Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 734, 7 August 1953, Page 24

Open Microphone

— a, ti NEWS OF BROADCASTERS,

" ON AND OFF THE RECORD,

By

Swarf

| LITTLE regretfully, Mary | Prudence Gregory, better known to listeners as "Mary Prudence," will leave what she calls the "haywire world of radio" on August 15. But she will be as

busy as ever. One of her first moves will be a trip to Wanganui and to collect and attend to the details of her trousseau, because a few months hence she will be married to A. J. ("Joe") Cassin, at present a member of the staff of the Design Office, Ministry of Works,

Gisborne, but who is being transferred to Alexandra. Although she’s only 28 years old, Prue Gregory has had an interesting career which should help her when she becomes a housewife. Born in Hamilton, she was educated at the Sacred Heart Girls’ College, Napier. She has been a member of the Napier, Gisborne and Palmerston North Repertory Societies, and the. Gisborne ‘Operatic Society. She was for some time Lady Editor of the Manawatu Evening Standard, and later a general reporter on the Gisborne Herald. Then, she told me the other day, she went to Australia on a sort of working holiday. On returning to New Zealand she joined the staff of 2XG Gisborne when the station was being built, and the ‘announcers and others had to do their job with sound effects provided by carpenters, plasterers, plumbers and their mates. In 1949 Miss Gregory ran the first Women’s Programme for the station, and a year later she became assistant to the Supervisor of Women’s Programmes at Head Office, Commercial Division of the NZBS in Wellington, where her job consisted mainly of writing sustaining material" for Women’s Hours-at the four ZB stations and 1XH and 2ZA-and for the X-class stations. Miss Gregory has also written many scripts on women’s topics, includ- . ing book reviews, fashion reports, film reviews and overseas news. She started several new features. Among them were What Women are Doing and Home Department, which was all about home en Oe een ae oS | as eee ~ eel net Reon

management. Another of her programmes was Wellington Diary, broadcast by 1, 3 and 4ZB, 2ZA and 1XH, and still another was Leaves from the Turnbull] Library. Wellington listeners came to know her veice best in 2ZB’s Saturday morning Gift Quiz, which she conducted for a year. Nobody can be connected with public entertainment and instruction for long and avoid the odd embarrassing moment. One of Prue’s turned up in Gift Quiz, when an alarm clock stacked away among the prizes on top of the studio piano got off to a gallop and she had to grope for the silencér while keeping up the flow of merry chit-chat. Apart from broadcasting, Miss Gregory has been busy as a foundation member and later secretary in Wellington of the International Club of ,Arts and Science, whose forbidding name . masks simply a.cultural ground upon which New Zealanders and new settlers can meet for mutual entertainment, and discussion of any subject they like, "T think we'll like Alexandra immensely, because we're both fond of skiing, and the grounds aren't far away," added Prue, who also hopes to do some free-lance writing.

MUSIC .OF ROBERT FARNON

aA AWN Auckland admirer of the music of " ~ Robert Farnon asks for some information about the light. orchestral conductor and composer, Farnon, who was born in Toronto, Canada, on July 24, 1917, had- already established a reputation as a composer of’ seriotis:» music before the Second World War, and since

then. he has written and directed a reat deal of incidental music for

films. He is also a most versatile performer on a number of instruments; and in his war-time shows had a habit of suddenly. quitting the conductor’s rostrum to give a hand, with: the tympani or add a trombone obbligato to the general output. Farnon built a 46-piece orchestra from first-class material, with Reg. Leopold as first violin and the world-famous Kenny Baker (not the singer) as trumpeter. He provided the band with the arrangements and compositions that have his own individual touch, The Farnon plan for light music is to take popular music and "play it at its best by giving it symphonic treatment." His compositions include symphonies, piano suites, a string quartet and songs, Probably his best-known piece is Jumping Bean. His recreations are golf and photography. Farnon and his Orchestra were heard in the BBC’s London Studio Melodies series broadcast some time ago by all the ZB stations and séveral National stations. He will be heard again from 3YA at 8.5 p.m. on Sunday, August 16, in a ecording called Journey Into Melody.

