Something to Dance To

To most of the musicians and moguls around RCA Victor's Manhattan recording studios, fresh-faced Ralph Flanagan was just an essential but unexciting fixture. As an arranger for Crooner Perry Como, he was usually puttering around with a pencil making last-minute changes in the scores. Sometimes he played the piano in the band. But last week, Ralph Flanagan was being treated with new respect: almost overnight, recording with a band of his own, he had become the fastest flash seller in Victor's history.

The secret, as Flanagan saw it, was "music you want to dance to--not wild and not icky. You might say I strive for music comparable to Saturday Evening Post art--no Carnegie Hall atmosphere." Victor called it "The Flanagan Flair." Actually, even down to a sweet clarinet leading the. saxophones in front of big but softly barking brass, it was more of a hark-back to the days of Glenn Miller.

The similarity was no coincidence. Flanagan's first big break came when he arranged an album for Rainbow Records called A Tribute to Glenn Miller, who was reported missing in a flight over the English Channel during the war. Then he got a chance to try a few more in the old "danceable" mood. Recording with a house band of studio musicians, he turned out four sides for Victor's revived Bluebird (49-c-) label which sold so fast that some dealers hiked the price to 79-c-. Flanagan's next recording sold just as well. Before he knew it, 31-year-old Ralph Flanagan was the first bandleader to become a rage on records without ever showing his face to his public.

Fortnight ago, when he finally made his first public appearance at a one-night stand in Wrentham, Mass., the Flanagan flair seemed to be just as effective at close range. Last week, when Flanagan & orchestra opened at New Jersey's famed Meadowbrook, the roadhouse had its biggest crowd in four years.

But Flanagan had not flared into fashion without causing some embarrassment here & there. Victor Recording Star Tex Beneke (TIME, June 2, 1947 et seq.), who had inherited the Glenn Miller mantle in the first place, was hastily trying it on again.

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