missed birthdays

I have been up at my cousins' cabin up in the Sierras for the past three days, so posting was not an option, as their network did not work very well, and it was snowing with strong wind up there. Any way, I'm glad to be back in the bay area!
So I missed two important birthdays within my absence:

Frank C. Stanley(December 29)

Fred Van Eps(December 30)

Frank C. Stanley(1868-1910)

Fred Van Eps(1878-1960) 

these two were very influential in their day, even though Van Eps made several improvements to various inventions later in life. Without Frank Stanley, many of the famous quartets we often hear on early disc records and cylinders would not have been recorded, and Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan may had never been paired together. Van Eps led the way for banjo players and how the instrumentation of early Jazz bands would be. He brought up the popularity of the Saxophone in 1916!  

Anyhow happy 2015 ev'ryone! 

Danny Quinn the Ragtimer!

I had a few of my dear close friends over at my house for a yearly tradition we call "Crabsmas" which is held on boxing day. We have a few people over and feast on Crab and clam chowder, and open presents.
So one of the guests we had over was Richard Hadlock, and I've known him for years, since I was very young. So I've had many geeky conversations with him about early Victor records and cylinders(he has direct connections to Victor's earliest years), but one we had two days ago truly blew my mind. I drew a commissioned cartoon involving Dan W. Quinn, as he hadn't seen a picture of Quinn before. So when his wife(Ruth) asked about Quinn, Richard replied," Dan W. Quinn was a famous Vaudeville performer and pianist in the early twentieth century." Right when he said "pianist" that struck me, I almost interrupted him in asking, "Pianist? I knew he was somewhat of a pianist." Richard then goes on to say that he may be playing piano on some of the many records he made, even his Victors! That astounded me! I knew that he played piano, wrote some music that was eventually published and that he was a quick sight reader, much like the west coast Ragtimer Tom Brier. I couldn't have ever thought that Dan W. Quinn could be playing piano on several of his records! But since I heard of this, I have been listening to Quinn's records and I am certainly convinced! It makes sense. If you listen to some of Quinn's records compared to some by other artists, you may notice(if you've got a good enough ear) that the piano playing and style is a little different compared to the pianistic style of Fred. Hylands, Frank P. Banta, and C. H. H. Booth.

                                       I can imagine this man as a pianist. What d'ye think?


I hope all you geeks enjoyed this!

the mystery of "Len Spencer's minstrels"

Of many various things that Len Spencer got himself into between 1890 and 1910, one of the things that some may wonder about is the minstrel companies he managed around 1897-1900 and starting a second one around 1906-07. It's clear that in the selection from The Phonoscope shown below that it was a very highly anticipated and hopeful venture that composed mostly of Spencer's friends at the Columbia Phonograph Company.

It was likely that Frederick Hylands was Spencer's pianist at at least a few events. It is clear of the high anticipation in the next selection from the edition the month right after the one above(the first of is from September of 1898):

the one seen above is from the "it is rumoured that..." section from The Phonoscope. 
It seems that the troupe was pretty successful, even into the next year, as the section below from you what from January of 1899:

It seems that this minstrel troupe lasted until about 1900, and seemed to be a great way to fuel Spencer's urge to be a hustler for Columbia, and teach the boys at Columbia to be better salesmen at their records. It's odd, Spencer didn't do that for Edison very much, though, he did make Edison's trademark "Advertising record' in 1906. He didn't do nearly as much for Edison as he did for Columbia. 

His minstrels did not seem to fade away after 1900 though, he still had his own "Columbia Minstrels" and he must have gotten a group together and did a couple of shows with them occasionally, but it was not as prominent as it was in the late-1890's. As he did commission a display of his minstrels(more of the names involved are recognizable to record collectors) around 1907: 

(I know I have used this picture before) 

This was one of the most grand of Spencer's salesman schemes, he commissioned a full size display of his "Columbia Minstrels"which had wax figurines of all of his minstrel friends the ones here are: 

Len Spencer(in the middle, durr...) 

Arthur Collins

Byron G. Harlan 

                      J. W. Myers(kind of odd that he was here...)

Albert C. Campbell

Steve Porter

Frank C. Stanley

Henry Burr 

(I can't really tell where everyone is, sorry bout that...)

