Vincent Lopez, Inc.

A "gimmick" is a person who puts a price tag on everything he sees and a label on everything he thinks. Most musicians pride themselves on not being gimmicks. To differentiate themselves from this clan, they wear their hair longer; their neckties, their phrases, are more picturesque. The only criticism they fear is the accusation that they fear criticism, that they are trying to make themselves as gimmicks are. Not so Vincent Lopez, famed jazzbo. Music, he says, should ape business. Orchestras should have labels, price tags; the labels should stand for quality. Jazz is a commodity, like canned food. It should be retailed as such. To carry out this theory, he has organized a company--Vincent Lopez Inc.--the shares of which he has offered for sale as a canner might offer the shares of his cannery. He plans to organize orchestras all over the U. S., to found a school to train musicians for these orchestras, to broadcast on a huge scale. Said he:

"At present I have 22 orchestras. That's nothing. What I am after is to have an orchestra in every city of any size in the U. S.

There's something. Now we are after the money. . . .

"What's the trouble with buying the service of an orchestra today? Why, you never can tell what you are going to get. If you have heard an orchestra, and get the orchestra you heard, then it may be O. K. But if you cannot get the one you want, the one you get may be O. K. and it may not. What we are going to do is to train orchestras so that, if you order one from us anywhere in the U. S., you will always get the same thing and know what you are getting. . . ."