The Bialon Music Studio - Whiting’s Music Man

Gayle Faulkner Kosalko January 2021

By the time Van Bialon was four years old, he was on his way to becoming a musical prodigy. His talent and musical abilities and those of his younger sister Melody were talents that they inherited from their father, Stanley Bialon, owner, and teacher of the Bialon School of Music here in Whiting at 1932 Indianapolis Blvd.

Although all kinds of musical instrument instructions were available, Bialon’s was usually synonymous with the playing the accordion.

As an instrument, the accordion is associated with eastern Europe. Historically the instrument itself is relatively new, being invented in the late 1800’s. One of the reasons for its popularity from the beginning was, because of its bellows system, its music was really loud which made it a popular instrument for dancing.

“It was the most popular instrument in the 1940’s to at least the late 1950’s,” explained Van Bialon, Stanley’s son. Van said that even though the accordion is not as popular as it used to be, it is still a part of many arrangements. For instance, there is always an accordionist playing at presidential balls and high society suppers and closer to home, what would our Pierogi Fest be without our accordion players.

Now Stanley’s parents were from Poland. His mother, Viola Prokocsky, came from Krakow.

Stanley’s wife Theresa’s family were Slovak. Theresa’s mother, after whom she was named, lost her first husband and Theresa’s father John Shapavalo at an early age. Theresa would later marry Phillip Kulina.

Stanley was born and lived in Indiana Harbor and graduated from Washington High School.

When he was young, Stanley studied accordion. During his teenage years, he studied with the famous accordion teacher Andy Rizzo. Rizzo was a well-regarded teacher of many of the finest players in the Chicago area and his name appears in most of their on-line bios.

“My father took college classes in Chicago at Loyola College mostly in Electronics and studied with Andrew Rizzo’s Conservatory of Music for the accordion,” Van said. “There he became close friends with a jazz accordionist Art Van Damme.”

Van Damme is known as the greatest jazz accordion player ever. The musicians became lifelong friends. And when Stanley’s son was still in grade school, he played with the Art Van Damn Quintet at a convention at the Palmer House in Chicago.

As most young accordionists do, Stanley spent most weekends playing out. One Saturday, when he and his brother Edward who was a drummer were performing at somebody’s wedding in Indiana Harbor, he met party guest Theresa Kulina. It wasn’t long until the two were wed and made their home in East Chicago in a condo that belonged to Theresa’s Grandmother on Alder Street. They were living her when their first child, Van was born. The Bialons lived there that until Van was about five years old.

The war came and Stan left for the service. When he returned, the young entrepreneur decided to do what he naturally did best…music. He began going door to door in East Chicago, giving accordion lessons. Soon he was doing so well that he and Theresa decided to open a real brick and mortar business in Whiting. They named it Bialon’s Accordion Studio.

Their new building had bedrooms so the Bialons moved in and had a place of their own in which to live. Van said that later his dad put a second floor on the building and extended the business side all the way up to the sidewalk. This is when they officially changed the name to Bialon School of Music.

“My mother could play accordion a little bit but she was not a musician,” Van said.

Even though she wasn’t a musician, Theresa “played” a big part in the business. Van remembers that she would help out in the store when he was young, selling instruments, reeds, and harmonicas.

“She was a good businesswoman and always a great supporter of Saint John’s Junior Rosary Society,” he remembered.

The Bialons had made a smart decision. Their business went so well that at one time, Stanley had five accordion teachers, a string teacher, an organ teacher, bass and guitar teacher, trumpet teacher, and reed instrument teachers as well as a percussion teacher on his staff.

“At one time, my father had about 800 students in total and probably 500 of those were accordion students,” Van said.

“When I was old enough, around 6th grade, I worked in the store almost every day behind the counter,” recalled Van. “That’s where I’d do my homework. But I also lost my playtime with my friends and although by being at the business I learned a lot, I lost some of my childhood as a result.”

But soon Van wasn’t working behind the counter. While in grade school, Van was good enough himself to teach both guitar and accordion to children and adults.

The Bialons were big on sharing their talents and giving back to the community of Whiting. On Palm Sunday, Stanley would rent out the auditorium at the Community Center and give a free concert for everybody. This became a real spring tradition in town.

“His concerts first started out just with accordions but then included drum sections on the stage with maybe 15 drummers. He also had different combos play like three or five accordionists together with many solos,” Van remembered. In later years, Van’s own jazz group would come up from IU on spring break and be part of the concert.

