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Wednesday, December 7, 1960 MUSIC 63 Mantovani: Schmaltz from Britain Annunzio Mantovani, the one-man "new music” industry from Britain, closed out eight weeks of U. S. touring at Carnegie Hall, N. Y. on. Nov. 28. It was a Monday instead of his usual Sunday, a. booking consumated after Carnegie’s salvation. This probably ex¬ plains a less-than-capacity, though well-attended, concert at $4 fop. Ensemble of 45 had also played White Plains and Brooklyn over same weekend, via Columbia (Schang Div) management. A reviewer gropes for a comparison to such old merchants of musical schmaltz as Paul Whiteman, Andre Kostelanetz, Dave Rubinoff and Emery Deutsch hut in the end the analogy eludes. Mantovani dispenses an essentially sweet arraangement, based on 23 strings, respectful of melody, more embossed than engraved, more subdued than surcharged. It reveals its roots in salon, =or dinner, idiom and yet it bears the stamp of an individuality. This was a fifth tour of America for Mantovani. That speaks for itself. He is probably alone in his genre, his advance agents being his big-selling disks and his audience, judging by the faces, ranging from very young to very old, a good strata on which to base longevity in the trade. He toured again under an American Federa¬ tion of Musicians dispensation, bringing his percussionist, flutist, concertmaster and two trumpets (one his son) from London, com¬ pleting the roster with Yanks. In tails, Mantovani is brought on to his own theme song! Between numbers he makes simple, graceful announcements. Apart from a small peccadillo with the percussionist there’s no /‘hokum.” Just straight schmaltz out of the Rodgers, Strauss, Porter, Lehar, Kalman repertory. They loved him on 57th Street. Land. Col Reshuffles Epic to Build Subsid as Indie Epic Records, Columbia’s subsid label, is being recharged to build its stature in the indie disk field. In a reshuffling last week, William P. Gallagher, Col’s sales veepee, took over the additional assignment of general manager for Epic. A1 Shulman, who had been Epic’s boss for the past two-and-a-haif years, has been reassigned to Col’s divi¬ sional staff to handle special mar¬ keting assignments and reporting to Norman Adler, exec veepee. Gallagher has brought in Bill Levy as director of artists & reper¬ toire and merchandising. Epic’s a&r activities had been handled by Cuck Sagle up until two weeks ago when he exited the company; Levy was shifted from the Col label where he had been production manager of pop albums. In his new spot. Levy will coordinate activities of Epic’s a&r staff consisting of Jane Friedman, classical a&r; James Fogelsong and Mike Berniker, pop a&r; and C. Snyder, interna¬ tional a&r. Taking over as national sales manager will be Albert Fishman. He'll be responsible for Epic’s field sales effort and sales administra¬ tion. Fishman has been associated with Col as a branch manager, dis¬ trict sales manager and most re¬ cently, as Masterworks sales man¬ ager. Charles Schicke will con¬ tinue as label’s field sales manager and Herbert Linsky holds on as national promotion manager as does Ricky von Seekamm as sales administration manager. Gallagher is stressing that Epic will not be integrated into the Columbia organization. Instead, it will continue to be marketed through indie distributors through¬ out the U.S. and during 1961, he will attempt to improve the pres¬ ent distribution setup. Certain im¬ mediate changes in distribution are in the works in an effort to strengthen the weak areas. In most cases these changes will be to Columbia distributors but the mar¬ kets affected are marginal in vol¬ ume and do not reflect any nation¬ wide integration with Col’s dis¬ tributors. In major markets. Epic will continue to be sold by indie distributors. Gallagher will also put Col’s field sales force of 12 men to assist Epic’s field staff in specific build¬ up programs. Gallagher also plans another reorganization move for a later date. Teagarden to Launch Dallas Jazz Concerts Dallas, Dec. 6 . ,Jack Teagarden and his sextet will open the new jazz concert se¬ ries in McFarlin Auditorium Fri¬ day t 9 ). The five event series is sponsored by the Dallas