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If, at the age of 10, Roger Wolfe Kahn had not bought a ukelele in a Ditson Music Shop (Manhattan) together with special-priced instruction in playing, he might have gone to Massachusetts Institute of Technology later in life and become an engineer as his father, Otto Hermann Kahn, hoped. As it was, the ukelele lured him away from his studies at St. Bernard's School, turned his mind toward violins, pianos, banjos, jazz orchestras. At 16, he had organ-ized a paying band, installed it at the Knickerbocker Grill, and rejected colleges. He could play every instrument in the outfit, all learned by pickup. His favorites are piano and saxophone but anyone seeing him rummaging through a music store, trying a tune on a clarinet, a melody on the oboe, rhythms on the tom-tom, feels quite satisfied that, if necessary, he could get "Yankee Doodle" on a monkey wrench.
He will be 20 years old next month. About then he will have given up his eleven orchestras which, playing in resorts and hotels from Newport to Florida, have netted him personally an average of $50,000 a year for the four years of their existence. Originally they were organized with the help of Otto H. Kahn, who lent $25,000 for the first financing.— Every dime of that has been paid back. If the orchestras were to go on the road, as do the Lopez and Whiteman jazz bands, it is probable that they could earn $1,000 a night. But Roger, at 19, finds orchestras and even his brilliant night club, Le Perroquet de Paris, jaded interests. His pres-ent passion is composing and aviation.
A Waltz ballad, "Why," achieved indifferent success. Another, "Following You Around," made money. George Whiteman is arranging the score of the newest Kahn composition a "Rhapsurdity." Then there are three or four musical comedies developing. One, to be produced by Horace Liveright, is a musical comedy satire on musical comedy, called Hearts and Flowers. After the manner of musical comedies the world over, the title may be changed many times. It may even evolve as Bowery Nights. But it eventually will be done, for Roger Wolfe Kahn has no distractions, despite his many enthusiasms.
Dutifully, he accompanied his parents to Europe for the two-dozenth time this summer. He can speak French and German fluently, knows a smattering of Italian, and his way around, but finds the old world extremely boring. Its only advantage is superior aviation fields. To leave Paris for London he chartered a plane.
The transatlantic hero, Colonel Lindbergh, after his triumphant arrival in Paris, was to cros? the channel by air the same day but, on account of a heavy fog, sensibly postponed the trip. Kahn flew anyway.
Last week he was in Rockford, Mich., purchasing a stunt airplane. He planned to fly it back to his Long Island home in time to compete in the transcontinental race from Manhattan to Seattle. Among his competitors will be the men who succeeded in dropping onto Hawaii after a 2,400-mile trip from Oakland, Calif. The machine will be added to other Roger Kahn machines—a Bellanca modeled exactly after the Columbia (in which Chamberlin and Levine crossed the Atlantic), a string of automobiles, (Duesenberg, Bugatti,— Lincoln, Marmon, Chrysler, Ford), a speed boat. Any one of these at any time may be pulled thoroughly to pieces and completely put together again by their owner, who can use monkey wrenches as monkey