Crossword clues for wurlitzer
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
type of musical instrument (originally a player piano popular in silent movie theaters, later a type of jukebox), 1925, named for The Wurlitzer Company, founded near Cincinnati, Ohio, 1856 by Rudolph Wurlitzer (1831-1914), Saxon immigrant to U.S. An importer at first, he started production of pianos in 1880; coin-operated pianos in 1896.
Wikipedia
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, was an American company started in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1853 by German immigrant Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company originally imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the U.S. Wurlitzer enjoyed initial success largely due to defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S. military. In 1880 the company began manufacturing pianos. Eventually the company relocated to North Tonawanda, New York and quickly expanded to make band organs, orchestrions, nickelodeons and pipe or theatre organs popular in theatres during the days of silent movies.
Over time, Wurlitzer acquired a number of other companies which made a variety of loosely related products including kitchen appliances, carnival rides, player piano rolls, and radios. Wurlitzer also operated a chain of retail stores where the company's products were sold.
As technology evolved, Wurlitzer began producing electric pianos, electronic organs, and jukeboxes and eventually became known more for jukeboxes and vending machines, which are still made by Wurlitzer, than for actual musical instruments.
Wurlitzer's jukebox operations were sold and moved to Germany in 1973. The Wurlitzer piano and organ brands and U.S. manufacturing facilities were acquired by the Baldwin Piano & Organ Co. (commonly called the Baldwin Piano Company) in 1988 and most piano manufacturing was moved overseas. The Baldwin Co., including its Wurlitzer assets, was subsequently acquired by the Gibson Guitar Corporation in about 1996. Ten years later, Gibson acquired Deutsche Wurlitzer and the Wurlitzer Jukebox and Vending Electronics trademarks, briefly bringing Wurlitzer's best-known products back together under a single corporate banner in 2006. Baldwin ceased making Wurlitzer-brand pianos in 2009. Vending machines are still manufactured in Germany using the Wurlitzer name under Gibson ownership. The company ceased manufacturing jukeboxes in 2013, but still sells replacement parts.
The Rembert Wurlitzer Co., Wurlitzer's rare and historic stringed instrument department was independently directed by Rudolph Wurlitzer's grandson, Rembert Wurlitzer (1904–63), from 1948 until his death in 1963. Rembert's shop on 42d Street in New York City was a leading international center for rare and historic string instruments.
Usage examples of "wurlitzer".
And in the center of it all, an enormous steam Wurlitzer pounded and thrummed, flywheel spinning, slide valves popping, with shafts and belts connected to an incredible Rube Goldberg concoction of rocking cranks, syncopating levers, undulating cams, whirling gear trains, and nodding tappets, all acting out its cycle of interlocked motions with a complexity and ingenuity that astonished even Hunt.
A refined musical attraction operated by electricity with nickel-in-the-slot attachment the Wurlitzer Harp look at it!
The Wurlitzer was ancient, a chunky, round-bodied contraption with a revolving rainbow of hues, bubbles licking up along its seams.
I said as I pulled the custom-made felt cover off the old Wurlitzer jukebox and, with a flourish, dropped the cloth over the planter and into the empty front booth.
It had a Wurlitzer jukebox, a reasonable-looking menu, and table service.
Time to sit at the gurgling Wurlitzer beneath the streets and like that unloved phantom of the lower depths to let a single tear flow down your brutish but sensitive face.
Posters from The Wild Bunch and The Asphalt Jungle and The Magnificent Seven hung along one wall and an old Webcor candy machine from the forties sat against the opposite wall between a Wurlitzer Model 800 Bubble-Lite jukebox and a video game called Kill or Be Killed!
Next to the Wurlitzer jukebox is a black ebony Baldwin concert grand piano.
Michael recalled it from the series of hexagrams Wurlitzer had just indicated to him.
From the back could be heard a cacophony of musical sounds coming from the Wurlitzer Band Organ, player pianos, and oldtime banjo-player jukeboxes.
Pity and awe seize the extras just as it will the audience, depending on who is playing the Wurlitzer organ at New York's Strand theater or, if they are lucky enough to be booked into the Capitol, an entire symphony orchestra guaranteed to drag powerful emotions from any audience during those last moments as Miss Glover loses her head and the camera moves from the ax-man's knees to his hooded head to the tower of the castle behind to the stormy sky above where the sun emerges from behind a cloud bank to make a thousand prisms of the camera lens as Mary Queen of Scots' troubled soul is received by angels -- gloria, gloria, gloria!
And in the center of it all, an enormous steam Wurlitzer pounded and thrummed, flywheel spinning, slide valves popping, with shafts and belts connected to an incredible Rube Goldberg concoction of rocking cranks, syncopating levers, undulatÂing cams, whirling gear trains, and nodding tappets, all acting out its cycle of interlocked motions with a complexity and ingenuity that astonished even Hunt.