Freak Draw

"It would have been foolhardy to compete with established firms along the conventional recording lines. Therefore it was necessary to seek out new names and, especially, new musical material to create new interest in phonograph records." So said Managing Director Irving Mills of Master Records, Inc. (TIME, March 22) last week as he totted up the newest U. S. record company's first week's business. As a house policy, accent on what is known in show business as the "freak draw" is novel in the recording industry. As applied to Mills's Master (75-c-) and Variety (35-c-) disks, however, it had apparently worked.* Anticipating initial sales of 40,000 records, the company was swamped with orders for 100,000.

Newest name and newest musical material on the Master list were those of Raymond Scott. This conscientious and well-schooled pianist-composer, heretofore unrecorded, began appearing on Columbia Broadcasting System's Saturday Night Swing sessions last January. Not swing musicians at all, since they are not free to improvise, the Scott Quintet does play in fox-trot tempo. What makes their music remarkable is that they play Scott's unconventional compositions, and play them with a finesse, variation and volume expected only of a 20-piece band. At present sold out is the one Scott record so far released to dealers, Twilight in Turkey and Minuet in Jazz. The minuet is a wild variation of Paderewski's Minuet in G. Twilight in Turkey expresses, according to Composer Scott's program notes: ". . . a crowded square . . . twilight is setting in ... Arab barters with Arab . . . prayer time is approaching . . . camels are resting ... a group of dancing girls are entertaining ... an Englishman gets lost . . . traffic is heavy . . . the afternoon heat is still felt. . . ." Recorded but not yet released are equally odd Scott numbers called Powerhouse, Toy Trumpet, Reckless Night Aboard an Ocean Liner.

To provide more or less the same kind of music at 35-c-, Variety records by Frank Marks will soon be available. Long an arranger for radio bands. Mr. Marks, too, will make eccentric, narrative dance tunes under such .titles as Merry Widow on a Spree, Dizzy Debutante, Lullaby to a Lamp Post, Ode to an Old Coat Sleeve, Talking Turkey to a Greek. Also planned is a three-part suite concerned with Edward VIII's love for Mrs. Simpson called Canterbury Tales.

"This new type of music, which may appear inane, is either jazz symphony or symphonic jazz," hazarded Recorder Mills, who began his career in the entertainment business as a page at the Friars Club, made a killing when he published Mr. Gallagher & Mr. Shean on a shoestring in 1922, and has been a formidable figure in Tin Pan Alley ever since. In addition to bands like Duke Ellington's, Cab Galloway's and Hudson-DeLange's, which have been under his wing for some time, Mills's Master and Variety records have pressed the music of Red Nichols, the old hot trumpeter who has not waxed a tune in five years; Rudolf Friml Jr., who has been in business a month; and an exceptional new combination known as Frankie Newton and his Uptown Serenaders. To jazz purists who heard Newton's Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone last week, this new combination, with its snide harmonics, free swing and authentic oldtime "Chicago style," was enough to justify the whole Mills list.

*Most unusual Victor record of the month is Paul Whiteman's 12-in. doublesided recording of Richard Rodgers' & Lorenz Hart's All Points West, which musically describes the plight of a railroad announcer who watches people come & go, wishes he could go somewhere, gets his wish when a criminal en route to Sing Sing escapes and, in the ensuing gunplay, the announcer is killed. Melotone (American Record Co.) is out this week with New London School Tragedy, composed, played and sung by Balladist Elwood Eritt. Decca's current oddity is a 12-in. record of the Blue Danube played in 2-4 time by Jimmy Dorsey's band with Josephine Tumminia, operatic coloratura.

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