Petrillo v. Artists

James Caesar Petrillo is the tough boss of 130,000 members of the American Federation of Musicians. That's not enough for Mr. Petrillo: he wants more people in his union--the top-notch pianists, violinists, other concert artists who belong to the American Guild of Musical Artists. Last summer Boss Petrillo told these superior gentry to join his A. F. of M. before Labor Day, or be barred from playing with union men, making records, going on the air. A. G. M. A. set its jaw, went to court. In a series of trials, Petrillo finally won one, set a new deadline: March 1. Last week, just before the deadline, the Department of Justice came to A. G. M. A.'s rescue. It announced that a Federal grand jury would investigate charges that Petrillo had conspired with radio chains and concert-booking agencies "in an attempt to destroy" A. G. M. A. Despite this apparent reprieve for A. G. M. A., one of its board members, Fiddler Albert Spalding, resigned at week's end, applied for membership in A. F. of M. He said he accepted the court decision, felt that A. F. of M. would treat him right.

The Department of Justice announcement pointed a finger at more than Boss Petrillo. It also mentioned "complaints" about the booking business, bore out recent rumors that trust busters are interested in the setup by which NBC and CBS split most of the U. S. concert trade. Each has a subsidiary (NBC Artists Service, Columbia Concerts Corp.) which, through an offspring (Civic Concerts, Community Concerts), supplies U. S. concertgoers with block-booked talent or nothing.

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