This display must have been quite a sight, and a winning moment for Spencer and his minstrel friends.This was on display at Coney Island as one of the many famed attractions there in the 1900's. This was there in c.1905-06 until is was later destroyed in a fire. It played records of each of the performers behind the figures to re-create one of the minstrel shows that Spencer managed on Columbia cylinders. Spencer lived at Coney Island when this was created, so he must have had the duty to go out there and present the display to the large throngs that the Coney Island fairs brought. 

Spencer must have still been interested in leading minstrel performances after this venture destroyed itself, but he not longer tried things as extreme as this. What he did was that he ran his own minstrel/vaudeville stage and housing for performers(such as George W. Johnson) until his untimely, but somewhat expected death in December of 1914. He seemed to have run this business of his since his days of publishing with Hylands and Yeager, as that is most likely where the location of the publishing agency came from. He moved the business, which is often called "Len's(or Spencer's) Lyceum" several times prior to 1914. After Spencer died, his Brother and older daughters took over the business until mid-1915. It just couldn't survive without "Len" at it's head, Harry couldn't take the amount of work his older brother had...

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed this!

Another installment of Hylands Spencer and Yeager

Just within the last hour, "Professor" Bill Edwards sent me an e-mail that got me very far in the whole Hylands Spencer and Yeager deal. I'm really pulling these three together very well:

 Hylands

Spencer 

you know who...

(mind you, this is from much later than when he was a publisher)

since I have been digging deep into these three, they are now potential subjects of my next seminar, only because they were a very odd group of minds who worked as one(kind of) for a little less than a year in the last year of the nineteenth century. You can clearly see this, they were quite an odd-looking trio of "piano men" who all had differed expertise in the music business. One was a piano master, one was an alright pianist  and composer, and the last was a singer and later a piano salesman and piano roll dealer. 

Merry Chirstmas ev'ryone!

Fred. Hylands, Len spencer and Harry Yeager

This morning,(with the great and wonderful help of my dear friends Rae Ann Hopkins Berry and "Professor" Bill Edwards) I have put together the information on firm showed below, who I allude to often:
     (Spencer did the art here, in case any of you are wondering, it's pretty obvious)

This rare and short-lived firm, of "Hylands, Spencer and Yeager" was formed in March of 1899 and dissolved sometime shortly after the beginning of 1900. The three men who ran this firm all had different specialties in the music business, as two of them were recording artists at the time of their merging. When they worked, to what I can gather, it worked something like this:

Fred. Hylands- where many of the ideas and concepts came from(the leader, if you will)

Len Spencer-organized the material and arranged it correctly(some of the ideas too)

Harry Yeager-finalized the projects, and dealt with the artists they published

These three must have been a somewhat odd mix of minds, but really, the ones who were the wild minded of them were Hylands and Spencer, Yeager must have been the neutral one of the three and kept the arguments away, he balanced them out in some respects. They were all pianists, but to be logical, Hylands must have been the most accomplished of the three of them on the piano, and he had been on the stage longer than the three of them, so in some ways, Hylands was the leader of the firm(durr...his name comes first anyway), as he was already a publisher, and a successful stageman by 1897. Spencer was Columbia's most prized artist by 1897, so putting Hylands and Spencer together was a match made in heaven, as they were perfect as music partners. Hylands had the exact same ideas and on every record with Spencer singing Ragtime and Hylands on piano, you can just hear that connection on those cylinders, and that "vibe" is not present with other singers. The singers that Hylands had a great friendship and connection to were: 

Len Spencer

J. W. Myers

Vess L. Ossman

Roger Harding

Dan W. Quinn

Harry Yeager(as a vocalist, possibly)

He had some odd strong connection to these artists, most likely because he could easily work with them, and thy were much more tolerant of Hylands' wild and syncopated improvisations that he always did. Artists like George J. Gaskin were a bit more snobbish when it came to piano accompaniment, Gaskin must not have liked the sound of a pianist who was hitting the ivories with all his might. 

Hylands and Spencer also shared several long-term bets with one another, proving their immediate friendship even further, one of which was documented in the March, 1899 issue of The Phonoscope:

Quite an odd bet if you ask me. But, it certainly sounds like Spencer to me. And Hylands too. 

