The Daily Alaska empire. [volume] (Juneau, Alaska) 1926-1964, 1942-02-27
RAWNE5y0F
JAZZ" NOW
DISAPPEARS
Melodies ofGreatCompos
ers Being Filthed by
Tin Pan Alley
BY JOHN SELBY
Wide World Arts Editor

Wlue Wtliu AIto EultOi
NEW YORK-Don't feel SO sor-
ry for the great composers whose
melodies are filched by Tin Pan
Alley. Paul Laval thinks they gain
in the deal-and anyway, most of
them are dead.
Laval is a short, dark, almost
shy young man and he may be
known to you through a couple of
his unusual radio programs: eDin-
ah Shore" and Chamber Music
Society of Lower Basin Street
Both of them are popular-with
a difference Laval arranges his
own music, and he not only uses
instruments like the oboe, English
horn, bass clarinet and contra
bassoon, he makes these erstwhile
symphonic woodwinds do the
brightest sort of popular tricks.
Il think says Laval, land 1
really mean it, that good music
gains more than it loses from lend
ing its melodies to the wider popu-
lar audience.
1.-The classic example right now
is the Tchaikowsky B flat minor
concerto for piano. Every serious
musician in the world, probably,
knew the work, for 1t has been pop
ular since the composer revised it
So years ago But you could have
canvassed Broadway from the Met
ropolitan Opera to 57th street, and
two thirds of the people couldn't
have identified the chief theme.
Martin Did 1t
Then along came Freddy Mar
tin, who placidly lifted the open
ing, called it variously Piano Con-
certo and Tonight We Love- and
today 1 think 80 per cent of Ameri-
ca must know that tune
II also think that large share
of this new audience will be in
terested in hearing the whole work
and that they will be more likely
to enjoy it than formerly
incidentally, Freddy Martin is
said to have garnered 100000 al
ready with Relationships ghostly
help; to have been boosted to the
place where he can ask land get)
$4,000 week for himself and band
and to have shared movie con-
tract on the strength of it all.
Laval thinks the whole field Of
music, popular and long haired
as he calls it, is realigning itsell
like one of those great earth dis
turbances which throws up islands
and submerges continents.
He thinks the drift of melody
from Carnegie hall to the dance
floor benefits the latter and help.
fill the former. He thinks the
quality of popular music generally
and particularly of the arrange.
ments, is improving The appear.
ance of men like Benny Goodman
as clarinet soloist with various sym.
pl1onies has dramatized the fac
that man may be very fint
performer, and still conduct a swing
band.
Works Two Ways
Some of the austerity of good
music is lost, and young player!
are finding they may work in botf
fields. without blighting either
Laval's musicians, several of them
play in the NBC Symphony al
well.
And some of the rawness of jazz
is also disappearing, as witness
Artie Shaw adding banks of string
to the usual popular ensemble.
The drift is more pronounce,
than most long hairs" know, toe
Andre Kostalanetz's Isle of May
was taken from Tchaikowsky's ia
NOUS Andante Cantabile The. sam
composers Romeo and Juliet ov
erture supplied the works for lou
Love-, by Larry Clinton and Pete.
Another Tchaikowsky favoritt
None But the Lonely Heart" ha
given its all to Tommy Dorsey.
Goodman's Caprice once wa
Paganinj's, Claude Thornhill's g
Found You in the Rain" was tn
seventh Chopin prelude for piano
and Duke Ellington's "Clementine
began life as part of Mendelssohn
violin concerto.
They even gang up on a poe
tune. The almost too populs
Dance of the Hours from Pom
chielli's La Gioconda' is Dodge
Fan Dance" to Harry James, an
He Said, She Said" to the Ar
drews Sisters