NORWELL, Mass. — When you've been making cymbals for drummers for 380 years, there's only one way to celebrate a birthday -- with a bang.
Dozens of percussionists -- classical, jazz and rock, shaggy-haired and clean-cut, famous and obscure -- gathered Friday to celebrate the birthday of Zildjian, the world's best-known maker of cymbals and a company whose roots in 1623 Constantinople give it a claim to being the world's longest-running family-owned business.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday May 20, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 36 words Type of Material: Correction
Cymbal maker -- An Associated Press article in the May 12 Business section incorrectly spelled the first name of the founder of the family-owned Zildjian cymbal manufacturing company and his ancestor. It is Avedis, not Avendis.
"Every classical musician I know, [every] percussionist, their ambition is to come to Norwell to the Zildjian factory and find the cymbals they will use in their philharmonic or orchestra," said former John Coltrane drummer Elvin Jones, a guest at the ceremony.
There were speeches from politicians and from the latest generation of Zildjians to lead the company -- Chief Executive Craigie and her sister Debbie, the vice president of human resources.
And as is wont to happen when drummers gather, there was plenty of noise.
Much of Zildjian's history is fuzzy, and the company isn't exactly sure how many generations of Zildjians have held in their hands the secret family formula for treating alloys to make them emit a special ring.
The company's line is that it all began with their ancestor Avendis I, an alchemist in Constantinople -- now Istanbul, Turkey -- whose cymbal-making expertise caused the sultan to bestow on him the name "Zildjian," which means cymbal maker.
Zildjian's reputation spread, and some European classical composers insisted their pieces be performed on Zildjian instruments. But it was essentially part-time work, and the tradition almost died out when the Armenian family moved to the United States in the early 20th century.
"It was my grandmother who spoke to my grandfather and said, 'This is too romantic a story, this is like a dynasty,' " Craigie Zildjian said. "She said you can't break the record here, it's been going on too long."
So, in 1929, Avendis Zildjian III opened the first U.S. factory in Quincy, Mass. He and his son also built a real business, working with music legends such as Gene Krupa and Papa Jo Jones to develop new products such as the "Paper Thin Crash" and "HiHat" cymbals.
"My father was the musical one," Debbie Zildjian said. "He instantly related to all these artists and began experimenting with different shapes, different weights, different sizes."
