Band Will Seek Money to Support Trips to Princeton, Army Contests

Football trips to Princeton and Army hang in the balance of the Harvard Band's current campaign to save its staggering financial situation by commercial recordings and concert tours. The Cornell trip has definitely been eliminated.

University and Alumni penuriousness has forced the band to schedule a South American tour and several one-night concert stands to raise the necessary funds.

The University stomachs $1000 of the band's debts annually, an amount less than the cost of one football trip. To stem off bankruptcy, the band seeks aid from the alumni each year, aid that is usually quick in coming through.

Alumni Fall Down

This year, however, alumni support failed, with less than one fifth of the usual $5000 dribbling in. Graduate members of the band even revoked on their promise to pay for the expensive Virginia trip--after the trip was made.

University, aid, beyond the $1000, is proffered under terms which are unacceptable, according to Manager Joseph J. Borgatti, Jr. '45, Every penny is entangled in strings which would keep the band spiritually and physically under the dictatorship of University Hall.

Don't Want H.A.A. Backing

Bergatti has refused help offered by the H.A.A., for he feels that draining the resources of apparently poverty-stricken athletics is not justifiable.

To stave off slow strangulation, "the best in the business" began cutting itself into wax last year. Lately, however, their vanguard in the commercial recording field. The Ivy League Band Album, has begun to lose ground. Dartmouth, with recording plans of its own in progress, has cut the Crimson transcriptions from its campus, and, Princeton, for no apparent reason, seems to be following suit.

The hand currently hopes to sell transcriptions on the open market. Capitol and Disc made overtures last fall, but James C. Petrillo, President of the American Federation of Musicians, successfully blocked plans by banning all non-union discs from sale in shops selling union made transcriptions.

Non-Union Music Back In

Petrillo's virtual strangle-hold on record shops, however, loosened this week when he cancelled all canned-music contracts and forbade union members to transcribe any new records. The Crimson band can now hope to compete and only awaits the 'go' signal from the two companies.

If the contracts with Capitol and Disc come through, unlimited possibilities for the spring term will be within reach. High enthusiasm among band members has made intense activities outside the football season plausible for the first time in band history, and these efforts may bring further coinage into the coffers.

Boxing Concert First

The finals of the Golden Gloves Tournament in Lowell, February 17, is the first stand on the tentative agenda. The Lowell Sun, run mostly by Harvard graduates, has boosted the band each fall for decades and interest among the natives runs high, according to the invitation.

"Wintergreen" may deafen Arena and Garden audiences at the Yale basketball and hockey games, also, if the where-withal to pay the University for trucking of the instruments can be raked up, Borgatti stated.

Hope for Harvard Club Stand

A concert at the Harvard Club conclave in Philadelphia the second week in May is another tentative on the spring schedule. Thinness of the band's wallet would probably put round-trip transportation of instruments and players largely on the personal resources of the members, unless the alumni kick in.

Although Pan American Airlines recently estimated a profit for the band in a 40 day airborne trip from Mexico City to Rio de Janeiro, band officials are still wary, for the South American trip's financial possibilities are a big gamble.

Borgatti listed the factors favoring such a trip; South America, much infiltrated by German marching music, is thought, to be a good possible market for football songs; the trip would probably create a new demand on Harvard band albums; and such a jaunt would arouse greater enthusiasm among band members and thus increase its backing.

Borgatti for sees great difficulties to be overcome, however, before plans can become more than tentative.