SASKATOONEXPRESS - December 10-16, 2018 - Page 1
Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper
Volume 17, Issue 49, Week of December 10, 2018
Marie and Roger Jolly have operated Yamaha Piano Centre for 38 years, and are set to — almost — retire. (Photo by Joanne Paulson.)
Time to play
Roger and Marie Jolly to retire, close Yamaha Piano Centre
Joanne Paulson Saskatoon Express o one knows Saskatoon’s finest pianos like Roger Jolly. He hears them, tunes them, takes care of them. And, although Roger and his wife Marie are closing Yamaha Piano Centre on Broadway after 38 years in business, he is not retiring from looking after them. Perhaps he loves them too well to leave them. Ask him for his favourite concert piano, and he considers. The Bechstein at Convocation Hall on the UniversityTammy of Saskatchewan campus TA121004
comes to mind; he calls it “an exceptional world-class performance piano. And the acoustics of the place complement it, too.” There is also the Steinway at TCU Place, the history of which began with Jolly’s input. The city sent him and Bonnie Nicholson, one of Saskatoon’s finest pianists, to New York in search of the right instrument. “That turned out to be an exceptional Steinway,” said Jolly in an interview. But it’s impossible to choose one, perfect piano, he notes. “They are two very different pianos,” he added, referring to the Bechstein and the Steinway, “for very
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different venues and used for very different purposes. “The TCU Steinway is an orchestral piano and used with a 50-piece band. Power becomes the all-important thing. It doesn’t have the subtlety of the Bechstein. One size doesn’t fit all. If you had the Steinway to play with the Amati Strings, would it be as good as the Bechstein at Convocation Hall? No, it wouldn’t.” He also loves the semi-concert grand at the Bassment, used in a more intimate setting for a very different genre: jazz. “How do you evaluate one thing to the other? It’s not that straightforward.”
But it’s time to step back from retail for the Jollys. While Roger has been tending the city’s pianos, often on a seven-day per week schedule, Marie has been front and centre in the store, which gleams with the patinas of several piano brands. They went into business on May 1, 1980, as Canada headed into a deep recession — first on the 700 block of Broadway Avenue. In 1992, they moved to the present location on the 1100 block. They had been living in Edmonton, where Roger had the opportunity to work with a piano rebuilding expert. (Continued on page 10)
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