During the same year Music Man (www.MusicManInc.com) opened on North Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach, consider that the United States celebrated its bicentennial anniversary, and Jimmy Carter was elected its 39th president. The average cost of a new house was slightly more than $43,000; average income was $16,000, average monthly rent $220, and gas cost around 59 cents per gallon.
Gymnast Nadia Comaneci won three gold medals, and earned seven perfect scores, for her routines at that year’s Summer Olympic Games in Montreal, and the two-time Super Bowl champion Miami Dolphins endured their first losing NFL football season since 1969. NASA unveiled its first space shuttle, the Enterprise; the Sylvester Stallone boxing film Rocky was released, and the Apple Computer Company was formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
The internet, not to mention the COVID-19 pandemic, were still distant future entities that would eliminate many such musical outlets. Yet despite that, Music Man has not only survived, but expanded — into both western West Palm Beach and north to Port St. Lucie, proving to be the little mom-and-pop shop that could since 1976.
“My father was a retired band director from Rochester, New York, who started Music Man,” says owner and president John “J.J.” Jarvis. “We’d moved down here when I was 3 years old, and he opened this location as a hodgepodge little store with a drum set and few other instruments here and there. Then my mom picked up a few more at a school board auction and said, ‘John, you know we could rent some of these out to kids.’ We slowly added more brand-name equipment to our repertoire, and eventually became the premier school music dealer in Palm Beach County.”
Before he succumbed to lung cancer, trumpeter John Jarvis (1926-1998) helped build Music Man from such humble beginnings to its current heights with the help of his wife, Dorothy “Dixie” Jarvis.
“That’s Old Dixie,” she stresses, lacking in neither wit nor personality. “The highway was named after me, after all. I’m 86 now.”
Some of the 51-year-old Jarvis’ earliest Music Man memories involve both of his parents in and around the chain’s original Pleasant City location, the familiar brown building that’s remained largely unchanged over its 46 years there. Since the turn of the century, the area has added a public elementary school, and its adjacent Old Northwood downtown section is filled with restaurants, nightclubs, and coffee and retail shops. Music Man’s showroom of instruments and accessories there is small because most of the action takes place behind the scenes, much of it repairing instruments and housing the chain’s rental equipment inventory.
“My mom and I moved pianos together when I was 5 years old, and my dad would tune them,” Jarvis says. “One of my earliest memories is of helping my dad do a rebuild on a grand piano here; holding a string in place while he wound it up. And I remember I’d see a snare drum here, amplifiers there, and various other instruments. So I eventually ended up playing whatever was needed, from all varieties of the saxophone to tuba and bass clarinet, in band at Conniston Middle School and Twin Lakes High School. And my wife Jeneve plays clarinet and sax, and is band director at Crestwood Middle School. Many of the people who work with us were once in bands and at band camps with me. So it certainly remains all in the family.”
Music Man’s roster includes saxophonist, clarinetist and Jog Road manager Adam Schoen, clarinetist and Port St. Lucie manager Taylor Walsh, and other instructors like John Lovell (trumpet), Frank Derrick (drums), and Ian Wilkinson (violin), who also helps with repairs.
Serving primarily area school music programs means numerous marching bands and student orchestras, largely involving wind and percussion instruments. With an expansive “Shop By School” list of area educational institutions on its website, Music Man’s specialties are rentals, repairs, sales, and lessons. And its North Jog Road location — a colorful building with a piano key artistic motif on its exterior, a dozen lesson rooms, and an entryway showroom with a wall of guitars, other stringed instruments and numerous accessories — has been key in teaching area students since it opened near the intersection of Southern Boulevard in West Palm Beach in 2011.
“The Jog Road location is where most of our lessons are,” says Jennifer Howell, Music Man’s assistant bookkeeper, “and we have instructors at our Port St. Lucie location too.”
Located on Bayshore Boulevard, the Port St. Lucie store opened to keep Music Man’s St. Lucie County presence after it closed its Fort Pierce store in 2015.
“Our Fort Pierce location was open for 20 years,” Jarvis says, “but it wasn’t in a great spot and couldn’t support a true retail experience. The Port St. Lucie store is smaller, and we do maybe 30 to 40 lessons per week there. But it also provides a hub, for repairs and rentals, for middle school and high school students and their families.”
Even keeping the books is a family affair at Music Man. The chain’s primary bookkeeper is Howell’s mother Cindy, whom Jarvis calls, “our queen bee and linchpin, because every piece of paper in our operation touches her fingers.”
A definitive glass-half-full businessman, Jarvis took over sole ownership of Music Man during the COVID-19 pandemic despite the obstacles it’s presented.
“I joined the business in 1992 after graduating college from The Citadel,” he says. “I was the road guy then, visiting schools and developing relationships in hopes that they’d recommend us to rent instruments for their students. More recently, after taking over one hundred percent ownership, I’m having to apply for PPP loans and dealing with a 55 percent drop in rentals, our biggest profit center. But I’d already overseen the day-to-day operations for the past 20 years or so. Before the pandemic, we also had about 275 kids coming for lessons every week. Now, we’re back up to around 150. So we’re slowly rebuilding our lessons program as well.”
“We don’t get rich in this business. We’re like teachers in general, in that we make a living by recognizing the importance of musical education and serving the community. Palm Beach County is literally one of the best counties in the country in ensuring that there can be musical education for all students. Its school board recapitalized our band and orchestra programs in 2020, and has won community awards for musical education from the National Association of Music Merchants for the past five years.”
As for the internet, and its instant-gratification advantages over brick-and-mortar stores, Jarvis sees that equation in reverse as well.
“Each band director we serve has a specific set of needs,” he says. “And our ‘Shop By School’ link is tailored toward those needs, whether it’s mouthpieces, reeds, or whatever else. I’d estimate our online sales to be only one or two percent of our total income, but Amazon can’t offer that tailored service.
“We can’t compete with them regarding convenience, nor should we try. So we offer services that they can’t provide, like repairs. And quality instruments, not a $100 discounted flute that’ll cost $150 to repair. We personally delivered necessities like valve oil to individual students while they were studying at home during the pandemic. It might not have been cost-efficient, but it strengthened our relationships within the community.”
Music Man is located at 2309 N. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach (561-832-3753); 179 N. Jog Road, West Palm Beach (561-478-0920); and 950 Bayshore Blvd., Port St. Lucie (772-466-8764). Each location is open Monday-Saturday and is closed Sundays. Its toll-free number is 800-785-5367.