Artistry bowed before racial prejudice again this week, right here in Boston, too, in a manner reminiscent of the Affaire Marian Anderson of two years ago. Those of you who heard Frankic Newton's broadcast last Sunday remember the sensitive guitar strummings and down to earth blues singing by Joshua White. Josh White accompanied Libby Hofman, who learned to sing the blues from him, over at the Balinese Room of the Somerset this past week. He has produced three fine albums, devoted especially to his songs, but a musician of his accomplishments is just another Negro to the innkeepers of Commonwealth Avenue. Of the leading local hotels, only the Ritz would let him sign the register, and they informed him there that the management would not be responsible for any observations the guests might pass in the elevator. Josh stayed at Mother's Lunch, a colored musicians' stopping place over on Columbus Avenue.

That wasn't all, however. White was only grudgingly permitted even to rehearse within the exclusive walls of the Somerset. Apparently he was to materialize in the Balinese Room in time for the program and evaporate as soon as he had twanged his final chord. His brother, who is in the Army, visited him one night, with the result that one of the bigwigs of the management foamed and ranted and all but had the soldier thrown out. It's the sort of story that keeps the Afro-American and the Chicago Defender well supplied with copy. . . .

I had intended to say a little about the Jazz Record Book all of two weeks ago, but yielded to Charlie Miller's return engagement wherein he carped so crisply at "Remember Pearl Harbor" and those other football songs. Perhaps next week there'll be room for it. . . . Count Basie's. "Harvard Blues" has sold over a hundred copies at Briggs and Briggs. That means twenty-five cents for George Frazier. Basie's publicity department ran an ad in Variety calling it "the year's most publicized record"; I imagine they must read this column. . . . The explosive trumpet of Bunny Berigan was to be heard last night over the air from the Totem Pole, and it was the Bunny of five years ago at that. When sober, Berigan can apparently still play the most exciting improvisations, from the standpoint of tone, melodic ideas, or what you will, of any white man, and last night, on numbers like "Lover Come Back to Be" and "Night and Day," supported by what sounded like a nice jazz band, I heard the Berigan of "King Porter Stomp" and "Song of India" all over again. . . . After a month of unexciting tons of wax, a few interesting records have finally appeared. Benny Goodman's "Jersey Bounce" and "String of Pearls" is certainly one of his finest since the halcyon days of '36.