I’m a big fan of instruments built by the Kay Musical Instrument Co from Chicago and I’ve owned quite a few from almost all decades of production. There is one figure who is credited with the ‘Venetian’ shape guitars and the fascinating adjustable neck joint that appears on many of them. Joseph Zorzi. I have dedicated a lot of time to trying to piece together his life and have come up with nothing.
A quick history of the company is that they began in 1890 with Andrew Groehsl, an Austrian luthier, who began producing mandolins, guitars, and traditional Slavic instruments. In 1921, Groehsl was bought out by Henry "Kay" Kuhrmeyer, Charles G. Stromberg, and Frank C. Voisinet who formed Stromberg-Voisinet. That firm lasted until 1931 when Kuhrmeyer bought out his partners and launched the company under his own name. That, of course, continued until the late 1960s when, after a few acquisitions, the brand name was sold to an importer of Asian instruments.
All the information on Zorzi can be found in Michael Wright's book, The Histories of Cool Guitars - Guitar Stories Volume 2 and most of it appears to be credited to luthier George Manno. Manno and Wright put together this story of Zorzi’s life
1878
Born in Messina as Guiseppe Zorzi
1894
Began apprenticeship with Milanese luthier Leandro Bisiach
1898
Recruited by Lyon & Healy and moved to Chicago
1899
Promoted to production chief of Washburn instruments with L&H
1924
First meeting of the American Guild of Luthiers of which Zorzi was one of the founders
1926
Zorzi advertised a Guild meeting at L&H and was fired
Zorzi was then hired at Stromberg-Voisinet
1929
There exists, according to Wright, a 14 fret Kay Kraft guitar with Zorzi's signature and dated 12/29
1934
Joseph Zorzi leaves Kay to start his own private shop
I, ever the double-checker, decided to find all the information about Zorzi that I could so that I could repeat this great story with confidence. I’ve assembled a fair amount of information on small or relatively unknown builders on my website and finally putting together a biography of Joseph Zorzi would be incredible.
Michael Wright is incredibly difficult to track down or get a hold of and a Facebook message to George Manno resulted in an expression of his sincere disinterest in speaking with me. That was a bit discouraging and unexpected, usually folks are happy to share information.
Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.com are my two go-to family record searching websites and I have explored every possible variant of Zorzi’s name: Guiseppe Zorzi, Joseph Zorzi, Joseph Zorzie, Joe Zorzi, Joseph Gorzi, etc etc to see if there is perhaps a misspelling. Nothing. I came back with about a dozen matches to those names but none of them remotely match the story given in the book. If anyone is interested, I can post the details of every match I found but Joseph Zorzi the Las Vegas bartender or Joseph Zorzi the Pennsylvanian coal miner aren’t great leads.
Newspapers.com led me to a 1988 article in The Southtown Star on George Manno which includes “Manno himself recently purchased a 1927 guitar constructed by Joseph Zorzi, a lifelong resident of Chicago Heights and head of a guitar manufacturing company.” Now I’ve worked on a number of Stromberg-Voisinet instruments and their defining trait is that they have no markings or stamps. I have no idea how he obtained a date on that guitar. I wrote the guide on identifying Kay instruments so I’m pretty familiar with what serial systems they used and they never used date stamps.
I’ve also compiled a list of employees who worked for Lyon and Healy prior to WWII using some newspaper references and a Lyon and Healy book entitled Everything Known in Music from 1916. The L&H book includes every employee who had been with the firm for more than 10 years which, according to the timeline, he would’ve been there for 18 years in a prestigious position. His name does not appear in the roster and neither do Philip Gabriel or Fritz Brunner who were, according to Wright/Manno, experienced luthiers at the firm who worked alongside him.
The Zorzi neck joint, as it is called among the Kay-Kraft fans, is a fascinating device that appears on many of the Venetian shaped guitars. It was patented in 1930 by Henry Kuhrmeyer, with no mention of Zorzi.
I bought a 1987 book from the Illinois State Museum entitled “Tuning the Wood” which documented contemporary Illinois stringed instrument builders from an exhibition at the Illinois Art Gallery because Google Books told me that Zorzi’s name appears. At the very end of the book, in the references section, was a citation for a book entitled “Mandolin making in the classic Italian style” by Joseph Zorzi which was dated to 1935. I reached out to the Illinois State Museum and got in contact with a researcher who informed me that they don’t have any record of the book and the employees who are still around from that era were not familiar with it.
So this has continued to stump me for months and I’ve reached the end of what I’m able to find. Tomorrow the 1950 census becomes available and I’ll continue digging to see if Zorzi somehow resurfaces but I’m here to ask. Does anyone know who Joseph Zorzi is?
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