansville, Ind., May 20 . . . Ban- joist Eddie Peabody signed for nine days at the Chase here, start¬ ing March 20 . . . Hal Munro’s dance tooters slated for a flock of midwest one-nighters over the next couple of months. San Francisco June Christy’s booked into Fack’s II June 4, Earl Grant March 25 . . . Dave Lambert Trio took on top booking at the hungry i . . . One- night jazz festival’s planned in con¬ nection with the Oregon centennial next August with Duke Ellington and Mahalia Jackson. "ft /T VIDEOTAPE \y Dynamic new dimension in TV 'programming PRODUCTS DIVISION REDWOOD CITY. CALIFORNIA Philadelphia Uee Guber and Frank Ford, operator of the Music Fairs, are producing an all-star jazz festival at the Academy of Music, April 2, featuring Duke Ellington orch, George.Shearing Quintet and Dizzy Gillespie band.- Concert is spon¬ sored by the^Devon County Fair for Bryn Mawr Hospital benefit . . . Argentine .pianist Atilio Bruni: making debut at the C’est La Vie j . . . Oscar Peterson Trio current at • Showboat . . . Pearl Bailey at Latin i Casino March 12-21 . . . Glenn- Miller set for El Rancho March 15; ... Harvey Boys working Erie j Social Club March 14-15 . . . Ted Forrest Quintet playing Carlo’s Circle Club . . . Bobby Latin, son of Latin Casino captain Joe De Angelo, ankled The Tyrones and is now’ singing m.c. at the Hialeah, Atlantic City . . . Four Aces open at Sciolla’s March 13 in their first local appearance since Fred Dio- date replaced A1 Alberts. They head next for Juarez, Mexico . . . Ed Cohn’s Lesco Distributors, sec¬ ond oldest indie record outfit in the city, celebrating 15th anni. Cohen sending out souvenir copies Of first disk he released, Slim Gaillard’s “Yep Roc Heresay” . . . Doris Kavanangh, a former Vaughn Monroe vocalist, headlined reopen¬ ing of Jack Field’s burned-out Petti Arms . Pittsburgh Bobby. Negri, pianist with his brother Joe Negri’s trio, just grad¬ uated from barber college . . . Jay Sullivan orch had option picked up for six more months at Anchor¬ age . . . Walt Harper combo held for third week at Pirates Den of Bresiner Hotel in Ligonier . . . Erroll Garner inked for a concert at Syria Mosque April 30; less than two months later, on June 19, he comes back to Town House for nine days . . . Ruth Lee, organist, into Silhouette Lounge for an indefinite stay . . . Charles Bell Contempo¬ rary Jazz Quartet, which gives its next concert at Carnegie Lecture Hall March 21, has named John Bos to handle the press. He’s also the publicity man for the Pitts¬ burgh Playhouse ... Carl Sally band now playing the Hi-Hat . . . Three Sounds have been held over at Crawford Grill. Kansas City Stan Kenton orch to play Mil- burn Country Club St. Patrick’s dance March 17 . , . Rusty Draper will follow Four Lads into Eddys’. He opens March 20. Lads will do the Milton Berle show March 25, then open at the Thunderbird, Las Vegas, March 31 for their fifth time in the room . . . Hildegarde heads south for a nitery date in Atlanta, opening there March 16. Her stand in the Terrace Grill of the Muehle- bach here was extended through March 14, adding an extra weekend to* the date. That brings in Enzo Stuarti and Mary Jayne Monday (16) in contrast to usual Friday opening. Ravinia Festival in Chi Flirting With Pop Arts; Pact Brown, Kingstons J Chicago, March 10. Early bookings for this sum¬ mer’s Ravinia Festival suggest a that the six-week al fresco stand t will have the one quality that’s i been conspicously absent in re- c cent years: a festival flavor. - c Walter Hendl, Ravinia’s artistic t director (and Chi Symphony as¬ sociate batoneer); readily con- s cedes most previous seasons in t recent years have been summer c carbons of winter symphonic ^ schedules. There have been oc- a casional departures to such fields t as jazz and ballet, but mostly the j suburban billet has given seasonal j employment for the Chicago Sym- t phony and, usually, a chamber en- j semble tailendec^ to the schedule. g These latter elements will still j backbone the fest, but this year, j pending negotiations, the talent j lineup is expected to show more j diversification. Already set, each r for two dates, are the Les Brown j band and the Kingston Trio, and T Hendl is understood to be after a tailgate group. This, by the way, is Hendl’s first £ season in the Ravinia post, an as- ] signment previously handled by v Chi Symphony manager George i Kuyper. Hendl stresses that his ^ efforts to diversify Ravinia are s not limited just to jazz groups, j though he’s mindful the idiom is , a proved moneymaker for the fest.. Prior seasons, which have . no more than flirted