Hauer Music Co. started from a small basement studio and grew to become a supplier of musical instruments to more than 120 school districts and many groups plus a place for a wide variety of instruments and lessons.
Here is a look at the more than 75-year career of “Dayton’s Music Man.”
Early life
Hauer’s family moved to Dayton from Austria when he was 5. He attended St. Paul School, which was on the corner of Fifth Street and Wayne Avenue.
As a young man, starting in his teens, he became a musician, playing the accordion before moving on to the clarinet and saxophone.
“My father was a toolmaker and Dayton was an opportunity for employment. When I was a teenager, I served a four-year toolmaker apprenticeship at the old Delco Light, but my mind was on music. After they caught me more than once writing music on company time, they fired me,” Hauer once told the Dayton Daily News.
Michael Hauer’s School of Modern Music
In 1927, Hauer leased a suite of studios on the fifth floor of the Wurlitzer building at 126 South Ludlow and was conducting a “modern School of Music” where “every popular orchestra instrument will be taught by artists who have had years of professional experience.”
The school specialized in teaching the saxophone, trumpet, xylophones and drums, piano and banjo. Michael Hauer taught saxophone.
A Dayton Daily News story at the time described the school, saying: “The rooms making up the studio have been elaborately decorated. The studio is cut off from its neighbors with soundproof floors and walls and there is no interference of any kind.”
Big band era
As a child, Hauer started playing alto horn and by 1911 was playing with a local German band. He later took up woodwinds and joined the Dayton Municipal Band, which regularly performed at Island Park.
Hauer formed his own band by age 20, and before long became the area’s top band leader.
They played all over the country at leading hotels, but always returned to Dayton. They started at the Canton Tea Garden and the Seville Tavern. They had extended summer season engagements at a resort outside Cleveland called Mentor-on-the-Lake.
They became the house band at Castle Farms, located in the central Cincinnati suburbs, which was considered the top dance spot in the Midwest. They would often fill in between bigger nationally known acts.
On the radio
Radio was the goal of performers in the 1920s and ‘30s, so Hauer organized a 10-piece band, and the group played more than five years on a weekly basis on WSAI and later on WLW’s Happiness Hour.
“We would all pile in a big Cadillac I had with a trailer on the back for the instruments for the trip to Cincinnati. We put a board across the jump seats in the back of the car so all the guys could fit,” Hauer once said.
In Dayton, his band played the Van Cleve Hotel for two years and the Biltmore Hotel for many years after that.
His performance popularity peaked in the 1930s when he and his dance band were regulars at the the Biltmore. During their performances there, they played continuous music from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. It was at the Biltmore that his band was broadcast across the nation on the CBS network of radio stations.
The announcer would say, “And her now, ladies and gentlemen, from the Kitty Hawk room of the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Dayton, Ohio, is Michael Hauer and his Music of the Hour.” The announcer was usually Don Wayne, who would later become a newscaster at WHIO-TV.
“Time on My Hands” was their theme song on Hauer on the Hour and one review of the band said, “The Michael Hauer orchestra is known best for its ‘danceable music’ and ‘songs that are easy to remember but hard to forget.”
During this time Hauer’s talents became nationally recognized. He was receiving 2,000 letters a month, on average, from his radio fans.
“That was always a thrill when it happened and I still play the recording of some of those shows and the memories just flow over me,” Hauer said in a 1985 interview.
It was World War II that took a toll on dance band music. Many musicians were called to serve in the armed forces and Hauer disbanded his orchestra around that time to again focus on music education.
Hauer’s Music House
In 1937 Hauer founded Hauer’s Music House at 34 E. First St. Originally a small basement studio, the store became the leading supplier of musical instruments across the region.
The business also offered a staff of instructors for music lessons on a wide variety of instruments.
Retirement
After heading the business for 45 years, Hauer decided to retire as president in 1981 and give the reigns to his son Jerry.
Even though he was retired, Hauer taught kids until the age of 90, free of charge.
Seeing a need for more music in Dayton’s parochial schools, Hauer founded the Dayton Catholic School Band program. For more than 30 years almost every Catholic school in the Dayton area had a regular band program.
“I suppose when I look back on my music career, I am proudest of that,” Hauer once said.
“In music there are listeners and there are performers,” he said in 1986. “But the greatest reward is the sound, the music you make yourself. It’s a pity more people don’t do that instead of turning a knob, flipping a switch or playing a record.”
Hauer died Aug. 7, 1995 and was inducted to the Dayton Region Walk of Fame in 2014.
Hauer Music Co.
Under the leadership of his son, Jerry, Hauer Music grew to be one of the largest music stores in the region. The business moved to a new location, at 120 South Patterson Blvd., in 1989, the former site of Sach and Pruden Ale Co. brewery, which was also a warehouse for NCR during World War II.
Credit: Lisa Powell
Credit: Lisa Powell
Jerry, transformed it into “a major store and a musical wonderland” by gradually expanding the amount of teaching lessons and musical instruments. He also opened a satellite location in Kettering in 1958, and it closed in 1993.
In 2014, Hauer Music relocated again, this time to a new store located at 528 Miamisburg Centerville Rd. in Centerville, where it continues to this day.
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Credit: JIM NOELKER
About the Author