“Most of the parents would come over afterwards and our family would all meet at the music store and we’d have a party,” he recalled. “This was a good way for a family to get together and we always enjoyed it.”

Besides the yearly free concerts, Bialon’s was a tradition in the 4th of July parade. For the parade, Stanley would have his players performing up on flatbed trucks with 20 batteries connected to run one large amplifier. Forty to 60 accordion players sat there together and performed. Then later they would perform at the pavilion in the Park

Van said that his dad also had some of the very first electronic accordions in the state of Indiana.

“People don’t remember but instruments weren’t electronic until later,” he added. “All the wedding bands were 100% acoustic back then.”

It wasn’t unusual to tune into WJOB and hear Stanley Bialon and his musicians performing. His group brought in many listeners and he remained a local radio favorite.

At Bialon’s, it didn’t matter what your age. You just needed to want to learn and learn to practice. Students at the studio ranged in age from 6 to 65.

Probably Stanley Bialon’s youngest student ever was his own son who began lessons at age four. Young Van was so good around age 5, that he went on the Tony Piet Talent Search Show on Radio WJOB. He also was the winner on another radio program.

“It was a "Baby" Hammond Idol Radio Program. I won the contest and got this huge 3-foot trophy which my father had in the music store for many years,” Van said.

Van continued to take lessons from his dad until he was in 8th grade at St. John the Baptist School. By then he had gone as far as he could go and needed to move onto other teachers. This is when Van started taking jazz accordion lessons from the famous blind musician Leon Sash. He would drive to Skokie for four years just to study with this legend.

By his sophomore year at Whiting High School, Van decided he was ready to start a new instrument…the trumpet. He tried to learn to play it on his own, but soon he took lessons instead from WHS band director Wes Humphrey who taught him the basics. His junior year he received a scholarship to a program for talented high school musicians at Indiana University and gained 12 full credit hours at IU.

“I was shocked to see so many talented people at the auditions that I realized I had a lot of work to do on the trumpet,” he acknowledged. “When I came back home, I took music lessons from a famous musician in Chicago Renold Schilke.”

Schilke was a professional orchestral trumpet player, instrument designer and manufacturer.

“I believe he was first chair trumpet in the Chicago Symphony,” he said. “I took lessons at his factory for two summers and I really learned a lot and have been very grateful to have been taught under such artists.

Besides teaching, his dad Stanley also wrote and arranged music at the studio so “in theory” his son had luckily inherited those talents too. It’s obvious because Van passed out of so many of his music theory classes, that when he entered the IU School of Music, they placed him right in graduate classes. It was at IU that he performed with the IU jazz bands under Jerry Coker and David Baker.

He graduated the intense five-year music program in just four years

After his receiving his degree, he went on to teach High School Band at nine of the schools in the Hammond School City and other systems. He taught K-12 students in an array of classes from marching band, jazz, synthesizer, vocal, to Dixieland. He was a teacher…just like his father. Van went on to get his Administrative Degree as well. Upon retirement about five years ago, he and his wife Jayne moved to North Central Minnesota. Sadly, she recently passed away.

Stanley’s daughter Melody was 10 years younger than Van and like her big brother, she learned to play the accordion at a young age and showed an abundance of talent. Like her father, she too dedicated her life to music. After graduating on a Music Scholarship to Indiana State College, Melody became the Band teacher for her alma mater, Whiting High. Later she became an elementary music teacher in Valparaiso and would marry fellow teacher, Randy Logsdon.

Melody died in an automobile accident in 2015.

“They held a vigil after her passing. More than 600 students and parents came to celebrate her,” said her brother.

When she was hired more than 30 years ago, the principal said Melody had told him “the gift of music skills is as important as reading, math, science or playing basketball” and it would be her job to instill those skills to the children at an early age. He said that Melody's goal was to change the lives of kids through the love of music…and she did.

The Bialon School of Music closed around 1985.

“That was when my dad succumbed to cancer,” his son said. “My mother passed a year later.”

“My dad‘s philosophy on music, I believe, was to get the students to enjoy music…so they would continue on,” Van said.

He added that his father had been such a huge influence on so many up-and-coming musicians through his music school. But that’s obvious when you consider the paths Stanley’s son and daughter chose. Not only, like Stanley, was it their musical talents they had to offer, they also had the talent to engage young people’s interest and introduce them to the world of music.

And thanks to Stanley Bialon, the original “door to door” accordion teacher, hundreds of Whitingites’ lives were enriched for his talent.