The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-05-19
In New York
By PAUL HAIsRIsON

New York.-Herbert Hoover plays the harmoica. So does Jaschn Heifetz, the great fiddler. And John Mccormack. And Charlie Chaplin. Mae West likes to blow
 Q blues song now and then. I've been talking to Borrah | MinevIteh, who has built fortune. a yacht, | country home and the JfarmonicA Institute of America (with modernistic offices in Rocke- felier Center) upon his knack for getting music out of . mouth organ.
 Dignlficd Art
 Minevitch iB the one.time Boston boy who organized band of har-
 monica. playing kids and led them
 into vaudeville and subsequent
 fame. He gets about 8 hundred letters . day now from other youngsters who want to join his troupe of Rascnls. And . lot more letters from grown men--bankers and merchants, doctors and college profeasors- his work and
 saying plalntivoly that the harmon ica is their only medium of mu-
 sieAi expression, and will he please
 tell them where they can get fur-
 ther instruction.
 one of the biggest lawyers in New York recently called Mine.
 witch at midiRht and asked which
 aperture to blow on to get blue
 note. IJeifetg couldn't figure how
 to play sharpB and flats. McC0r-
 mack plays ordinary ballads ex- pertiy, and now is interested tn de-
 veloping blues variations. Once an
 old lady of 80 went backstage in q theater and waited for Minevitch to finish his act. She drew him into c secluded corner, snatched q
 harmonioa from her reticule and
 softly played n snappy Yankee
 Doodle" My grandchildren"
 she snorted, think I'm in my sec-
 ond childhood because 1 like this
 thing. just had to come around
 and play. for somebody who'd ape preciate t."
 Intrigued . President
 ton Herbert Hoover attended q '. correspondents' dinner and aston
 ished Everybody by staying 45
 minutes past his usual II o'clock.
 1t turned out that he was hanging
 around to have c quiet word with
 the mouth-organ maestro. Asked him several questions about
 "tonguing" the instrument, and
 seemed especially interested in
 how to play accompaniments
 Minevitch couldn't find out what
 MT Hoover wanted to accompany.
 --But Is It Music?
 There Is very little written data on ,iarmonicas, and all the New York Public Library has about
 them is Q thesis Minevitch once
 wrote to make up a credit in q cole
 lege English course, which he had
 hunked. It was Q blessing, really,
 because the piece was put into
 pamphlet form, netted him some y4,0O0 in royalties. Harmonious,
 he sayss haven't been improved much in the last 60 years, except that they sound less tinny and are tuned accurately. The most expen-
 sive one, a bass instrument about
 foot long, costs $10.
 As 6 matter of fact, the har-
 monica Is not even c musical in-
 strument, according to the Musi- clans Union of America. The U. S. Customs recognizes 1t as such, however, when 1t comes to impos- ing c duty on mouth-0rgan im- ports. The only way Minevitch could join the union was by re- suming his stdudy of the violin, which he had begun as q young ster in Boston.
 Crashing the E'OIIies
 The impressario, now 32, has had some pretty gratifying triumphs in his career. There was the time he gathered up some telegraph mes- sengers, shoeshiners and newsboys for an addition for Flo Ziegfeld.
 They rehearsed their numbers on
 the sidewalk before going into the theater. Ziegfefd higed them. There was the time an audience stood up and cheered when Mine- witch and his y0ungsters played Deep River" In the Manhattan Opera House. The band couldn't give an encore because it didn't
 know any other selections. And the time the late otto Kahn bet the late William Morris $1,00O |that harmonicas would be booed of the stage of the Metropolitan. Mr Kahn lost.
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