Summer 1969

Steinway News publishes the article about the United States President Richard Nixon presenting Steinway Artist Duke Ellington with presidential Medal of Freedom. In the same issue of the in-house quarterly there’s a story about Scott Newhall, the managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicles, giving the unique 12-legged ornate “art case” Steinway & Sons grand piano to the jazz pianist Earl “Fatha” Hines. The plaque on the piano bears the inscription: “Presented by jazz lovers from all over the world. This piano is the only one of its kind and expresses the great genius of a man who never played a melancholy note in his lifetime on a planet that has often succumbed to despair.”