Musical instrument salesman Jack Long was considered the “patron saint” of Canadian music

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When Jack Long opened his first musical instrument shop in Toronto in 1956, he was a talented jazz trumpeter with no business acumen. “I didn’t even know what a bill was,” he often said.

Mr. Long learned this lesson the hard way. When sales were slow, he and a drummer friend, Jack McQuade, began giving lessons in the back of the store. When they discovered that friends often wanted to borrow instruments, Mr. Long came up with modest rental fees: “three dollars if it was a small one, four dollars if it was a bigger one.”

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

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

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“Jack’s generosity was legendary,” agrees jazz saxophonist Jane Bunnett. “If you told him about your situation, he would go to his staff and say, ‘Make a deal with this person.’ That caring attitude permeated all of his stores.”

Journalist Martin Melhuish, author Oh What a Feeling: An Important Canadian Music Storyremembers when the Canadian Independent Music Association gave Mr. Long its Unsung Hero Award. “They really got it right,” Mr. Melhuish says, “because Jack was always in the background, quietly setting the rules for affordable rentals or generous buy-now-pay-later plans. That had a profound effect on music in Canada, making the unattainable possible for so many.”

As musician and broadcaster Danny Marks clearly stated in a popular social media post, “Nobody has done more for music and musicians in Canada than Jack Long.”

Born June 25, 1929, in west Toronto, Jack was one of four children of Edmund Long, a Simpson’s department store loan officer, and his housewife, Dora. He was an active child who loved to talk, much to the annoyance of his siblings. “I talked so much on family car rides that they paid me to keep quiet,” he once told presenter Laurie Brown.

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

In 1948, Mr. Long enrolled as a music student at the University of Toronto. At a student party, he met Carol Pendrith, a talented pianist, and they hit it off immediately. After graduation, they began performing in nightclubs, and after marrying in 1954, they formed the Jack Long Trio, which briefly based itself in Montreal.

The decision to start a family brought Jack and Carol back to Toronto. The birth of a son and then twins in quick succession forced Mr. Long to rethink his career. His wife gave him a book titled How to start your own businesswhich advocated doing something you knew. As Mr. Long once recalled, “All I knew was music, so I either sold records or instruments, and I chose the latter.”

In 1956, he convinced Cleveland’s King Instruments to let him sell their products in Toronto, first at his original Toronto store at 100 Carlton St., before he and Mr. McQuade moved to 803 Yonge St., now the Toronto Reference Library. To support his growing family, the ever-busy Mr. Long worked two jobs, working six days a week at the store and six nights a week performing at city nightclubs such as Chez Parée, Zanzibar and the Barclay Hotel. Several times he fell asleep during a performance, his trumpet still to his lips.

In 1963, Mr. Long’s mechanic quit, leaving 126 amps in need of repair. A young guitarist at the shop named Pete Traynor heard this and offered to repair all the amps overnight, which Mr. Long reluctantly agreed to. “At first I thought he was somehow cheating me and asked someone to check his work,” he recalled. “But Pete fixed amps faster and better than anyone I had ever seen before.” Mr. Long wasted no time in hiring him.

Like a mad scientist, Mr. Traynor worked in the back room of Long & McQuade and later upstairs, repairing and building amplifiers and PAs for aspiring Toronto musicians. As the decade progressed, the business was ideally situated, at the crossroads of the Yonge and Yorkville scenes, for the city’s explosion of rock and rhythm and blues.

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

Grammy-winning producer and artist Daniel Lanois remembers Mr. Long’s Yonge Street store as a magical place. “I often went into this fantasy world, this 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 gratitude for his lifelong dedication to music.”

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

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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 the business, learning about production and taking night classes in sales and marketing. “If there was something he needed to know, Jack would figure it out,” Mr. Theriault recalled. “He was very intelligent. And he knew how to get the best out of his employees, with a friendliness that really made people want to work with him.”

At one point or another, most of Mr. Long’s six children worked for Long & McQuade. Today, Steve Long, the oldest, is the company’s president, and Jeff Long, the fourth, is vice president of sales and marketing. Both remember their father as a down-to-earth man whose values—a love of music and trust from his customers—became unwritten rules that all employees adopted.

“Jack was very humble, not a know-it-all or anything,” Jeff says. “He just really believed that music was good for people, and he loved talking to his customers.” He added, “The goal of our company was never to be the most profitable business. Our goal—and that came from Jack—was to simply be the best business we could be. Jack always said, ‘If we’re the best business, everything else will fall into place.’”

Steve added: “He was always very honest, even in negotiations with suppliers and other companies. When it comes to service, most companies do what is most convenient for them. But Jack taught us to try to do the opposite and do what is most convenient for our customers.”

In 1997, after Jack turned 68, he wrote a letter announcing his retirement and sent it to everyone at the company. Jeff recalls, “About a week later, my mom said to him, ‘Can’t you come back to work? You’re driving me crazy!’ He said, ‘Yeah, great,’ and he went back to work, but five days a week instead of six.”

As he reached 80, Mr. Long began to slow down and work fewer hours. But he remained sharp when it came to the nitty-gritty of business. Steve says, “He knew if the drum department at the store in Châteauguay, Que., was a little slow. It was the same with the Toronto Blue Jays, and he knew the stats of all the players.”

Ultimately, what gave Jack Long the most joy was the music, playing Hoagy Carmichael. Stardust on the trumpet or a duet on Gershwins The Receiving You with Carol, his wife of 65 years, at the piano. And he was very proud that his grandson Jackson Steinwall, a talented bassist, and granddaughter Emily Steinwall, an accomplished saxophonist, had found their calling in music. Clearly, his legacy lives on.

Jack Long is survived by his children, Steve, Jeff, Jennifer, Julianne and Catherine; 17 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife Carol; and son Jonathan.

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