CHURCH CHOIRS AT NELSON

NELSON'S Civie Music Festival. for 1953 will end on Saturday, August 15, when nearly all the city’s churches will take part in a programme which in-

cludes massed singing of famous English anthems by Purcell, Sullivan

and Wesley. These will be conducted by Nelson’s Town Clerk (Frank Mitchell), who is an enthusiastic chorister and conductor of experience. The organ in the > School of Music (the instrument was bequeathed by Thomas Cawthron) will also be heard. Larger works on the pro-

gramme will be Mendelssohn’s Hymn of Praise and Sir Hubert Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens, conducted by two of the city’s conductor-organists, Eric Froggatt and Ralph Lilly. Station 2XN will relay the programme at 9.5 p-m. ¢

THE F.O.F.

Ebon a wants to know what makes the famous Negro jazz pianist "Fats" Waller live on. From all a ccounts he was a man who lived fully ‘and who possessed abundant good spirits which found expression in his. plaving.

But his nickname was anything but popular ' with him. When he went |

to England in 1938 he captivated the | country with the amazing things his | 4 GO 5 = eh OD

great hands, covering well over the usual tenth, could do with the keyboard, and by the way he retained the essence of ragtime and the party piano even in his most up-to-date offerings. Waller was born in New York and when a boy ran away from home to work in a little night club rather than follow the plans of his grandfather, Adolphe Waller, a German violinist, who wanted him to enter the Church. But he became an excellent organist and. played in many New York churches, as well as "in theatres and cinemas. -For some years he was accompanist to Bessie Smith, "the Queen of the Blues."’ He composed, among dozens of other very successful sdngs, "Ain’t Misbehavin’," "Honeysuckle’ Rose," and "I’m Crazy "Bout My Baby." Another reason why his memory will live on is that’ not long ago Waller (born in May, 1904, died in December, 1943) had a society named after him --‘The Friends of Fats," they call it. The F.O.F. was started in England by a number of collectors and musicians who approached Ed. Kirkeby, Waller’s, manager, during a tour of Europe with the Deep River Boys, who made available to them his own library of Waller works in the shape of recordings, soundtracks and photographs. The society is said to be strictly non-profitmaking. The only charge is a small fee to cover mimeographing the members’ regular bulletin, and Waller recordings can be secured at net cost by members only.

Annually, from May 18 to May 23, a Memorial Week is held in the United States and France. There is no club _to make special reference to Waller’s memory in New Zealand as far as I know, but-neither his name _ nor his music is forgotten, —

CO-PILOT

ol ESLIE BRIDGMONT, the BBC producer whose work has often been heard from the NZBS on BBC transcriptions, has launched out as a writer of detective fiction. When the publishers of. his book of reminiscences Leslie

Bridgmont Presents suggested that he should try himself out on a detective

novel he took up the idea giadly, and now he has developed a series of adventures in which the hero is "exSquadron Leader Cordell." This is not surprising as Bridgmont is an ex-pilot. The story is said to have all the marks of the whodunit — dope smuggling, blackmail, car smashes and aeroplane > pet eS ON eS es SS ge PRE Bn ee ei I OF

chases. The main character, ready to hop off to any part of the globe at a moment’s notice, is in the Drummond manner, ¥

SORRY, NO CAN DO

‘, HE BBC does many things for its listeners in other lands, taking pleasure in providing them with the fullest possible service of news, views and entertainment, but it is not, as

some people seem to think, a universal pro-

vider and information bureau. Recently the Corporation received from Sumatra, in Indonesia, an odd request. Could’ they, wrote an eager, musically-minded listener, please provide him with the prices of a B flat clarinet, alto saxophone, double bass and a drum? If these instruments could be bought in London, could the BBC arrange for them to be sent out to Indonesia? It was with the greatest regret that the BBC said that it could not.