The first Jany, recalls Ivan, 64, had "lungs" - the ringing tone needed to carry a melody along the concrete canyon of Broad Street. Mummers, he explained, need that extra volume to provide a rhythmic background for saxophones and glockenspiels.
The Jany stands out in the annual parade. It's long-necked, with 22 frets, four more than most tenor banjos. Added frets give an instrument higher range.
Ivan, born in South Philadelphia, refers to himself as an All-American who's 100-percent Hungarian. His Hungarian-American father was born in the U.S. His 85-year-old mother, Elizabeth, who lives with him, was born in the Hungarian village of Abaujvar.
"It helps explain my love of stringed instruments," says Ivan. "We Hungarians love our gypsy music; it's in our blood, it flows like Hungary's tokay wine."
He's an independent spirit who developed mahogany-carving skill as a youngster who made balsa-wood airplanes, propelled by rubber bands. His mother had ordered him to take up a hobby to keep him off the streets.
"When I was growing up, there was anti-Hungarian sentiment in my South Philadelphia neighborhood. There was verbal abuse, along with physical assaults, which I was quick to resolve with my fists," said Ivan.
He joined his first string band as a young man. Eventually, the solitary precision of the craftsman no longer meshed with the raucous atmosphere of a Mummers clubhouse.
Ivan stopped parading more than a decade ago, and catches the Mummers on TV. But he is hardly forgotten.
Last March, he received a very public thanks at the Philadelphia String Band Association Show of Shows, an annual indoor extravaganza at the Civic Center where the 16 member bands reprise their Broad Street drills.
More than a hundred Jany banjo owners serenaded him as "The Banjo Man of Broad Street" on the very banjos he crafted for them. They also offer testimonials.
