Back to Tin Pan Alley

At 9 o'clock on the night of May 13, beneath the potted palms of the Empire Room in Chicago's bustling Palmer House, veteran Bandmaster Jan Garber shuffled the sheets of his music, shook a stick at his first trumpet. A blast, and then, to the Jerome & Schwartz, 1903 ragtime tune Bedelia, Tin Pan Alley banged and tootled back onto the bigtime air. The broadcast was Mutual's first using ASCAP music after the last-minute signing with the songwriters' society in St. Louis (TIME, May 19).

But for a really sonorous send-off ASCAP had to wait till Sunday night. Then, on an hour-and-a-half, coast-to-coast program called "ASCAP Salutes Mutual," the composers broadcast a solemn Te Deum celebrating their first settlement with the chains.

Four bands, including the crack complements of Ted Fio Rito and Eddie Duchin, performed. Judy Garland trilled Over the Rainbow. John Charles Thomas baritoned Sunday-evening favorite, Albert Hay Malotte's The Lord's Prayer. Gene Buck gave mikeside support to an uncertain quaver that was Irving Berlin returning God Bless America to the air. Day after this outpouring Mutual began concerted plugging of its exclusive popular-tune library. Yet its competitive advantage over the big networks was not immediate. Present commercial contracts send Mutual programs to twelve affiliates who want no part of ASCAP as well as to the 115 who do, and the 42 who have yet to make up their minds about it. When these contracts expire, the dissenting affiliates will have the choice of changing their minds or being excluded from network musical programs that include ASCAP tunes. Meanwhile, majority members hope to make the most of sustaining dance-band features which affiliates may accept or not as they please.

In great glee at having cracked the network front, ASCAP gave out that other networks could expect no better terms than Mutual's. B.M.I., the big chains' music mill, announced 33 1/3% price reductions. Enthusiastic was ASCAP about the backlog of new red-white-blue tunes its composers have cooked up since January and will now spring on the patriotic radio public.

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