Word: abed
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...grin, stepped on the stand with some of the greatest names in jazz behind him-Clarinetist Barney Bigard, Trombonist Jack Teagarden and Drummer Sid Catlett. Out in the smoke, waiting for the first golden notes, were half the big noises of U.S. sweet & swing-Johnny Mercer, Woody Herman, Abe Lyman, Benny Goodman (see PEOPLE...
Manhattan-born Abe, a onetime coat label salesman, thought his radio listeners ought to know what he looks like. "Am I fat?" he asked them. "Am I sloppy? Am I bald? Well, my answer...
...Abe defines himself as a parlor wit who thinks of radio as a parlor instrument ("some homes got them next to toilets"). But he seems hard-pressed to transport the highball-and-cigaret intimacy of his friends' living rooms into the U.S. parlor. His cement-mixer voice strains with eagerness to wow the audience. And while most of his parodies and songs are funny, the jokes which string them together sometimes clank (sample: "As for personal habits ... I ain't got none...
...reputation as a court jester for Hollywood sophisticates troubles Abe. He resents being called a cynic: "Cynics disbelieve real things; I disbelieve phonies." He claims he is working roughly along the lines of Will Rogers, except that he uses a piano instead of a rope. "The people . . . are just like me. ... I don't want to talk like Carl Sandburg, but I like the people...
...expecting to get a sponsor for the new show, hopes that the people learn to feel the same way about Abe...