The concept and spirit of Pro Piano (*Real) as a business preceded the actual company Pro Piano a Concert & Artist Service specialist mostly in pianos, but through the years backline, drums, percussion, PA, keys, Hammond B3s, Celestes (still), etc., yet both came to life sometime in the very late 60s, with 1969 beginning an era of full intellectual embrace …first in Western Colorado where tinkering with pianos was the spark, and later in San Francisco where the blaze from which actual piano business seriousness spewed and was ever after aflame.
By the early mid-70s, we were hot as a firecracker.
Anvil was then the tour industry’s major source for road cases and crates. Our company’s first name …Professional Piano Service, was so looong and cumbersome that the tag on an Anvil Cases shipment actually abbreviated our name to Pro Piano!
When we saw that …PRO PIANO, Danta and I literally danced round and round to Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, The Mulberry Bush The Mulberry Bush, for we knew without any doubt and in a most winning manner, that we’d landed solidly on our feet.
Our first shop was at 2685 Diamond Street, San Francisco …a cubical little stand-alone building with double garage, 1-large roll-up door, and a garden that proved to be productive and abundant in fruits and vegetables. That lovable yet modest little jewel became the first home of Pro Piano (*Real).
Katty Korner at the Southeast corner of Surrey and Diamond Street stood a seemingly nondescript modern condominium complex of 2-3 units, which Danta eventually learned to be the home of famous graphic artist designer Primo Angeli, whose work appealed to her own quite advanced eye for beauty and since his address was literally in our crosswalk, she reached out and began an interchange of ideas with him. Danta’s conceptual instincts included a curious double P combo …sufficiently described and drawn so that Maestro Angeli’s interest in the project was peaked and he began working with her to create the eventual Pro Piano (*Real) Logo.
The actual lettering of our logo was not from any character styles then currently in use. Ours were created specifically for the Pro Piano (*Real) Logo. To this day they are not easily duplicated …so fine and nearly, slightly, seemingly but never touching, they were morphed into existence.
Of course though he may have never touched a Pro Piano (*Real) instrument, Maestro Primo Angeli, RIP, b. 5 May, 1906 – d. 25 October, 2003, is Herewith and Forever Named A Legendary Lifetime Pro Piano Artist.