OH Taxonomy
Tom Kowalczyk served a long post as the artist relations director at Kurzweil Music. Tom had begun his career in music retail in the 1970s and became an expert on electronic keyboards as a salesman and musician. Ray Kurzweil, the company founder and instrument innovator, hired Tom to assist with...
Dennis James recalls with a smile the day he visited Colton Piano as a teenager. He later worked for Colton founder, Vern Schaffer, getting the experience and training for the career he had dreamed of--opening his own piano and organ retail store. That dream was realized in northern San Diego...
Dave Mason was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 as the guitarist for Traffic. His influential playing was only matched by his talents as a songwriter. He wrote a number of songs for the band as well as for others, including Joe Cocker’s first hit recording, “Feelin’ Alright.”...
Jim McEvoy apprenticed as a piano technician in his native Ireland in 1946. The following decade he and his bride moved to San Diego, CA where he worked at a local music store before opening McEvoy Music. The store had a well-respected sheet music department, which was originally created by Jim and...
This video is of our annual NAMM Tribute, created in honor of our members and music industry friends who passed away in 2006 and early 2007. This Tribute was shown for the first time at the NAMM Show in Anaheim, California in January 2007.
Ray Ayotte was born in Millardville Canada where as a youngster he began playing drums for rock bands he formed with schoolmates. Throughout his early playing days, Ray made little adjustments to his kit and learned that other players enjoyed the changes and sounds he could make. He dreamed of one...
Bert Neidhardt was one of the leading experts on musical instrument importing and exporting. As president of German American Trading, he established trade policies and relationships on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Bert told the stories of the German market before, during and after the Berlin...
Dave Rossum and Scott Wedge attended college together and soon developed a few clever ways of combining their engineering training with their passion for music. They began creating sound controllers for the boom of synthesizers hitting the market in the 1970s. While supplying a growing number of...
Jerome Murphy III, the vice president of M. Steinert & Son’s piano dealer in Boston, provided insightful stories on the rich history of Steinert’s musical history. Jerome told of Morris Steinert’s first store, which opened a few years after he emigrated from Bavaria to Savannah in the 1860s....
Scott Wedge and Dave Rossum attended college together and soon developed a few clever ways of combining their engineering training with their passion for music. They began creating sound controllers for the boom of synthesizers hitting the market in the 1970s. While supplying a growing number of...