Klarinet Archive - Posting 000715.txt from 1999/01

From: Kenneth Wolman <kwolman@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Ponte's Music Store
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 14:14:31 -0500

I asked:

>>I'm curious. There are surely some people here who were playing when
>>Ponte's was still around. Was it as good as the legends suggest?

And Ken Shaw answered:

>YES! His store was the best of a whole bunch of good ones.
>
>Manny's, which is now almost all electric guitars, synthesizers and drums,
>had in the 60s and early 70s a huge stock of clarinets and people who know
>about them. They would steal you blind if you didn't know what you were
>doing, but I picked out a great R-13 Bb there that I played for 15 years.
>I go in there once in a while, but nobody knows anything, or seems to care.

Report from the present-day. I recall Manny's being sort of close to 6th
Avenue, on the north side of the street. It is now in a 2-floor building
on the south side, and like I said, the remaining music stores are bunched
together on the last third of the block toward 7th Avenue. I bought my
first decent guitar (an acoustic, thank you!) at the old Manny's.

The new one? It's a drum-and-guitar jungle. The woodwinds and brass
instruments are relegated to a small room on the 2nd floor. The only
clarinets on display are a couple of plastic student Yamahas and Selmers.
IF they carry intermediate and professional horns, they're stashed away.
Same with the saxes: low-end stuff, no display cases showing the
professional horns. A fair stock of mouthpieces, ligatures, and reeds,
though. One one occasion, I found a salesman helpful in trying to locate
something: he even called a competitor while I was there.

Ash has everything out on display, and they WILL take stuff out of the
glass cases. They also have a LOT of used instruments. They also have a
serious attitude problem, as you may have gathered:-).

Rod Baltimore is several flights up in a non-elevator building. That seems
to be the last of the old stores. He has stuff in the display cases that
make me drool: rows upon rows of old clarinets, Boehm and Albert, plus
flutes, oboes, and even an absolutely gorgeous old Selmer English horn,
pochette case and all, that makes me want to learn the thing. If Selmer's
current catalogue is accurate, they don't even make English horns anymore.

>Around the corner on Broadway was the Brill Building, where there were
>still song arrangers and composers scribbling in the dark, and a few floors
>up the Music Exchange, where they kept in stock the sheet music for every
>popular song ever written.

The Brill Building is still very much there. Colony Records is still
downstairs, overcharging for everything.

When I was working at Morgan Stanley at 750 7th Avenue, Charles Russo told
me that he used to have a studio in a building on that very spot. So did a
lot of musicians. The Roxy Theater (wow) was on the corner of 49th and
Broadway, and the buildings around it had practice rooms, studios, etc. I
recall a drugstore on that or on a nearby corner where actors went to get
their stage makeup: they had every imaginable theatrical cosmetic. It is
an eerie feeling to have worked in a place where there was once the sound
of something besides computers and the figurative jingle of coins.

I don't know how long they've been there, but Frank Music is on 54th
between Broadway and 8th Avenue. Patelson's will be on West 56th forever,
but it's not as good as it was 30+ years ago.

I could say the neighborhood was scummier then, but it's still scummy.

>Charlie Ponte was the king of them all....

....and wow, do I wish he were still around or that his family had managed
to keep the business going. What a wonderful story!

I'd forgotten this, and it's not woodwind-related, but on 48th there was
also a luthier named Noah Wulf who hand-made guitars and--yes--lutes. I
walked in there one day and there was this young woman sitting on a stool
playing a lute. I wanted to ask her to marry me:-). The phone book for
Manhattan shows no Noah Wulf, so I assume he too gave up the ghost, either
figuratively or literally.

Ken

Kenneth Wolman http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/1649

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
--Jane Kenyon, "Let Evening Come"

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