I Ear of New Trend* and the Overlapping of Year in Which the Music Busines» Was Taking In

outfit liaise band remote* were getting a hearty play qiuied no translation; (4) a young progi'essive musician _ . Elliot Lawrence quit the road to join CBS-TV named Chet Baker, who, on the strength of a handful of Claude Thorn Ml rijo.nea the ranks of inaitstroa . • recordings and no personal appearances outside the West I>eaths during 1952 included: Maria Grever, composer coast area, bieezed into position as 1953’e top trumpeter of Ti-Pi-Tin and Wout a Difference a Day Made; Albert in the Beat’s annual readers juz poll; (5) tragi-comed Blacker, violinist with Benny Strong; Harold Oxley, band ian Jackie Gleason, who without knowing how to read who piloted Jimmy Lunceford to success Joe music or play an instrument, communed with a elioni Eld: saxophonist, and Roy’s brother; John Kirby, organ and a stenographer, came up with a couple uf bandleader; Dixie Crosby, Bing wife; and Mal Hallet, lengthy “original works,” seized a baton, waved it over New England pioneer maestro. an «rchefitra, and made himself enormously popular as a composer-conductor. Other News Uthcr news developments of the year follow: Steve Allen started a trend toward recitations on rec 1953 ords, when he transferred to wax the bop fairy tales he had written earlier for Down Beat; thr trend reached a climax This use a i ear of transition and of contrast, of when Stan Freberg satirized the Dragnet radio-TV show new trend* and the overlapping of older ones, of with a monologue that was widely imitated on half-a-dossa experimentation and of revival. It was. in short, a labels . Sam Donahue quit Tommy Dorsey to form year in which the music busines» was taking in his own band . Benny Goodman’s Carnegie Hall come back, beset by hassels with co-star Louis Armstrong, wound ventory and shifting stock. up with BG’s cancelling out of u subsequent lour beeaue af Instrumental recordings, all but dormant since ■IbieM . Rosemary Clooney clicked in her first film, Tbs the rise of Frank Sinatra, came back with a bang, yet the gimmick vocal discs, multi-taiied and echo jazz bistro, the Band box and The Loop lost the Blue Nota. chambered, continued seemingly unabated in popularity. The Sauter-Finegar. and Billy May bands came out cl Dance bands established a long-uwaited beachhead on the studio hibernation and took to the road ... George SheaM nation’s music tastes, yet by year’s end the bigges' ork ing’s new quintet, including vibist Cal Tjader and har- attraction of them all wa» that of the late Glenn Miller. monicist-guitarist Jean Tilmans, drew raves from the Ralph Flanagan, Ray Anthony, and Ralph Marterie en Beat’s Ralph J. Gleason . Singer Guy Mitchell asserted joyed a big year, and >x>, too, did the revitalized Harry in an interview that “there is nn such tiling as gimmicks" Jamei crew and the Dorsey Brothers, whose reunion fur on records . Harry Jamot signed drummer Buddy Rich nished one of the biggi > stories of th< year. Youngsters at a reported $35,000 annually, then stirred up big gross- Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker caused a mighty stir in ea with a crosscountry tour . The Beat’s biggest >aw jazz circles at a time when Benny 'Joodman and Artie in its history (48 pages) appeared April 22, as its first Shaw were copping comeback headlines. Eddie Fisher, dance ’ and annual . Composer-conductor Alfred New-1 back from service, became the nu cion’s number one gentle man led the 20th-Century Fox Etudio orchestra in his man songster, and Sinattu who’d heeo having tough sled Street Scene as the nrst overture to a CinemaScope film- ding, achieved n resounding comeback How To Marry A Millionaire . .. Hi-Fi and 3-D Krupu Form* Trio Perhaps the year’s most significant achievement, how Gent Krupa formed a new trio . Some 40,000 upee- ever, was not creative at all, but electronic. This was the tators sat in the rain through a three-hour n.ueical pro year of hi-fi and 3-D, as tremendous advances in the re gram, us Down Beat sponsored its Star Night at Chica finement of sound reproduction sent crowds hurrying to go’ Soldier Field , . Artie Shaw toured fronting a band, j «tereophonically-equipped movie theaters, and to binaural then formed a New Gramercy 6 . June Christy m demonstration», brought hi-fi components into living joined Stan Kenton for a European tour rooms from Maine to California, and left open many and Mary Ford grabbed their fourth gold>*n disc, mai vistas, and many questions, for the future. ing 1,000,000 sales of their latest record hit, Vaya C A propos of the shifting bands of 1953 were the names Dios . Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck won the n that romped into and out of thi news, among them: (1) as top oik and combo in Down Beat's first annual ji singer Julius La Rosa, who gained nationwide attention critics poll . ind the Philadelphia orchestra and 's with an on-the-air dismissal fi xn a network TV-’.idio ductoi Arturo Toscanini of the NBC symphony won 1 berth at the hands of Arthur Godfrey; (2) Walter Lib honors >n the Beat’s first annual classical critics poll . erace, an erstwhile nitery entertainer with a predilec Jo Stafford signed a TV pact with CBS for a report tion for candelabra, who, with the incidental aid of a $1,000,000 . Famed jazz guitarist Django Reinhai grand piano, becaire the hottest attraction in video; (3) died in Pans at 43 »ringing an ancient ft a .inuous amgstre*; from Broadway rained Eartha Kitt, full cycle, ASCAP jued BMI, charging monopoly of who zoomed to stardom with a record in French that re- plays for its tunes. (C.P ).

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