Hal Leonard Corporation has purchased Music Minus One. The joint announcement was made by Keith Mardak, CEO of Hal Leonard, and Irv Kratka, owner and founder of Music Minus One.
The Music Minus One company was founded in 1950 and their sing-along and play-along records quickly became an industry standard. For the first time, even hobbyist players could solo with a professional orchestra thanks to the high quality recordings that accompanied each book. Over the years the library has grown to over 1,100 titles, all of which will now be exclusively available from Hal Leonard. In addition, Hal Leonard announced that effective immediately they have lowered the prices on all available editions.
The Music Minus One recordings feature world-class musicians and orchestras from the United States, Vienna, Bulgaria, and elsewhere in Europe. A variety of concerti, opera, lieder, and chamber music from composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, Mozart, Vivaldi and others are available. In addition, the library also includes jazz combo works from such famed players as Stan Getz, Jimmy Raney, Bob Wilber, Buddy DeFranco, Glenn Zottola, Bob Dorough, Ira Nepus, Alan Kaplan, and more. The recordings allowed the player to listen to the full recording featuring a soloist, but then pan the recording to remove the soloist so they could step in and play the lead.
“We’ve been happy to distribute Music Minus One products for almost ten years now and we’re proud that Irv is entrusting us to continue caring for and developing this iconic brand that really set the standard for play-alongs in our industry,” said Keith Mardak. “We are sad to see Irv retire but he deserves a rest after working so hard on this great series for so long.”
MMO owner Irv Kratka stated, “I’m 90 years old and after 66 years in this business, I thought it was time to hang up my spurs. I’m confident that Keith and his crew at Hal Leonard will take good care of this catalog and nurture it into even more modern products for the next generation of musicians.”
Since Hal Leonard was already distributing MMO products, current retailers won’t see any disruption in distribution. Any other parties interested in becoming a distributor should contact the Hal Leonard E-Z Order Line at 1-800-554-0626 to set up an account.
