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Show ENTERTAINMENT MOVIES RADIO HOUSEHOLD HIXTS Out of the Slush Pump By OUum et al Last week was a good one: we saw Tex Beneke and crew at the Randevu when he opened, and talked shop with him for a while Saturday night; then bought a new edition of Time Magazine Maga-zine wherein Louis Armstrong is written up. Louis, Jazz is still story telling: 'I like to tell them things that come naturally." Jazz "purists" are in for a blow. After In these many years of riding Guy Lonibarrto as the King of everything Jazz is not, devotees are told that old Guy is one of Louis' great favorites "Guy Lombardo advertises ad-vertises the 'sweetest music this side of heaven' and that's what he plays." Well, shut our mouths! Next week we'd like to discuss local disc-jockeys, their programs pro-grams and their general worth as we see it from the viewpoint view-point of interested onlookers with a leaYiing toward good Jazz. Also during the same week we inadvertantly stumbled into the downtown-5-and-10c store where Beneke was making a personal appearance. Flanking him was Jazzbo, handing out autographed pictures of Jazzbo. We went back outside for fresh air. What gives with this fellow! fel-low! The coffee session with Beneke, Be-neke, however, topped the week. And Beneke picked up the checks. For tfhose who haven't had a chance to talk to him: He's a good guy who doesn't mind admitting ad-mitting he's a businessman, before be-fore being a jazzman. He likes jazz and loves to hear it played, but is in the position where commercial music pays off in hard cash. And that he likes. Beneke tries to play the type of music Glenn Miller would be playing if he were alive today. The band long ago decided to follow the old Miller pattern. Hence, no jazz, especially when coupled with the fact that jazz doesn't produce greenbacks like "Moonlight Serenade." On the second cup of coffee, we got around to this: He doesn't like be-bop any better than we do. But he does like jazz. He knows jazz musicians intimately and admires them greatly. He has a record collection collec-tion at home, topped by 2 well-worn well-worn jazz classics. We told him about the "Slush Pump" over the third cup of coffee; he liked the idea. We mentioned the Geoi-ge Frazier article reprinted in last week's column in which the critic said jazz was anything but the Glenn Miller band. Beneke agreed. Why fight it! Jazz got a tremendous shot in xhe arm this week with Time Magazine's excellent ex-cellent five-page spread on Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong replete with a cover portrait by Artzybasheff, no less. One 'Slush Pump' reader dropped in to say it looked to him like an international conspiracy to promote pro-mote Jazz with Ottutn and al holding down the lowl bureau. Could be. We refer everyone to the Time article for a brief, readable resume re-sume of Jazz histoiy as seen through the eyes of one of its greatest exponents. We were especially delighted with Satchmo's forthright opinions opin-ions on Jazz ("Man, when j on got to ask what it is, vou'll never nev-er get to know") and the cur-rent cur-rent "bebop." He has no truck with bebop; gave it up, ill fact, bark in 1922 on the advice of Joe Oliver, a Jazz imortal ". . . he's the one that stopped me playin' nil (hose variations what they all bebop today. 'Yon get yourself a bad (melody) (mel-ody) and you stick to it,' Papa Jee told me. And i always do." And a:ain: "That hop is nice t i "ii to for a while but not all righ:. It's not Jazz all ll'.rn nations it's more an ove "cise. You've got to have that kad. too . . ' In ansiver to the question "What is Jazz?" igaui "in his b'.yhc.o.l New Orleans, Jazz was simpiy a s;oiy told in s.ruiigly rythmic song, pii-nped out 'from the heart' with i nerous, exciting ex-citing beat. To Trumpeter |