Jack Long - "Patron Saint" of Canadian music

When Jack Long opened his first musical instrument store in Toronto in 1956, he was a skilled jazz trumpeter without a clue about business. “I didn’t even know what an invoice was,” he often said.

Mr. Long learned the hard way. When sales were slow, he and a drummer friend, Jack McQuade, started giving lessons in the store’s back rooms. When they discovered colleagues often wanted to borrow instruments, Mr. Long invented modest rental fees: “three dollars if it was small, four dollars if it was bigger.”

Together as partners, the two Jacks grew the company until 1965, when Mr. McQuade decided to pursue drumming full-time and sold his portion of the firm to Mr. Long. Today, the family-owned Long & McQuade business has 107 stores from coast to coast providing sales, rentals, repairs and more than 35,000 lessons each week. With annual revenues of $525-million, it is the largest chain of musical instrument retailers in Canada and the fourth largest in the world.

But Mr. Long, who died on Sept. 4 at the age of 95, is remembered less for his business acumen than for his generous support of musicians – many of whom bought their first instrument from him, often on store credit when banks typically refused to give loans to musicians. Some of his most famous customers over the years have included Gordon Lightfoot, Oscar Peterson, Randy Bachman, Rush’s Neil Peart, Bryan Adams, Sarah McLachlan, Tom Cochrane, Shania Twain, Justin Bieber, Jully Black, Shawn Mendes and former Blood, Sweat & Tears front man David Clayton-Thomas, who calls Mr. Long the “patron saint” of Canadian music.

“Jack’s generosity was legendary,” jazz saxophonist Jane Bunnett agrees. “If you told him your circumstances, he’d go to his staff and say, ‘Cut this person a deal.’ That caring approach carried throughout all his stores.”

Journalist Martin Melhuish, author of Oh What a Feeling: A Vital History of Canadian Music, remembers when the Canadian Independent Music Association gave Mr. Long the Unsung Hero Award. “They really got that one right,” Mr. Melhuish says, “because Jack was always in the background, quietly making rules about affordable rentals or generous ‘buy now, pay later’ plans. That’s had a profound effect on music in Canada, making the unattainable attainable for so many.”

As musician and broadcaster Danny Marks plainly put it in a popular social-media post: “No one has done more for music and musicians in Canada than Jack Long.”

Born on June 25, 1929, in Toronto’s west end, Jack was one of four children born to Edmund Long, a credit agent for Simpson’s department store, and his homemaker wife, Dora. He was an active child who loved to talk, much to the annoyance of his siblings. “I talked so much on family car trips, they paid me to keep quiet,” he once told broadcaster Laurie Brown.

Mr. Long caught the music bug while attending Humberside Collegiate, after a teacher assigned him to play trumpet. He got hooked on jazz, began taking lessons and soon proved himself adept at improvision. By 15, he’d formed his own band, was getting paid gigs at the West End YMCA and had his sights set on a life in music.

In 1948, Mr. Long enrolled in the University of Toronto’s music program. At a student party, he met Carol Pendrith, a gifted pianist, and the two hit it off. After graduation, they began performing at nightclubs and, after marrying in 1954, formed the Jack Long Trio, briefly basing themselves in Montreal.

With the decision to start a family, Jack and Carol returned to Toronto. The arrival of a son, followed by twins in quick succession, forced Mr. Long to rethink his career. His wife gave him a book called How to Start Your Own Business, which recommended doing something you know. As Mr. Long once recalled: “All I knew was music, so it was either selling records or instruments and I chose the latter.”

In 1956, he convinced King Instruments in Cleveland to allow him to sell their products in Toronto, first at his original store in Toronto at 100 Carlton St., before he and Mr. McQuade relocated to 803 Yonge St., where the Toronto Reference Library now stands. To support his growing family, the always busy Mr. Long did double duty, working six days a week at the store and performing six nights a week in nightclubs around town such as the Chez Parée, the Zanzibar and Barclay Hotel. On a few occasions, he fell asleep while performing, with his trumpet still at his lips.

