Presto

July-August, 1934
CONVENTION OF BAND-ORCHES-
TRA INSTRUMENT DEALERS
CALLED
A gathering of band and orchestra dealers called to
meet in convention at the Medinah Club, Chicago,
August 20, 21 and 22, promises to be representative
of these interests inasmuch as seventy-five accept-
ances were received up to ten days before the date
of the meeting.
This call, which was sent out by Ray Lammers of
the Ray Lammers Music Company, Cincinnati, Ohio,
was originally issued to take place at the Morrison
Hotel. Chicago, but a number of dealers thought it
best to join with jobbers and manufacturers inasmuch
as many of them had sponsored the meeting. There-
fore, the date and place was set as above at the Me-
dinah Club, 505 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, August 20, 21 and 22.
The first •meeting will be held Monday morning,
the 20th inst., at 10 o'clock and is exclusively for
dealers. At this time it is expected and hoped that
a regular organization will be established.
The main reason for calling these people together
is to devise some way of regulating discounts which
seem to be given out in a miscellaneous manner and
particularly to curb some of the discounts as ap-
plied to school teachers and individuals in making
purchases. This question relative to the distribution
channels used by different manufacturers is a prob-
lem and needs some kind of regulation. The dealer
set-up in the United States today is peculiar and in a
way sad and discouraging. Take, for instance, a cer-
tain city in, Michigan, which city has a population of
about 80,000, a large city, where there is only one
music dealer. A real, actual condition now existing,
and this dealer displays in his window ice boxes,
and various other electrical and refrigeration equip-
ment with hardly an indication that the establishment
is a music store. In the face of such a situation the
manufacturer is practically obliged to sell direct to
schools, bands, band leaders, teachers and the like.
It is just about impossible to say what is the per-
centage of sales of band instruments sold direct
to schools, musicians, teachers and this class of "go-
betweens" but it is evidently a large proportion; much
too large, say many. And this condition will probably
continue until some of the present merchandising
evils are eliminated and a place provided for the
dealer so that he may be protected.
Presto-Times presumes that these are some of the
problems to be threshed at the Chicago meeting and
if they are the atmosphere will be very much cleared
and manufacturers, dealers and everybody interested
will know where they are and "what it is all about."
It goes without saying that this get-together of
band and orchestra instrument dealers and the asso-
ciation with the manufacturers will be a worthwhile
event.
Plans have been made for representation and ex-
hibits of manufacturers, an event which will add to
the interest of the occasion.
THE TULSA, OKLA., PIANO
CARNIVAL
The big Fifty Piano Concert, the Grand Piano
carnival, recently held at Tulsa, Okla., under the su-
pervision of Boyd R. Ringo of the University of
Tulsa School of Fine Arts, and sponsored by Ray-
mond Stotler, music dealer at Tulsa, came in with a
grand rush and gave a fifteen minute coast to coast
broadcast over the Columbia network.
The en-
semble consisted of sixty grand pianos furnished by
the Stotler Music House, Oklahoma representatives
for the Wurlitzer line of pianos.
There were two players at each of the fifty instru-
ments and these one hundred performers gave a dis-
play of piano ensemble p'aying such as was probably
never heard before.
Mr. Ringo, the director of the festival, says, "The
idea grew out of the tremendous enthusiasm sweeping
the country for piano music and piano playing." When
the possibilities of an ensemble piano contest were
discussed with Mr. Ringo the proposition appealed
to him immediately and within a week he and his
teachers at the University were, as he says, "l'terally
swamped with applications from pianists and players
wanting to take part in the grand ensemble of one
hundred players." Mr. Stotler was interested and
agreed to furnish all the pianos that would be needed,
whereupon sixty Wurlitzer and Apollo pianos were
immediately supplied.
Mr. Stotler, who has recently been visiting at the
DeKalb factories and "taking in" the Century of
Progress Exposition is enthusiastic concerning these
big piano playing expositions. The program of the
carnival at Tulsa was arranged in three groups of
young players and the compositions performed in-
cluded selections from Beethoven, Schubert, Nevin,
Liszt. Dvorak. "All in all." Mr. Stotler says, "the
occasion was a grand affair and everyone agreed that
it was an event that would do much to stimulate music
and the study of the piano."