Jazz So¬ ciety. The series will include Duke Ellington orch, Julian ‘‘Cannon- hall” Adderley Quintet, the Mod¬ ern. Jazz Quartet and one other attraction yet to be booked. Rosaly to Coordinate Col’s Latin-Am A&R Nat Shapiro, Columbia Records director of international artists & repertoire, is bringing in Pedro J. Rosaly to the post of Latin-Ameri- can a&r coordinator. He’ll assist in programming, scheduling and pro¬ moting the Latino artsts in the U.S. He’ll also assist in the promo¬ tion of U.S. artists and their cata¬ log in the Latin-American coun¬ tries. Rosaly was transferred from CBS International, w-here he was sales manager, to take over the diskery spot. Kingston 3 Tour Pulls $380,000 In a two-month tour of weekend concert dates and an occasional weekday college date that wound up Nov. 25, the Kingston Trio pulled in over $380,000. Group realized 60% to 70% of the gross, depending on the seating capacity. The smaller concert halls paid them 70% privilege and in many of the larger ones, 60% was accepted. On some of these concerts the trio w.as assisted by comedian Ronnie Schell and on other dates by comedian Del Close. The Kingstons are now prepping for a concert tour of the Far East to begin in January. Another U. S. tour is scheduled to start in April and run through the summer. Sc/igwrrfir-Humerht Harry Ruby takes except?** ta so m e t ime keeored aphorisms f» Ms hom oroos piece . Nothing Is Necessarily So one of the many Editorial Features i* the upcoming 55 th Anniversary Number of Variety Pitt Personals Pay Off With Potent P’kge Sales; Sabi, Limeliters Hypoed Pittsburgh, Dec. 6 . Personal appearances here or film releases have perked sales of ; practically every LP associated | with the artist or picture that has ; played this area. The best example .of this is the Limeliters, who ’came here with Mort Sahl on a initery bill, and now have a big selling album in this territory on (Elektra. Sahl’s albums also picked i up considerably and his "Mort Sahl • at the hungry i” is now consistently : in the top 20 here. . j Mantovani’s "Operetta Favorites” .made the list right after his sell- • out performance at Memorial : Hall. Dave Brubeck became a pop i favorite after . his two concerts I here and brought Leonard Bern- ^ stein along with him. Their record, . which had been gathering dust, be- ? gan getting respectable sales figures and when the stores were out of this. Brubeck’s other LPs with Columbia got a nice ride. Shelley Berman was riding such a comet that his albums would have taken off anyway, but a no¬ ticeable increase in sales was shown after he did a week at the Town House and all three of his ! LPs zoomed after his Carnegie i Hall appearance. Two weeks ago The Weavers were at the same hall and the next week, from out of left field, sales rose on all their Vanguard albums, especially “Weavers at Carnegie Hall.” "Can-Can’’ "South Pacific” "Ben- j Hur,” "Apartment” and many | other sound tracks received im- ; mediate public acceptance as soon S as the film was released, j The record buying public here just has to have its samples. Stanley Greens' Musical Comedy Very OK for Ref. and Nostalgia A. L. Kaminstein Named As Register of Copyrights Following' the recent death of Arthur Fisher, U. S. Register- of Copyrights, at the Library of Con¬ gress, the copyright office disclosed last week that Abraham L. Kamin¬ stein has been named Acting Reg¬ ister of Copyrights. He served pre¬ viously as deputy register and chief of the examining division. Fisher, who died of leukemia Nov. 12 in Washington, was an authority on international as well as national copyright law. He repped the U. S. with distinction in a number of international copy¬ right conferences. Panassie’s ‘Real Jazz’ Is Only the Old Jazz Hugues Panassie, the French jazz buff who was among the first to exploit the literary lode in jazz criticism, is again represented in the book stalls with a new edition of "The Real Jazz” (A.S. Barnes; $4.95 1 , originally published in 1942 by Smith & Durrell. While billed a? a "revised edition,” based on some changes in estimations of in¬ dividual artists and updating of material, this tome still marks Pan¬ assie as a die-hard "classicist” who believes that jazz stopped