Presto

PRESTO
Presto
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY.
Published Every Saturday at 407 South Dearborn
Street, Old Colony Building, Chicago, 111.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT -
Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234.
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
mercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
Post Office, Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879.
Subscription, $2 a year; 6 months, $1; Foreign, $4.
Payable In advance. No extra charge in United States
possessions, Cuba and Mexico. Rates for advertising on
application.
Items of news and other matter are solicited and if
of general interest to the music trade will be paid for
at space rates. - Usually piano merchants or salesmen
in the smaller cities are the best occasional corre-
spondents, and their assistance is invited.
Forms close at noon every Thursday. News mat-
ter should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the
same day. Advertising copy should be in hand before
Tuesday, five p. m., to insure preferred position. Full
page display copy should be in hand by Monday noon
preceding publication day. Want advs. for current
week, to insure classification, must not be later than
Wednesday noon.
Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 407 So.
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1923.
WHEN MUSIC IS WICKED
A champion of the Volstead law says that
jazz is "more vicious than whiskey." When
the reformers go to such extremes in their
denunciations of whatever it may be their
purpose to crucify, do they ever pause to
analyze their verbal thrusts? In this onslaught
upon jazz do they know that many very virtu-
ous and wise musical doctors have dissected
that distemper and proved it a living tissue
in some of the greatest master works of the
world's greatest creators of divine harmonies ?
Do they know that both jazz and rag-time
have been traced back to the ancient com-
posers whose place in both sacred and secular
music, is as immovable as the rock of ages?
What, then, can there be about jazz that
is so terribly offensive to the self-decreed
graduates in the moral attributes? When they
persist in charging music with the highest
sins in the catalogue, do they ever think that,
like old dog Tray, it is association, and not
innate cussedness, that seems, to some people,
to bar sweet music in certain of its forms of
expression, from the higher chambers of the
devout ?
•It is well understood that poetry, like fic-
tion, may be tainted. The mind of the writer
may easily revel in salacious pictures calcu-
lated to spread corruption. The brush of the
painter may do the same with almost equally
baneful .xesults. But the musical .composer
can not'by any possibility create a succession
of sounds,- nor invoke a series of harmonic
chords, by which to give expression to a lewd
thought. That can only be possible when the
musical theme in some way recalls or re-
echoes sortie" libidinous' words or suggests
sorpe^ bacchanalian scene,
And that kind of tone-picture can only fol-
low, or' accompany, the words or the sugges-
tive ,scene J ,. v -_Sh^rn of the. vers^ or the picture,
the music becomes limpidly pure, or it was so
before its association with its sister arts.
There is just now a tendency to charge
much of the jazz abuse, or rather abuse of the
jazz, to the "sensuous saxophone." Of course,
no means of purely mechanical expression can
be in any degree immoral unless the human
element that actuates it is vile. The saxo-
phone is as innocent of guile as a little chapel
organ. It is a cunning combination of brass
and reed, and it is possible of more persuasive
pleading for right doing, and virtuous delight
in sweet sound, than the voices of a hundred
Billy Sundays. But, like anything else, the
sonorous voice of the saxophone may be dis-
torted and made by association to seem to
beckon the wrong way.
Music, as some really great writers have
said, can only be pure. If it seems to the
eager minds of the true reformers to be any-
thing less, then the fault is with something
outside of music itself. It is evil associations.
And certainly it cannot be charged to any of
the instruments of music. The man who de-
votes his life to spreading the gospel of music
is a true missionary. And the would-be re-
former who assails music, or any of its forms
of expression, may well be eyed with sus-
picion as to either his good sense or his san-
ity. And so the dealer in music may give to
himself some sjiare of the real well-doing that 1
is so often'claimed but not wholly deserved
by the self-avowed reformer.
"DOING WELL" DANGEROUS
A syndicate writer recently said that the
cause of most business failures is too much
satisfaction—the disposition to be perfectly
contented to "let well enough alone." Isn't
that true in the piano business, whether re-
sulting in failure or only in the dog-trot move-
ment that suggests utter indifference to any-
thing better than to live and lope along
Success is seldom behind. Usually it is the
thing just ahead. We strive for it eagerly, if
we ever get it, and once won we scarcely
recognize it. We still look ahead, as if we were
traveling on a fast train and had passed the
half-way station. Then, if we continue to
move, in time we may conclude that further
effort is not necessary, and quit. That is the
time to retire. But the perfectly satisfied
piano dealer seldom gets anywhere. He is a
failure in any sense of accomplishment.
