At 9 o'clock on the night of May 13, beneath the potted palms of the Empire Room in Chicago's bustling Palmer House, veteran Bandmaster Jan Garber shuffled the sheets of his music, shook a stick at his first trumpet. A blast, and then, to the Jerome & Schwartz, 1903 ragtime tune Bedelia, Tin Pan Alley banged and tootled back onto the bigtime air. The broadcast was Mutual's first using ASCAP music after the last-minute signing with the songwriters' society in St. Louis (TIME, May 19).
But for a really sonorous send-off ASCAP had to...
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