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43
THE MUSIC TRADE KEVIEW
JANUARY 22, 1921
E. B. MARKS TELLS OF NEW YORK AS A MUSICAL CENTER
President of the Edward B. Marks Music Co. Describes the Place the Metropolis Occupies in the
Realm of Music and the Many Mediums Through Which I t Dispenses Music to the Multitude
The following very interesting article on the
music of New York, and particularly on the
plans for the second Music Week to be held
in New York in May, was written by Edward
B. Marks, presi-
dent of the Edward
B. Marks Music
Co., and appears in
the current issue of
the new magazine,
"The Metropolis":
Everyone should
bear in mind New
York's great music
week to be cele-
brated here next
E. B. Marks
May. One has pnly
to follow the trend of events in recent years
to realize the immeasurable value of music not
only to New York but to the vast area of these
United States. In a highly interesting volume
compiled recently through the efforts of the
Music Chamber of Commerce, upon the subject
of "New York's First Music Week," there is
this foreword by C. M. Schwab:
"Whatever is beneficial to New York
is beneficial in a proportionate degree to
every community, large or small, in the
United States. This is so in business.
It is so in art. It is so in music."
We can take it for granted, therefore, that
the Music Week, the Metropolitan Opera, the
People's Concerts, the Community Sings in Cen-
tral Park, the Band Concerts in the Lewisohn
Stadium at the City College (so ably conducted
by Edwin Franko Goldman), the Philharmonic,
Symphony and Artists' Concerts at Carnegie and
Aeolian Halls and many other institutions of
similar character, bestow upon New York the
proud distinction and privilege of leadership
in events musical, not only in this hemisphere
but perhaps the world.
In the Spring of 1921 (May 1 to May 7), under
the chairmanship of Otto H. Kahn, New Yc -k's
Second Music Week will be celebrated. That
it will by far surpass the Music Week of 1920
is a foregone conclusion, although the records
show that 1,700 different organizations partici-
pated in the initial effort, and that 1,000,000 pub-
lic school children and perhaps 400,000 adult
churchgoers were reached, and untold joy and
comfort were brought to thousands of unfor-
tunates in hospitals, jails and asylums for or-
phans, the aged and the blind.
The press in New York and outside of New
York City carried the news of the city's co-
operation and achievement in this wonderful
field to millions of readers, with the result that
The Big Hit of the Season
INTHEDl/IC
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By FRANK H. GREY
THE FOXTROT BEAUTIFUL
NOW
Released on the following
Records and Rolls
RECORDS
ROLLS
Arto
Aeolian
Brunswick
Ediaon
Gennett
Emerion
OKeh
Grey Gull
Paramount
Pathe
Victor
Artempo
Columbia
Connorized
Imperial
Kimball
Mel-O-Dee
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Pianoatyle
Q R S
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Standard
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M. WITMARK & SONS
Publishers
New York City
thirteen governors of other States endorsed its
altruistic feature and planned similar Music
Weeks in their own States.
Let us take another angle. Do the magnifi-
cent edifices of the film along Broadway, where
millions of New Yorkers and strangers find
amusement at reasonable outlay, exist because
of the pictures only? Ask any one of the nightly
audiences whether he or she is not there partly
because of the lure of the music. You will find
that it is Maestro Riesenfeld who draws tens
of thousands into the Rialto and Rivoli regu-
larly week after week because of his picked,
well-directed orchestra of sixty men. I knew a
French gardener who commuted regularly for
years with his entire family from Great Neck,
Long Island, to hear Dr. Riesenfeld's musical
selections at the Rialto, because he considered
it a liberal musical education, and he found the
music alone worth the cost of the trip. The
magnificent Capitol, on Broadway, with its
sumptuous surroundings and enormous seating
capacity—isn't it the wonderful orchestra of
seventy-five men, masterfully conducted by Mr.
Erdo Rappe, that makes its success possible
fully as much as any other contributing factor?
All the chorus girls and ballets tried out at vari-
ous times failed to fill in or draw the honest
applause that greets the conductor at every per-
formance.
To those New Yorkers who love to trip the
"light fantastic," who oppose the much-discussed
"Blue Laws" and enjoy their little supper and
dance after theatre, music means much, espe-
cially when dispensed at our best hotels or lead-
ing amusement resorts by a favorite dance leader
of the day, such as Paul Whiteman, Art Hick-
man, Henri Conrad, Hazay Natzy (of the Bil't-
more), Knecht (of the Waldorf), Joe Smith
(of the Plaza), Leo Erdody (of the Pennsyl-
vania), Max Fells (of the Vanderbilt, Delia
Kobbia Room), Ben Selvin, Nick Orlando, Joe
Samuels, Sam Lenin (Roseland), Al Jockers,
Harry Raderman, Banjo Wallace, Duane Sawyer,
Dave Kaplan, Earl Fuller, Rudy Wiedoft, Saxi
Holtsworth, and many of the other celebrities
in the fields of high-class melody or "jazz."
But it is not alone the aristocrat, or the "plute,"
or the college boy, or the higher classes gen-
erally who derive the main benefit from music
in New York. It is rather the middle classes
and the masses that revel in it. The "Tired
Business Man," for instance, or the professional
man finds in the music of an "Irene," "Mary,"
"Little Miss Charity," or a "Chu Chin Chow," a
very restful tonic^for his nerves, after a strenu-
ous day at the office. And when it comes right
down to the masses in New York, with millions
of clerks, laborers, workers, socialists, idlers,
and its great underworld of crooks, degenerates,
nondescripts, and all kinds gathered from every
corner of the globe and jumbled together in one
heterogeneous mass in the melting pot of the
greatest city, who will deny that it is music as
much as any other element that keeps the seeth-
ing contents from boiling over, and averts the
unrest that might suddenly blow the existing
government into the rule of the Soviet? If you
question this, watch the makeup of the gallery
line on opera nights or study the faces at the
park or pier concerts.
Half the worth-while joy of living to rich and
poor alike is music, because, like art, it is one
of the better things in life and only the better
things are worth living for. There isn't a
single home in the entire metropolis that doesn't
at some season of the year enjoy its bit of music,
even if it is only of the "canned" variety. New
York wouldn't be a fit place to live in without
music, and that's what music has done for New
York.
Early last week Robert Crawford, sales man-
ager of Irving Berlin, Inc., became the proud
daddy of a baby boy.
.:.
THE NEXT WAL'
HIT
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Kiss
THE NEXT BR
HIT
WILL B
OMYO
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"NAUGHTY WALTZ"
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