Upbeat in Music

Series

Series Name

The March of Time 9th Year

Issue

Issue No.

8

Date Released

20 Mar 1944

Length of issue (in feet)

1609

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1Upbeat in Music

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

The March of Time synopsis: Troops march off to the spirited new style marches of Captain Glen Miller’s Army Air Force Band. Men on leave and their sweethearts crowd around Benny Goodman’s bandstand. Huge auditoriums of service men listen attentively to Sergeant Eugene Liszt as he plays Rachmaninoff’s Concerto in C Minor. And somewhere in the Pacific a little group is huddled round a gramophone listening to one of the Army "V-Discs" this one a hot jazz selection.

Famous jazz composers like Duke Ellington are turning out new works to fit the mood of the moment, while America’s serious composers are steadily increasing in popularity, and more and more concert programmes are including works by Aaron Copeland; Virgil Thomson, equally reputed as composer and critic; Samuel Barber, now in uniform; William Schuman and many others. Crowded concert halls testify to the new and growing demand of thousands of everyday people for good music - the classics they have heard on records or on the radio. But the greatest indication of the growing appreciation of classical music is to be found in the healthy state of some two hundred U.S. symphony orchestras, the greatest of which is, perhaps, the Boston Symphony, brought to near perfection by constant rehearsals under its famous conductor, Dr. Serge Koussevitsky. But this film includes everybody’s type of music. From Art Tatum’s piano playing to the exquisite voice of Marion Anderson, from one of Bea Wain’s hot numbers to the late George Gershwin, in an almost unique film appearance, playing his immortal hit "I Got Rhythm".

Musicians, famous and obscure, have given their talents for the cause of every fighting front. And this is a cause which has served to unite musicians, whose careers of late have not been free of trouble. Under the leadership of its President - James C. Petrillo - the American Federation of Musicians started a war upon the radio and recording industries. Petrillo is heard stating his side of the case for the Union, which demanded that royalties be paid to a union unemployment fund on all records, and that there be a wider use of flesh and blood musicians in those radio stations which had long depended on recorded programmes. With a settlement reaches between the Union and the gramophone companies a new road is opened for the entertainment of the troops. Producing a million and a half gramophone records a year to be distributed only among the services, the Army can supply its men with swing music or the classical artistry of great names like Mischa Elman. Another section of the Army’s Special Services Division foregathers with masters of the popular musical idiom, like Benny Goodman, Fred Waring, Tommy Dorsey and Paul Whiteman to choose the songs that soldiers like to sing. But while the army, like the nation, is waltzing for a winner in the tradition of "Yankee Doodle" and "Over There" while some issues of song sheets and gramophone records may prove less inspiring than others, the Special Services Division is never wrong with its issue of tin whistles and such other instruments as enable the soldier to make his own music.

Researcher Comments

This story was included in Vol.10 No.5 of the US edition.

Keywords

Music and dance; Entertainment and leisure; Military

Written sources

The March of Time Promotional Material   Lobby Card, Used for synopsis

Credits:

Production Co.

Time Inc.