with the swing era. What came after in the form of bop, modernism, progress- ivism, etc., is anything but jazz, according to gallic pundit. This point of view may be in¬ teresting, but is much too limiting in the narrowness of its apprecia¬ tion. So limiting in fact, that it is severely distorting, causing Pan¬ assie, for instance, to rate Charlie Shavers, undoubtedly a great tech¬ nician, as "one of the most amazing trumpet virtuosos in the history of jazz” while, at "the same time, brushing off Miles Davis as “not belonging” to the jazz idiom. Char¬ lie Parker is similarly relegated to a musical limbo which is neither jazz nor longhair. - Panassie’s firm opinionation at least leads to a vigorous and high¬ ly readable literary style. There’s no hedging or doubletalking per¬ mitted in his approach, and agree or disagree, Panassie is consistent¬ ly interesting, A discography is included. Hem. AIM TO SPLIT RIGHTS ON 30 TORERO’ SONGS Songwriter Bernie Wayne has come up with a new wrinkle in the publishing of Broadway show scores. Wayne, who has "Torero, a musical version of "Cyrano de Bergerac,” due for Broadway pro¬ duction in the spring, is working on a deal whereby the score, which consists of 30 songs, will be split among three publishers. In the past, show scores except for revues, which sometimes have many writer contributors, have been published by one firm. "Wayne, who is a Broadcast Music Inc. cleffer, claims that a flock of BMI publishers are interested in the split push. Meantime, Max Meth has been set as the conductor for the musi¬ cal and Robert Russell Bennett for the arrangements. Alton Wilkes is the producer. • Vet Music Man Rocco Vocco Dies Rocco Vocco, partner in the music publishing firm of Bregman, Vocco & Conn, and one of top veteran songpluggers who helped fashion the pop music biz during the 1920s, died suddenly at his home in the Forest Hills Inn, Queens, Monday night (5). He was 73, and had been in good health for the past few years. Vocco became ill shortly after leaving his partner. Jack Bregman, and songwriter Rube Bloom and died a few minutes after his daugh¬ ter, Mrs. Lorraine Curry, arrived at his apartment. to administer help. He was in good health and, after having a drink with Bregman and Conn, repaired to his home. Vocco came out of the Chicago music biz scene when the midwest was still one of the major publish¬ ing centers. He was chief of the Feist office for 20 years and later moved to New York to become head of a publishing combine, then owned by the Radio Corp of America and comprising the firms of Feist, Carl Fischer and David, Coots & Engel. Vocco later man¬ aged the DeSylva, Brown & Han- derson firm and then joined the Warner Bros. Music Publishing Holding Corp. as the general pro¬ fessional manager in the 1930s. In 1938. Vocco left the Warner Bros, setup to go into business with Bregman, an exec with the Robbins Music setup, and Chester Conn, a songwriter and songplug- ger with the Feist firm. The Breg¬ man, Vocco & Conn firm and its subsidiaries built and acquired a strong standard catalog since its formation 22 years ago. Stemming from the heyday of the songplugging era, Vocco was an intimate of all the top perfor¬ mers and bandleaders. He was noted, moreover, for his uncanny ability to spot a hit in manuscript form, and while in Chicago work¬ ing for Feist, he would submit material to the New York home- office. If the h.o. turned down a specific song he liked, Vocco would continue to push it anyway until enough sales pressure developed to get approval from New York. Vocco’s body is reposing at the Abbey Chapel, N.Y., until burial services Friday (9) at 11 a.m. at St Malachy’s Church, in N.Y. The family requests that no flowers be sent. Survivors Include his daughter, a brother and granddaughter. ; By BERNARD SOBEL Show people and those who love musical shows will call "The World of Musical Comedy,” by Stanley Green (Ziff-Davis; $8.95, pre-Xmas; $10 otherwise) a delightful, nostal¬ gic debauch. Students and stage antiquarians will call it an in¬ dispensable reference work be¬ cause it presents, for the first time the history of that goading prob¬ lem, indigenous to the form—the¬ atrical Integration. Should a musical have a