In 1963, Mr. Long’s repairman quit, leaving 126 amplifiers that needed fixing. A young guitarist in the shop named Pete Traynor heard this and offered to fix all the amps overnight, which Mr. Long reluctantly allowed. “I thought at first he was cheating me in some way and had someone check out his work,” he recalled. “But Pete repaired amplifiers faster and better than anyone I’d ever seen before.” Mr. Long wasted no time in hiring him.

Like a mad scientist, Mr. Traynor worked away in Long & McQuade’s back room and later upstairs, repairing and building amplifiers and public address systems for Toronto’s budding musicians. As the decade rolled on, the company was perfectly situated, at the crossroads of the Yonge and Yorkville scenes, for the city’s rock and rhythm ‘n’ blues explosion.

And when John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band came to town to play in the now legendary Rock and Roll Revival concert at Varsity Stadium in September, 1969, the entire group including band member Eric Clapton used Traynor amps supplied by Long & McQuade.

Grammy Award-winning producer and artist Daniel Lanois recalls Mr. Long’s Yonge Street store as a magical place. “I often stepped into that fantasy world, the house that Jack built, to buy instruments and equipment,” Mr. Lanois told The Globe and Mail. “His staff always greeted us with encouragement and Jack deserves our thanks for his lifelong devotion to music.”

After 10 years juggling jobs, Mr. Long gave up performing to focus on his thriving business and growing family. Long & McQuade expanded with a manufacturing division, Yorkville Sound, that carried its popular Traynor equipment. The company moved its Toronto store to the west end, ultimately settling at 925 Bloor St., the site of the former Concord Tavern where Mr. Long’s trio once performed. And it opened new stores in Vancouver and Winnipeg, before eventually expanding into every province.

Fred Theriault, Mr. Long’s longest-serving employee and one of many musicians who joined the company, remembers that his boss taught himself every aspect of business, learning about manufacturing and taking night courses in sales and marketing. “If there was something he needed to know, Jack figured it out,” Mr. Theriault recalls. “He was very intelligent. Plus, he knew how to get the best out of his employees, with a kindness that really made people want to work with him.”

At different stages, most of Mr. Long’s six children have worked for Long & McQuade. Today Steve Long, the eldest, is company president, while Jeff Long, the fourth born, is vice-president of sales and marketing. Both recall their father as a down-to-earth man whose values – love of music and trust of customers – became the unwritten principles that all employees adopted.

“Jack was very humble, not a know-it-all or anything,” Jeff says. “He just really believed music was good for people and loved talking to customers.” He added: “Our company’s goal was never to be the most profitable business. Our goal – and this came from Jack – was to be simply the best business possible. Jack always said, ‘If we’re the best business, all the other things will take care of themselves.’”

Added Steve: “He was always very fair, even in negotiations with suppliers and other businesses. When it comes to service, most companies do things that are most convenient to them. But Jack taught us to try the opposite and do things that are most convenient to our customers.”

In 1997, after Jack turned 68, he wrote a letter saying he was retiring and sent it to everyone in the company. Recalls Jeff: “About a week later, my mum says to him, ‘Can’t you go back to work? You’re driving me nuts!’ He said, ‘Yes, great,’ and he went back to work, but five days a week instead of six.”

As he got into his 80s, Mr. Long began slowing down and working shorter days. But he remained sharp when it came to business details. Says Steve: “He’d know if sales in the drum department at the Châteauguay, Que., store were a little soft, for instance. He was the same way with the Toronto Blue Jays and knew all the players’ stats.”

Ultimately, what made Jack Long happiest was music, playing Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust” on the trumpet or duetting on the Gershwins’ “Embraceable You” with Carol, his wife for 65 years, at the piano. And he took great pride that his grandson Jackson Steinwall, a talented bassist, and granddaughter Emily Steinwall, an acclaimed saxophonist, found their calling in music. Clearly, his legacy lives on.

Jack Long leaves his children Steve, Jeff, Jennifer, Julianne and Catherine; 17 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife, Carol, and son Jonathan.

Originally published in The Globe and Mail newspaper.