with jazz ^ (per one or two evenings devoted ‘ to it over the six-week, course), ( have seen some of its leading ex- £ ponents often outpull top-shelf J classicists; and Ravinia’s atten- * dance record, in fact, is held by , Louis Armstrong, who bettered the previous high set by an im¬ pressive trio of Jascha Heifetz, ( Artur Rubinstein and Gregor Pia- tagorsky. Coin, to judge by the Brown and Kingston bookings, would seem no bar to Hendl’s diversifica¬ tion approach. For their two ap- j pearances, both wall get $5,000. j SAN REMO JAZZ FEST A CLICK AT $3.50 TOP Rome^ March 3. Two-day Jazz Festival was sue- cessfully run off in San Remo, with Sonny Rollins Trio and Hor¬ ace Silver Quintet representing the U.S, Event took place in same 1 Casino Theatre used for the re¬ cent pop songfest, with $3.50 top prevailing. RAI-TV picked up part of the show live, while rest will be filmed for use later on this by the Italo telenet. Other assembled talent included: Flavio Ambrosetti Quartet (Switz¬ erland), Tete Montoliu (Spain), Bar¬ ney Wilen Quintet (France), Basso- Valdambrini Quintet (Italy), Lars Guilin (Sweden), Lucca Quintet (Italy), Joe Harriot Quintet (Bri¬ tain), Albert Mangelsdorff Sextet (Germany), Franco Cerri-Erich Peter-Pierre Favre Trio Cltaly- Switzerland), Nicola Arigliano (Italy), Cuppini-Fol-Rovere Trio (Italian-French). Fest cost a reported $7,500, with top coin going to Yank combos. RCA Names Beldon VP., G.M. of Home Instruments Jack S. Beldon, former General Electric exec who joined RCA last month, has moved into the newly created post of v.p. and general manager of the RCA home instru¬ ments division, heading up the tele¬ vision, phonograph and radio .man¬ ufacturing operations. He’ll report to P. J. Casella, exec v.p. of con¬ sumer products. Raymond W. Saxon continues as vlceprexy over radio - phonos while James M. Toney remains as veepee over television sets. In another RCA exec appoint¬ ment, Dr. George H. Brown was named v.p. over engineering, suc¬ ceeding O. B. Hansen who recently retired. Jazz Not Mugg’s Delight: Film Credo . A 90-minute jazz film, “Jazz On a Summer’s Day,” dealing with the Newport Jazz Festival, has been completed by Raven Films, a company headed by Bert Stern, a commercial magazine and adver¬ tising photographer. Stern, making the shift from still to motion pictures, shot more than 125,000 feet of 35m Eastman color before editing the picture down to its 90-minute length. His aim, he said, was to dispel the idea that jazz is only associated with juvenile delinquency and the brutal aspects of life. What he tried to accomplish, he explained, is the impression that jazz is a mu¬ sical form and that it can be en¬ joyed and accepted by respectable people. He attempts to prove his point by shooting a day at New¬ port, covering the outdoor sum¬ mer activities, the reaction of the people, as well as various seg¬ ments of the jazz festival itself. Stern is currently dickering with a number of the major distributors ; and expects to close a deal shortly. Plan is to release the film In July, with a world premiere possibly at Newport. The picture was filmed w i t h a six-track stereophonic soundtrack and Stern is pitching to have the film released with the multi-channeled track. Shooting at the New’port Jazz Festival gave Stern access to the top jazz exponents of today. In¬ cluded in the film are such jazz- sters as Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Gerry Mulligan, Anita O’Day, Dinah Washington, Chico Hamilton, Jimmy" Guiffre, Jack Teagarden, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt and others. Coleman’s Pubberies Larry Coleman is exiting Cole- man-Secon Inc. this week to open his own music publishing opera¬ tion with 11 songs already recorded and due for release within the next month. Firms will be known as Brightwater Music (ASCAP), Fair- field Music (BMI), Court Music, (MBI) and Source Music (MBI). Coleman, president of SOMAC, new writer org, will continue to freelance and is presently collat¬ ing on a film score for 20th-Fox with Lionel Newman. BIG ONES FROM MPHC Bearer than dear XOEER WILLIAMS KAPP THE HANGING TREE ■***Mnm COLUMBIA MUSIC BY JESSE GREER KITTY FROM KANSAS CITY Vocal - Instrumental Published by FEIST I’M HOT... Young man, aggressive, seeking career In promotion work. Definite asset to any organization ... an Interview will prove it! WRITE BOX V-1, VARIETY, 154 West 4« St., New York, N. Y. INTER-RACIAL FINEST LUXURY HOMES NEW & USED IN BEAUTIFUL TANGLE WOOD SECTION OF ROCKVILLE CENTRE, 40 MINUTES FROM BROADWAY LONG ISLAND, N. 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