November 19, 1927
P R E S T O-T I M E S
MUSIC TRADE NEWS
FROM PORTLAND, ORE.
Interesting Items from Lively Oregon City
Tells of Many Music Trade Activities—
New Haddorff Agency.
THINGS SAID OR SUGGESTED
FINE
FEATHERS.
Calvin Lee, at one time known as "Organ Cal,"
was a visitor to Presto-Times this week. Veterans
in the trade may recall him as a man whose life's
conduct was governed by wise saws and who amassed
a fairly large fortune selling organs, and later on,
pianos in the Ozarks. Among other characteristics
of the old organ man whose field was half a dozen
Missouri counties, was his disregard of sartorial cor-
rectness.
It was Cal's indifference to the niceties of dress
which recalled a funny incident in his life to John
Hart, the Barhett dealer, who accompanied him to
Chicago this week and who is the old organ man's
unofficial biographer.
The Yarn.
One time Calvin Lee was summoned to a meeting
of promoters at the Planters Hotel, St. Louis. The
purpose was to consider the project of developing one
of the unworked zinc mines which Lee owned. Be-
fore leaving for St. Louis Mrs. Lee tearfully begged
her husband to primp up and go before the dignified
promotion experts looking unlike the scarecrow he
usually resembled.
''Yo' ain't got a stitch fit to wear," was the good
woman's plaint.
"I hain't, eh? How 'bout this coat an' pants I'm
wearin'? I only bought 'em World's Fair year in
Chicago," was the comeback.
"They look a fright, an' yo' simply gotter get a
new suit an' hat," was the feminine verdict. "Now,
Calvin Lee, I want yo' promised word to buy a new
outfit before yo' meet the gen'lemen at the hotel.!
Promise," was the added exhortation.
"All right, mother, I promise."
"Somethin' serviceable an' sensible, an' shore all
wool. An' don' yo' alls fo'get to have a barber shave
befo' the meetin'."
"Shave, too," agreed Cal.
"Hee bee! Suits an' shaves, indeed," tittered Na-
poleon Cairns, who was Calvin's father-in-law and
the town pessimist. "What Cal needs is a guardeen.
Them promoters '11 skin him like a peeled tomatet."
To the Letter.
Cal kept his word to his wife in every item. Close
to the big station his eyes were attracted to a cloth-
ing emporium fronted by a row of wierd lay figures
draped in the extreme of slop shop criminality. To
the majority of wayfarers the shapeless togs that
hung in wrinkles and bulges about stiff wooden
bodies of the figures would be a deterrent to fur-
ther investigation. To Cal Lee, however, a coat was
a coat and a trousers a covering for the legs, and
about the timeliness of the cut or the seasonableness
of the pattern he didn't give an Ozark hoot.
Anyway, he was left no time to discover anoma-
lies in the styles. He had only paused for a second,
when a man jumped out from the dim recesses of
the store and yanked Cal to the sacrifice. What hap-
pened within in fifteen or twenty minutes Cal him-
self only remembers in a vague way.
When he emerged his body was clothed in one of
those killing collegian suits—an extreme type seen
in musical comedy or the funny supplements of Sun-
day newspapers. You could hear the plaid clear to
Olive street. It shrieked. The coat was cut low in
front and tight in the waist, from which the cloth
flared jauntily. The trousers were high-reefed and
wide and bulging at the seat and hips like a khaki
cavalry pants and the hat that went with the outfit
was of very remote vintage.
Hot Dog!
Calvin must have considered St. Louis people very
cheerful as he walked along. Everybody approached
him .smiling broadly. When he collided with a bar-
ber's pole he remembered the last request of his good
lady. He dreamily lay back while the tonsorial artist
plied shears and razor. When he was finally clipped,
scraped, perfumed and pomatummed to the barber's
taste and to the extent of $1.50 he proceeded on his
gorgeous way. On his rugged upper lip was what
the barber left of the whiskbroom mustache. It was
waxed and turned up like the lip glory of a Paris
boulevardier. He had obeyed his wife's behests all
right, but that good and sensible lady would never
approve of the thoroughness of his metamorphosis.
Possibly somebody has written about the psycho-
logical effects of clothes; the relation of tailoring
fantasies to mental phenomena. The Cal Lee who
entered a parlor at the Planters Hotel to meet the
fastidious financiers and foxy promoters was a dif-
ferent person mentally from the scarecrow Cal of
the Miller county hills.
The Grand Manner.