P R E S T O-T I M E S
PERSONAL
Theodore D. Steinway, who recently made a trip
as far west as Kansas City in company with Mr.
Majewski, the general sales manager of Steinway
& Sons, says that this little "swing around the circle"
was a delightful and interesting experience. Young
Mr. Steinway who will be out of his teens in another
year is still a student at Harvard University from
which institution he expects to graduate next year.
Being anxious to identify himself with the house of
his ancestors, his father, Theodore Steinway, presi-
dent of Steinway & Sons, thinks it advisable to intro-
duce him to Steinway dealers. He therefore joined
Mr. Majewski on a mid-western trip, which probably
will be followed by other trips. This young scion of
the house of Steinway is really a very likable chap
and persons with whom he now is coming in contact
in the trade will be delighted to have met him.
Mr. Hadle\ the new advertising manager of the
Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, is glad to get back into
the "regular" music business and particularly into an
organization so definitely identified with the music
trade in its many ramifications and branches as is the
house of Wurlitzer. While Mr. Hadley was very ac-
tive in his association with the Majestic Radio Com-
pany and was kept fairly in touch with the music
business he says it is a "real pleasure to be able to
contact more directly with his many friends in the
trade that he made during his former associations
with the piano business."
Henry MacMullan, for many years closely asso-
ciated with Presto-Times in the editorial and repor-
torial departments of the paper, has recently been on
a pleasure trip with members of his family in north-
ern Michigan. They leased a summer cottage perched
on a precipitous bluff among oaks and pines over-
looking Crooked Lake in Montgomery County. A
few weeks ago Mr. and Mrs. MacMullan celebrated
their golden wedding anniversary on which occasion
many individuals of distinction were present.
IT. F. French, president of Jesse French Corpora-
tion, New Castle, lncl.. recently made an automobile
tour through Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, a trip
covering upwards of 1,500 miles, and this is what he
says concerning his observations: "I found practically
all dealers with very little stock of any kind, new or
second-hand. Many of them told of the inquiries by
prospects for second-hand instruments, but that it is
getting easier now to sell a new instrument than a
repossessed one, because many of the repossessed
pianos arc held at almost the new piano price. My
observations convince me that there is a good business
ahead for piano manufacturers."
H. T. Sipe of Ridgeville. Ind., not being sure as
to whether a music merchants' convention would be-
held in Chicago this year, asks for the exact date of
the convention. But. of course, by this time Mr. Sipe
has been made aware of the fact that a 1934 music
merchants' convention is not to be.
Mr. Brownell of the radio department of Lyon &
Healy will have splendid opportunity to take part in
aquatic sports, which he loves so well, when the
Venetian carnival will be in progress at A Century
of Progress Exposition on Illinois Day, for then
"Brownie" can show up his speed boat or Irs sailing
yacht to good advantage. The activities will center-
about the lagoons. Both lagoons will be thrown open
to owners of private pleasure boats which operate
either by motor power or sail. And further these
boat owners and their friends will be guests of the
Fair management and the ceremonies will probably
take place at the Canadian Club pavilion.
Mr. Gould of Gould & Attlesey, Pasadena, Cal.,
made quite an extensive tour of Eastern and Mid-
west factories in July. He spent several days in
Chicago on this tour.
Henry C. Lomb, having been succeeded by H.
Kuhrmeyer as president of the National Association
of Musical Instrument Manufacturers, resigned from
the code authority of the musical merchandise man-
ufacturers industry in the interest of which he give
much time during the past year.
Mr. lekaca Arakawa, formerly living at Dallas.
Texas, now located at Osaka, Japan, writes that he
was "happy beyond measure" to receive his Steinway
piano which was forwarded to him by David Dunham,
vice-president of the Whittle Music Company, Dallas,
a few weeks after be left Dallas to return to Japan.
The instrument was a Style M Steinway grand and
traveled about twelve thousand miles to reach it^
destination.