logical plot? Should this plot coalesce with the score? Should the characters evolve from the situations? Should the. songs emanate from the story or serve merely as obligatory in¬ terpolations? First to respond to these in¬ volved questions was Jerome Kern. He demanded, at the very begin¬ ning of his career, that the songs have a logical place in the action. However, certain composers who were pioneers or leaders in popu¬ larizing musical comedy were in¬ different to realistic development. Victor Herbert, for instance, strove to perpetuate traditional Viennese operetta. Romberg showed no in¬ terest in new trends. Friml clung to oldfashione’d fundamentals. However, with the advent of George M. Cohan came a new pro¬ cedure, for this lively young Amer¬ ican broke away from Continental tradition, introduced speed by way of plot, entrance and exit, and exploited a jingo national spirit. The next iconoclasts to enliven Broadway were Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers. They felt that musical comedy was dying as the result of sameness and tameness: repetitious, routine fables, constant rhyming of moon and June. De¬ liberately, they introduced new plots, new rhyme schemes and a new quality—sophistication. They (Continued on page 66 ) Rock V Roil Stow Fails On Its Face in Milwaukee; Pulls Nine in Two Stows Milwaukee, Dec. 6 . A rock ’n’ roll show, topped by Chan Romero, drew nine people in a matinee and night performances at South Side Armory here last week. Jack Laken, Billings. Mon¬ tana, promoted. Others on the ros¬ ter included Mel Shaw, Canadian disk artist, Jimmy Angel, tenor, with Eddie Bell & Rockefellas rounding things out. Said Laken: "I’ve promoted shows and fights in both America and Europe. Nothing like this ever happened before. And those kids. These people are real troupers. They performed as though they had a real audience out front, not a handful.” Laken, who was unsuccessful in getting an open date, he said, at Milwaukee Auditorium or Arena, settled for South Side Armory. In big band days, this spot drew well. Recently boxing and wrestling have been the major attractions. Inside Stuff-Music • Bonnie 'Mrs. Saul H.) Bourne, Widow of the publishing house exec bearing his name, says Bourne Inc. is not for sale—to Columbia Pic¬ tures or anybody—and that she is carrying on the business. “After all, that was why I disagreed so with Beehee (their daughter) and bought back the company.” Mrs. Bourne is en route to the Coast to set a Hol¬ lywood manager; berth has been open since the death of Sammy Friedman. Newport Ms for State Cops at 1961 Jazz Fete Newport, R. I., Dec. 6 . Negotiations are under way to . stage the Newport Jazz Festival ! again next summer with added pre¬ caution of state gendarme patrols to assist city cops in .preventing another riot. As city and jazz festival officials arranged a session to talk over 1961 plans. Mayor James L. Maher said he hoped to talk with Gov.- elect John A. Notte, Jr. about ; using state police to augment New- j port’s force if the jazz bash is held, j The last jazz festival broke up in : a riot on July 2 last year, and some observers laid the cause to a shortage of cops. In referring to a record company’s Investments In Broadway legitu,- ners to get original cast album rights in last week’s Variety, Goddard Lieberson, Columbia Records president, adds, "I had in mind the kind of investment lately asked for, in which a record company was asked to put up money with no opportunity to receive a profit on that invest¬ ment. It was that which I said was ‘immoral to ask for and ignorant to give.’ ” A recent album review of Decca’s LP of “Joe Reichman at the Adolphus Hotel, Dallas,” for some season of vagary, transplanted that hostelry to Houston. Reichman has been in this Dallas spot for three- and-a-half years, following a four-year run at the Biltmore Hotel, L.A REACTIVATES TEE PEE Teddy Powell is reactivating his ; Tee Pee Records firm. Powell, who j also runs his own publishing firm, is renewing his disk activities with Nick Harris & The Soundbarriers. The first sides for the instru¬ mental group from Detroit will be _ "Lost” and "Hicksville.” Powell 1 plans to add more artist* to the i. label in the near future.