C.L.Partee's American Lute

[Graham McDonald]

Trawling through the online version of the Music Trade Review from the 1890s and early 1900s I have come across ads for The American Lute, an unusual bowlback mandolin marketed around 1903-4 by Clarence Partee, at that time publisher of The Cadenza. These instruments were based on a patent no. 734802 granted to George Blair of Spokane WA which has the usual bewildering claims of tonal improvement based on dubious scientific principals.

There seems to be little information on these instruments and I am wondering if anyone has actually seen one, or better yet owns one. I suspect they were not a commercial success, but there must have been a few made at least.

Also, does anyone know if The Cadenza is available as an on-line resource? I don't think any library on this side of the Pacific has them and access to a set would help the researches greatly.

cheers

graham

[Jim Garber]

I have a C. L. Partee mandolin method ... nothing too special, just basic stuff IIRC. I have never seen one anywhere however. I wonder who actually made them, assuming any were made.

I am not aware of any sources of Cadenza or other related magazines from the period, but you could check with the NAMM folks to see what they have (if you haven't done so already). They have a pretty extensive library of period documents, catalogues and the like and they are very open to outside research.

I have a few Cadenzas and other mags and can check to see if there are other Partee ads for that one, however, I think most of my magazines are teens and beyond.

[Graham McDonald]

Thanks Jim,

The Library of Congress of 7 reels of microfilm with the The Cadenza on them. Not sure if I can do an inter-library loan from this distance. I have emailed the NAMM library and see if they have any ideas. NAMM funded the digitisation of the Music Trade Review, which was more of an industry publication, as compared to the consumer/practicioner focus of the Cadenza, so we will see what happens.

g

[Jim Garber]

For awhile they were buying up catalogues on eBay like crazy. This was back wrehn you could actually see whop you were bidding against. I wrote to them and told them I was interested in mandolin catalogue pages and they sent me a pocket full of photocopies.

[pfox14]

There's no on-line resource for The Cadenza that I know of. I have many, many issues scanned and in electronic format - searchable .pdfs, but they are not accessible on-line. Let me know if you are looking for something specific and I'll see if I can find it.