To be contented with things as they are
seldom means that things are very good. To
plod along, with no better ambition than to
meet all obligations and keep the commercial
head above water is not winning success. It
may be creditable, under some circumstances.
It is usually a safe procedure. It certainly
can be admirable in the case of a man who
has family responsibilities, and feels that to
risk greater enterprise might lead to a sacri-
fice of the comforts he owes his dependents.
But that condition almost never applies to
the business of selling pianos.
It is the one great point of vantage in the
retail piano business that money-risk, dispro-
portionate to positive results, is not demand-
ed of the dealer who determines to expand his
business, and so augment his profits. The in-
vestment is nearly all in energy, activity, the
stir of intellectual and physical contact with
the undeveloped demand. The dealer knows
his prospects, or some proportion of them. He
is familiar with the country 'round about. He
can begin his missionary work at a place cer-
November 10, 1923
tain to bring quick results, and he can follow
along without any let-up, arousing dormant
business and producing profits which have
been permitted to pass, as all opportunities
pass when indifference, or perfect content-
ment, slumbers along the roadside.
The piano business is one of intense activ-
ity, if it is much of a business at all. It is not
a lazy man's job. Nor is it the profitable pur-
suit of the one who' is satisfied to let well
enough alone. And the present is a good time
to realize this and to win a full success in-
stead of a partial failure
KENTUCKY MUSIC DEALER
TO SELL QULBRANSEN
J. C. Lay Has Interesting Territory Located in
Mountains of East Kentucky.
J. C. Lay. of the Corbin Music Shop, Corbin, Ky.,
was a visitor to the Gulbransen-Dickinson Co., Chi-
cago, last week. Mr. Lay is the owner of an active
music shop and is doing a good business in the Ken-
tucky town. He has heretofore been a dealer in
small musical instruments, but has arrived at the
conclusion that the addition of pianos to his line
would be profitable. He has selected the Gulbransen
line with which he expects to attract a good trade in
his section.
The territory in which Mr. Lay is located is ad-
mirable for the player trade. The people in the
mountain regions will prove very favorable to Mr.
Lay's agencies and the Gulbransen will be a good
seller there.
ENTANGLEMENTS OF OLD
PIANO INDUSTRY SET RIGHT
Affairs of the Kroeger Piano Co. Now Give Promise
of Happy Settlement.
In the L'nited States District Court, Southern Dis-
trict of New York, the case of the Patterson Piano
Case Co. against the Kroeger Piano Co. has reached
the point of adjustment indicated by the official
notice that on the 31st day of October, 1923, an order
was made by Hon. Julian W. Mack, reading in part
as follows:
"The creditors as^ well as the parties in interest
to show cause in the United States Court House and
Post Office Building, in the City of New York, on the
15th day of November, at 10 o'clock in the forenoon,
why an order should not be made approving and
settling the accounts of the receiver, fixing the com-
pensation of the receiver; of David W. Kahn, as so-
licitor for the complainant and receiver, and of Henry
H. Harkavy, as solicitor for the defendant, for ser-
vices rendered, declaring a final dividend to be paid
upon all claims filed and allowed and authorizing the
receiver to pay the same and discharging the receiver
and cancelling his bond. It is further ordered, that
the receiver be authorized to offer for sale to the
highest bidder all of the uncollected accounts receiv-
able, and in the event no bid is received that the said
receiver be authorized to abandon the said accounts
receivable.
The amounts asked for by the receiver or any at-
torney are as follows: David W. Kahn, attorney for
the receiver, $3,000; Henry H. Harkavy, attorney for
defendant, $750.
A hearing for the consideration of the matters re-
ferred to will be held before Hon. Julian W. Mack,
Circuit Judge, in the United States Court House and
Post Office Building, New York, on the 15th day of
November, at 10 o'clock in the forenoon.
CELEBRATES GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY.
Jacob Schoenberger, president of the Lechner &
Schoenberger Co., Pittsburgh, Pa., and Mrs. Schoen-
berger recently celebrated their golden anniversary
of their marriage. The enjoyable social event took
place at thejr home on Ben Hur street. There were
present at the dinner celebration thirty persons, in-
cluding the children and grandchildren of Mr. and
Mrs. Schoenberger. In the evening there was an in-
formal reception in the assembly room of the Sweden-
borgian Church, of which Mr. and Mrs. Schoenberger
are members.
DETROIT CHRISTMAS CLUB.
The Christmas Club idea is being pushed quite
vigorously by the People's Outfiting Co., Detroit,
Mich., and reports that the membership is quite
large. Manager Reddaway predicts a holiday busi-
ness more than double that of last year.
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