Despite storms and other annoying little devices, Lowell House swears that Bunny Berigan and band are going to be at their dance tonight. Latest reports had Chairman Ash Campbell moaning about some spruce trees which had to be skied up to the dining hall, he having blithely persuaded the arborist to "deliver" them on Thursday, instead of Wednesday afternoon; but he promises that all will be snug and cozy, with Mr. Berigan pledged to soft and danceable tempos.

In re the music, Bunny is marvelous when "on" and still worth hearing when not. The band plays.

While speaking of House dances, don't be fooled by the "Joe Nevils and his Orchestra" that Kirkland has advertised for next week. The outift is the one formerly fronted by Blanche Calloway and at last hearing was quite good.

This columnist has been catching sundry buffets from some of the schools' more ardent dance fans because of his claim that Artie Shaw's retirement from the dance business was due to more than a desire for philosophical peace and tranquility; that in fact it was a rather hasty exodus. We have quite plainly thought that Artie was at times more than a little queer in his actions.

The following is quoted from an AP dispatch of several days ago: "Shaw's marriage to Lana Turner last night had all Hollywood baffled . . . They reportedly had not addressed a civil word to each other throughout the filming of their recent picture . . . Lana Turner, who has been engaged for three years to a Hollywood script writer, notified her "flance" of her marriage to Shaw by telephone . . . after the ceremony. She said, 'While on our way to a party we started discussing marriage, and decided we wanted to get married.'"

There is no doubt that we were all wrong, that Artie Show is an eminently sane young man, and that his critics are raving idiots.

Last week we told you that we were going to take one of these new hardpoint RCA Victor needles and put it through some tests and see what happened. A perfectly new RCA Victor record was selected to show up any imperfection due to wearing of the record surface or of the needle. It and the needle were put on an RCA Victor victoria with automatic record changer that had just been adjusted and checked.

The record was time and found to take three minutes for one complete playing and changing, which means that it would take fifty hours for the one thousand playings that the needle is advertised to do without harming the record. Notice that this is a very favorable test from the standpoint of RCA, since if the record would wear at all, it should wear down to the shape of the needle (it's supposed to fit at the outset.) A more strenuous test would be to use the needle on different records for a thousand times.

However, the record was played a few times and then a recording taken of the record playing. At that time, the tone was quite good. The record was then allowed to play uninterruptedly for twelve hours with a fan blowing across its surface to dissipate dirt and heat. At that time, another recording of the record playing was made and the needle was tried on a fresh record. The original record was literally worn away in some places. You just didn't get anything at all, the whole surface being hopelessly scarred so that the tone was almost nil--this after 250 times, or one-fourth of what the needle is supposed to do with-out harming the record.

When played on a fresh record, the needle's tone was not too good, the high frequencies being very fuzzy. In other words, the needle (from one case--not too good a test, it's true) seems to be good for only two hundred sides--and that at dire risk to your records. Either the needle is bad, the record surface poor--or quite possibly both. Cactus needles look like a far safer bet.

* * * * * *

Those of you who are interested in hearing the difference between good hot style with technique and good sweet style with technique might well compare Tommy Dorsey's record of "Stardust" (Victor) and Jack Jenny's new Vocalion platter of the same. Jenny is a studio musician who has been playing around New York for years, making some swell records with such groups as the Red Norvo Octet and later, with the Paul Whiteman recording groups.

He is one of the few trombonists around that manages to sound anything at all like the famous Jack Teagarden, his solo on "I Surrender Dear" (Columbia) being a good example.

His new one of "Stardust" starts out on excellent ideas--distinctly unusual since even the purists usually give the public the benefit of a "straight" melody first chorus. But while his ideas are startling and beautifully executed, they never withdraw from the velvety tone of the Dorsey type--a criticism from the standpoint of pure hot, but also a destruction of the argument that good hot men can't play suavely for public consumption.

For a long time I've been getting post cards requesting me to print a list of what are the ten "best swing records." Quite frankly, I don't want to stick my neck out to the extent of doing this. Human tastes are extremely variable and therefore record fans spend a major portion of their time fighting about what is best and why.

However, from time to time there will be printed here lists of what record sales and the opinion of musicians show to be really good records. Some of these are: "Just a Mood" by the Teddy Wilson Quartet (Brunswick), a blues recording done with the aid of Red Norve (xylo-phone), Harry James (trumpet), and Johnny Simmons (bass). This is blues as it should be--quiet, relaxed, and with long, luscious ideas. Harry James plays phenomenally, although I suspect that most of his solo is swiped from several old Louis Armstrong records. . . .

"Sometimes I'm Happy" by Benny Goodman and his band (Victor--recorded in 1935). Acclaimed by French jazz critic Huges Panassic as "the greatest ensemble record by a white band," this is a diso with excellent ensembles, some beautiful sax solo work by Vido Musso, piano by Jesse Stacy, and the band playing in a soft style that it was very shortly to lose for four years.