Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MARCH 11,
THE MUSIC TRADE
1922
9
REVIEW
CONTINUED IMPROVEMENT IN BUFFALO PIANO TRADE
CHRISTMAN GRAND IN GUILD PLAY
Volume of Sales Steadily Increasing—Advertising Plus Energetic Sales Efforts Producing Excellent
Results—Wurlitzer Staff Attends Opening Night to Hear New Hope-Jones Organ
Scores in Climax of "The Wife With a Smile"
at the Garrick Theatre, New York—Chosen by
Technical Director for Stage Setting
BUFFALO, N. Y., March 6.—The trade outlook
in Buffalo shows continued improvement and the
volume of sales continues to increase. Deal-
ers who are backing carefully planned advertising
campaigns with intelligent sales effort and real
values are finding no cause for complaining about
"poor business."
The Main street retailer who was interviewed
by The Review' correspondent reports February
sales broke all records for this month as far as
this firm is concerned. Sales of medium-priced
players continue to be a feature of business,
while used instruments are showing increasing
activity.
A steady improvement in the industrial situa-
tion, unprecedented activity in the building trades
and the opening of the lake navigation season are
all expected to be important factors in boosting
business within the next few weeks.
H. J. Hackenheimer, president of C. Kurtz-
niann & Co., has just returned from a month's
tour of Southern States. He reports a steady
improvement in conditions there and predicts
this region will buy musical instruments in
steadily increasing quantities.
Mr. Hackenheimer says fairly good prices for
cotton, tobacco and other Southern crops and a
gradual return to normalcy in this region will
soon be followed by better business.
More than 300 employes of the Rudolph Wur-
litzer plant attended "opening night" of the new
$3,000,000 Lafayette Theatre here and heard the
$40,000 Hope-Jones organ played for the first
time. The organ is being featured by the thea-
tre in its first programs.
Two Kurtzmann grand pianos were selected
for exclusive use in the new theatre. The origi-
nal Kurtzmann plant was erected practically on
the site of the theatre in 1848.
Henry Bolin, manager of the J. W. Martin
Music Co. store at Geneva, had a narrow escape
from death while driving his car on March 1.
The car left the road while on a bridge, but
hung over a high bank and its occupants were
rescued from their precarious position.
Sam Poindexter, thirty-six years old, was re-
arrested as he left the Erie County Penitentiary
a few days ago, on a charge of having stolen a
talking machine in Boston. He presented the
machine to a lady friend last Christmas, ac-
cording to the police, and then the trio, includ-
ing the machine, disappeared before payment
was made. A charge of grand larceny will re-
A Christman studio grand, manufactured by
sult in Poindexter being taken back to Boston, it the Christman Piano Co., New York, is the power
is expected.
behind the climax in the Guild's recent produc-
Clifford Ford, sales manager of the Robert L. tion at the Garrick Theatre, New York, "The
Loud music store, has been appointed chairman Wife With a Smile." This is the second time
of the reception committee of the Buffalo Ki- that a Christman piano has played a part in a
wanis Club, and will be found at the Statler Guild play, the auspicious debut being in "Mr.
each Wednesday noon making club members Pirn Passes By," which began its successful
career at the Guild last year and is now touring
and guests feel at home.
At a banquet of the Engineering Society of the country.
Buffalo on February 28 a radiophone was demon-
In "The Wife With a Smile" the piano is the
strated. The demonstra-
tion was featured by a
Columbia Grafonola con-
cert, with Columbia rec-
ords used.
Bi-weekly
meetings
will probably be held by
the music group of the
Buffalo C h a m b e r of
Commerce in the near
future. At one of these
meetings all of the trade
interests will gather and
at the other programs of
special interest to talking
machine dealers will be
given. At the meeting of
the talking machine men
some of the releases for
the month following the
gathering may be played.
Brett's Music Store at
Niagara Falls has been
Christman Grand in Scene From "The Wife With a Smile"
enlarged and with it is now incorporated the sole comfort of the poor wife, whose only defense
Edison phonograph agency of Curt C. Andrus. against her vulgar husband's tyranny is the hours
she can spend alone with her music. For eight
The store is at 320 Niagara street.
One of the most important music store proj- years this wife, played by Blanche Yurka, has
ects in Buffalo's history is soon to be announced, smiled and smiled wearily and ironically at the
according to information reaching The Review dreadful outer life and the pitiful inner life she
correspondent. If this project becomes a reality must lead. Then one night after a particularly
a large new exclusive music shop will be added humiliating scene before her friends her husband
punished her by locking her piano. She does not
to the city's list.
know it until he has gone. Sobbing with rage
against him, she blindly creeps to the loved piano,
VETERAN STIEFF_EMPLOYE DIES
passes her hands over its surface to steady her-
BALTIMORE, MIL, March 6.—Oliver M. Hitcshew, self, and then sits down before it. Her music
who had been connected with the Stieff piano arranged, she attempts to open it. Realization
factory for the past twenty-five years, died at his comes to her that this is the last demonstration
home in Forest Park last week.
in refined cruelty by her husband. She staggers
across the room and falls against his desk in
which he keeps a revolver, unloaded, because
each day his favorite joke is to press it against
his temples and pull the trigger. With feverish
haste she loads it, and the curtain of the first
act falls.
Tone, Appearance, Dur-
ability, Moderate Price
The Ludwig has them all: a tone of delightful richness—case
models all that you could ask in graceful beauty—veneers in
Nature's daintiest weaves—guaranteed for a lifetime. Ludwig
prices are much lower than you would expect. Let us prove that
Ludwig is America's biggest piano value by sending a Ludwig on
approval if your territory is vacant.
Ludwig & Co.
Willow Avenue and 136th Street
New York
The Ludwig Reproducing Piano
Grands
Uprights
Players
The second act is an example of tension clev-
erly drawn out. Finally the husband shoots at
bis wife and misses. They are reconciled then
for a time.
Sheldon Viele, the technical director of the
Guild, chose a studio grand from the Christman
Piano Co., because, as he stated, "it expressed
in its lines and tone the delicacy and grace which
this wife who smiled would have chosen for her
music room."
MUSIC DOESN'T^PPEAL TO SOVIET
An interesting dispatch from Moscow, Russia,
concerning taxes on musical instruments, pub-
lished in the New York daily papers, reads as
follows:
"Grand pianos are heavily hit by the new lux-
ury taxes framed by the Moscow Soviet. Each
owner of a grand piano must pay an annual tax
of 750,000 rubles, which exceeds the annual
wages of many Government employes.
"Ordinary pianos are taxed 600,000 a year and
phonographs must pay 200,000."
Consult the universal Want Directory of
The Review. In it advertisements are inserted
free of charge for men who desire positions,