Word: kratka
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Dates: during 1961-1961
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...turned the listener into a performer is a sometime jazz drummer named Irving Kratka, who ten years ago launched a small record company that prospered briefly in the early LP boom. When business started to wane. Kratka recalled Columbia's earlier, unsuccessful "Add-a-Part" series on 78-r.p.m. disks, decided that the added convenience of LPs might make the idea work. At first, Music Minus One recorded chiefly classical releases, began to rake in the profits when it added jazz. It omits every instrument in the orchestra but the harp, often makes a single piece of music available...
...Kratka, 35. uses either foreign orchestras or musicians recruited from such groups as NBC's Symphony of the Air. Musicians themselves are among the best customers. One violinist owns all the vio lin albums, has a habit of putting them on the record player after midnight, when he gets the urge to play but is unable to round up an orchestra. Kratka also sells briskly to schools, libraries, mental hospitals (where Dixieland is used for patient therapy) and to diplomats in remote areas. His most baffling customer: the man who wrote to request Bach's Sonatas for Unaccompanied...