Archived from the Beautiful Instrumentals Yahoo Group, 4/30/2007
In the late 70's (I'm too lazy to dig out the files to be exact but 1979 I believe) I was contacted by the President of the TelePrompTer Corporation by phone from New York. It was before my wife and I had established the office and store in Sherman Oaks, CA. We still worked out of our home and we had been doing the Starborne recordings for a year or two.
The fellow was anxious to meet with me in New York. He asked that I pick up a ticket they would have for me at the airport and get to their Manhattan HQ within the week. It was rather important, concerned the music we were doing, and could not wait.
Well, I told him it had to wait more than a week. The call came in on Monday and I was in the process of packing displays, equipment and record albums into our station wagon for a trip to the NAFMB Radio Convention in San Francisco. [The convention where I first met Forrest Patten, if my memory is correct.] There seemed to be some panic on the other end of the phone when I said I had obligations and could not make the trip that week... he'd be calling me back in a few minutes.
The second call from the head of TelePrompTer [his name was Russ... last name maybe Carsens... I don't recall] and he asked if I could fly over to Las Vegas the next day and meet with TelePrompTer's Chairman of the Board. Ummmmmm... at that point I figured it was something I probably should do since the Chairman was Jack Kent Cooke, rather well known in the Los Angeles professional sports and business world. Owner then of the Los Angeles Kings and Lakers, the Forum where they played, as well as a horse farm and other interests.
At the time I knew Jack's net worth was $85 million personally... I know because he was in the midst of a well-publicized divorce and his residence had been established in LV while matters went on. I call him Jack because he asked me to and we had continuing contact for all the years he lived, through his death while he owned the Washington Redskins. Oh well, back to the reason for sharing this.
Cooke had heard the music that I was producing and tracked me down. I have no idea how or who he used to track me down but he had a rather complete picture of the recordings we had done and the sounds that we had done.
He was interested in having me head an effort to reprogram the Muzak Division of the TelePrompTer Corporation. Jack indicated that he had some of his people making inquiries of people in the music programming community and was finding it difficult to make progress and needed some immediate action. Cooke's opinion was that Muzak's programming was crap. It needed changes and updates from the library to the programming and it was needed NOW!
Would I do it? I said no, but that I would be more than happy to find the "right person". We instantly agreed to work together and get things done right there... right now... that day! So much happened during a day with Jack Cooke [including his receiving a call from Coach George Allen — then with San Diego I believe — and calls by both of us to various places around the world plotting what could be done].
[Moving to New York was not high on my list of desires after having lived there for a couple of years, having started and expanded a business recently in LA, and having no proven track record in the hands-on programming. There had to be better people out there and I just didn't see myself doing better than guys like Phil, Marlin and others, who already lived in the New York area, who were doing excellent jobs programming.] I think Phil was one of the contacts that had been made by TelePrompTer during this time of evolution, but I could be wrong.
To make a long story even longer, Rod Baum, who was working for Bonneville in New Jersey at the time, became the final selection to head programming for Muzak. A massive effort was done to purge the music library of what had become an original song factory, with Muzak employees having claimed the copyright ownership of what Muzak was playing around the world. An updated library of pop and standard "covers" was done by producers from Europe and the US. Starborne was active in the production.
It was very difficult to find a Strangers In The Night being played by Muzak when I was first contacted. The Night of Strangers may have been a title that was in play on Muzak and raking in royalty payments for some of the management.
Ahhhhh... memories.
Jim Schlichting, Starborne Productions
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Photo Credit: Jack Kent Cook Foundation