The late "Eddie" Rauworth was a man of tremen-
dous energy and will power, qualities which enabled
him to succeed where others failed. An incident
showing this characteristic of the man occurred some
eighteen years ago when a music trade dinner was
on at the Auditorium Hotel in Chicago. It was a
cold night in January and the thermometer had been
dropping downward all clay so that when the dinner
was over and the guests were departing 18 degrees
below zero was indicated at the Michigan avenue
entrance and a terrific gale was blowing and fine
snow was "spitting."
One of the guests remained at the hotel rather than
to try to get home and another one, not to risk the
problem of reaching his home from the railway sta-
tion at Oak Park, did not try to do so. But Rauworth
plunged out in his little roadster comfortably nestled
in a fur overcoat, going west on Washington boule-
vard and into Roosevelt road for a direct spin through
snow and wind to De Kalb. As he left the hotel he
remarked to a group of trade boys that he would
'phone them before their "card game" was over. And
he did so. Two and one-half hours later a message
came from Eddie at De Kalb saying, "All right, boys,
take good care of yourselves."
Mr. Rauworth's golden era of prosperity seems to
have been when he was in charge of the Melville
Clark and Apollo business at the De Kalb factory.
Leaving that position with a fat pocketbook he in-
vested in the Bellevue, Iowa, piano factory after
Henry Johnson had failed there. He formed the E. S.
Rauworth Piano Company and not long after the be-
ginning of the end was in sight. But Ed was a fine
man and he had a host of friends.
A PIANO MAN OF STERLING WORTH COM-
PLETES TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR IN
THE TRADE
Hugh A. Stewart
Hugh A. Stewart, Sales Manager of the Guibran-
sen Company, recently completed his 25th year in
the piano business.
Mr. Stewart was born on a farm in Eastern Can-
ada, but grew to manhood at St. Charles, Illinois.
He came to Chicago in 1908 and started with the
Price & Teeple Piano Co. in 1909. His first position
was that of stenographer from which he proceeded
through the various divisions of the wholesale, re-
tail, factory and office departments and reached the
position of office manager in charge of consignment
accounts.
The highly capable manner in which Mr. Stewart
was at that time carrying on various activities in
selling, advertising and contacting the trade attracted
the attention of a prominent Gulbransen dealer who
recommended his efforts to A. G. Gulbransen, Presi-
dent of the Gulbransen Company. This resulted in
Mr. Stewart becoming associated with the Gulbran-
sen Company in January, 1919, as Manager of the
Advertising Department.
The subsequent adverse conditions in general busi-
ness beginning in 1920 brought conspicuously forward
the executive ability of Air. Stewart and he was re-
warded with the position of Assistant Sales Manager,
in 1921. Shortly thereafter, he became Sales Manager
and with the advent of better times, developed an
extremely efficient organization covering every state
in the Union, and carried out some of the most ex-
tensive and successful merchandising plans the piano
trade has ever witnessed.
In 1927 Mr. Stewart left the Gulbransen Company
but returned in September, 19?0, and despite the un-
favorable economic conditions of the past few years,
the Gulbransen Company now has the most distin-
guished dealer organization it has ever had and en-
joys a volume of business far above the average of
piano manufacturers.
Mr. Stewart is one of the most highly respected
men in the piano trade and it is doubtful if there is
anyone in the piano business who is more widely
known.
The South Bend, Ind.. Pearson Piano Company
branch store, which was started last February, is
located at 402 South Carroll street. The other Pearson
stores now in active operation are located at Anderson,
Kokomo, Fort W'avnc and Muncie.
Paul B. Klugh, who has held the office of vice-
president and general manager of the Zenith Radio
Corporation of Chicago, has resigned. Zenith radio
dealers had a four-day convention recently at St.
Joseph and Benton Harbor, Mich. The party dined
at the House of David with Eugene F. MacDonald,
president of the Zenith Company, as host.
The Johnson Music Company. Washington, In-
diana, has been having a good trade in motors and
motor boats.
The Cumberland Valley Music Company, Harlan,
Ky., has been incorporated with capital stock at $30,-
000. The incorporators are the Messrs. Gregory,
William E., J. A., and George G. Gregory.
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