A look of amused wonder greeted Cal as he entered
the meeting with the jauntiness of the campus. The
promoters had been led to expect a jay of slow-
working mind; a regular fine-worker's delight. In-
stead was a curled darling of gorgeous raiment, bright
of eye and perfectly unabashed by thoir ponderous
cloak of gravity.
Instead of the easy mark the men of affairs met
a new form of hill-man—a debonair specimen of alert
mind and smooth, incisive speech. When everything
was signed and sealed the promoters awoke to the
disturbing conviction that, collectively and. individ-
ually, they were goats and Cal Lee the prize Angora
herder.
"Tee hee! ho! ho!" snickered Napoleon Cairns,
when his son-in-law returned in glad array. "Yo'
alls look funnier'u a circus picter. I don' said yo'
needed a guardeen."
"Humph!" grunted Cal, quoting from his Guide to
Correct Conduct, "fine feathers make fine birds of
prey.' "
* * *
The green piano salesman is liable to feel blue,
when a competing trade missionary does him up
brown among the prospects.
John H. Dundore, who for 30 years was connected
with Sherman, Clay & Co and for many years man-
ager of the Portland, Ore., branch, resigning in 1924,
has entered the music trade again and opened sales
rooms in the new Terminal building in that city, with
his son Jack as his assistant. Mr. Dundore will fea-
ture the Haddorff piano exclusively.
According to J. B. Jamison of San Francisco, rep-
resentative of the Estey Organ Company, who was
a recent visitor in Portland, Ore., there is an increas-
ing demand for the pipe organ in private homes. He
says the reproducing organ is becoming very popular,
as it is capable of entertaining with a great variety
of music.
Harold S. Gilbert, pioneer piano man of Portland,
Ore., has moved from his location on Fifth street
and has opened up sales rooms in the Meagley-Tich-
ner building at Broadway and Alder streets. Mr.
Gilbert was visited recently by R. K. Maynard of the
M, Schulz Co., Chicago, and by O. P. Struthers,
representing Ivers & Pond.
A piano contest was staged in the new million-
dollar Terminal Sales building of Portland, Ore., by
Stephen A. Hull in cooperation with John H. Dun-
dore, who has his salesrooms in the building. The
contest was limited to the young ladies of the build-
ing. The Haddorff piano, which is installed in the
reception room of the building, was used and Mr.
Dundore, who represents the Haddorff exclusively,
presented the winner with a handsome batik scarf.
The three judges unanimously declared as winner
Miss Dorothy W'olfken, who is a pupil of Pent
Mowey, Portland pianist and nationally known com-
poser and Duo Art artist. Among the numbers
played by the contestants were such as "Humo-
resque," "II Trovatore," "The Doll Dance," and
"Chopin Waltzes."
Steinway grands, bought from Sherman, Clay &
Co., Portland, Ore., have been installed by the Port-
land Conservatory of Music. The handsome new
studio in the Studio building at Taylor and West Part
streets, has been equipped throughout by Sherman,
Clay & Co. with Steinway and Sherman, Clay & Co.
grands.
A. S. Cobb has been appointed sales manager of
the Brunswick, Balke, Collender Company at the
Pacific Northwest headquarters in Portland, Ore.,
under A. R. McKinley, Pacific Northwest district
manager. Mr. Cobb was for seventeen years con-
nected with the wholesale branch of Sherman, Clay
& Co. in Seattle.
NEW YORK BEEFSTEAK DINNER.
The Piano Club of New York will hold its annual
beefsteak dinner and entertainment in the club rooms.
One Hundred and Thirty-seventh street and Third
avenue, the Bronx, on Saturday evening, December 3,
at 7 o'clock. The names of the committee are a guar-
antee that a gorgeous time will be had by all: Albert
Behning, chairman; II. Walter Maass, Joseph D.
McGeveran, Jacob Schorsch, R. H. Schroeder and
Otto M. Heinzman. The tickets are $6.50 per person
and the sale is limited to 150. First come, first served
is the order of the dav.
BOWEN PIANO LOADER HELPS SALESMEN
Outside Salesmen must be equipped so as to "show the goods." The season for country piano selling is approaching. Help your sales-
men by furnishing them with the New Bowen Piano Loader, which serves as a wareroom far from the store. Tt is the only safe
delivery system for dealers, either in city or country. It costs little. Write for particulars.
BOWEN PIANO LOADER CO.
Winston-Salem, N. C.
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