Anything, from the eerie minor cadences of Chinese opera, its origins veiled in tradition, to' the latest tantalizing tunes freshly sprung from Tin Pan Alley, may assail one's ears in cosmopolitan Shanghai. Here tho, the songs of Czecho-Slovakia, England, Germany, and a dozen other nations vie with the wall of Chinese utes and the rhythms of American saxophones—in fact almost any variety of song and music may be cajoled. forth from a gramophone since the art of musie-making with all its ramifications peacefully invaded China.
The day is gone when only the golden-voiced Caruso and those who had achieved name and fame in the West. could claim immortality via the phonograph. That day passed, really, nearly a quarter of a century ago, "when the Pathe Company brought the first gramophone to China, and some years later recorded Chinete music, Columbia too, arrived, and on July 1, the two great companies merged, forming The Electrical and Musical Industries, (China), Ltd, assembling the most modern' sound-producing apparatus Ju the largest factory in China to meet the huge demands for Chinese recordings pouring in, not only from the major cities of China, but from Singapore, Malaya, Manila, and even San Francisco,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.