I hope you enjoyed this!

A Very Progressive day!

This has been a VERY progressive day for me on my Fred. Hylands research(hard to believe since I've got finals at school this week...), all due to a wonderful long e-mail I received a few hours ago from "Professor" Bill Edwards. I just thank him with all my heart for what he did! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! He not only furthered my notes, but helped me on my paper of notes I'm doing for my seminar next year at the West Coast Ragtime festival. I took in it all! And many of the things that I predicted were indeed proved true, they are no longer theories. He also sent me a very great picture of Hylands from a newspaper dated 1909(it's a bit hard to see, but Mr. Edwards fixed it up as best he could):

Just for those music geeks out there(which I'm hoping all of you are!) here's the other one I have on my computer of Hylands just to do a comparison:

not much of a difference if you ask me...

(again, THANK YOU SO MUCH "Professor" Bill Edwards!!!!)
(Also, thank you Rae Ann, i know you're reading this at some point)

Yesterday, over 100 years ago

On December 12, in 1903 and in 1910, two great recording artists and performers died two untimely deaths. When both of them died, it ended lives that had too much potential for such an early demise.

Frank P. Banta, Edison's great pianist, and wonderful composer died on December 12, 1903, at the young age of 33

Frank C. Stanley(respectively William Stanley Grinsted) the wonderful bass singer of his day died on December 12, 1910, at the young age of 42.

His rare Bass voice shall live on forever, and bless the descendants of mister Grinsted(which I know there are some out there)...

here is one of the only records where these two greats are together, Banta is on organ here:
https://archive.org/details/edgm-8310

*I want to thank "Ragtime"Bill Edwards for the great and unique picture of Banta shown here!

Different Takes, 1898

       I just listened to these two cylinders which, to how they sound, were recorded on the same day, they were just different takes. They are COMPLETELY different and  Hylands is obviously on piano. I know that everyone has heard these before, but has anyone ever really listened to the piano behind George W. Johnson? (both of these were recorded in 1898)

here's the better version(in my opinion) where Hylands is playing heavy Ragtime the ENTIRE cylinder: (this is a playlist, so the first one listed is the one I'm talking about)
     https://archive.org/details/nobodyKnowsTheUploadIveSeen

Here's the second one(the alternate take with the record company mentioned). So on this one Hylands completely MESSES UP the end of the cylinder, but he's killing the piano though!(he's not syncopating the entire cylinder though :-(
      (this is also a playlist, so the one I'm speaking here is the second one listed, really listen to how Hylands plays at the end of the cylinder!)
     I must warn you, his tempo changes are slightly jarring.  https://archive.org/details/GeorgeWJohnson

I hope you've really studied these great examples of Frederic Hylands' piano style!
They're truly great unrealized pieces!

Hylands on piano

these two records(one is a cylinder and another is a disc) both show off the wonderful pianistic skill of Fred. Hylands, and he's playing GREAT Ragtime on both of these:

alright, so this one is by "Ragtime Bob Roberts", from a Columbia matrix, so that's how I know that he's the pianist on this one, and it's recorded in 1902. listen to that solo at the end!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f44kaFHCPQI

okay, so this next one is an EXTRAORDINARY example of early recorded Ragtime! He's just killing on that piano the whole time! This was recorded in 1898, and announced by Len Spencer.
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/8000/8436/cusb-cyl8436d.mp3

I hope you enjoyed these!

Spoiler Alert!

      If I am invited to another seminar at the West Coast Ragtime Festival next year, I already have my idea planned out, I just started my outline for it. I would love to do another one! It was so much fun! Here's the link to a video of my FULL seminar(thanks to Rae Ann Hopkins Berry who took the video) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFYRr1pigZI&list=UUAU0okZRF3YIaOdJxfXcM3A

Many may wonder about who those great pianists were behind all of these popular singers on cylinders and early disc records. Clearly they were great, well-rounded musicians who were asked to become a record company’s house pianist for a reason, and the major factor of this often varies from the different people going out to hire these pianists. Some wanted strong and powerful, light and airy, Ragtime heavy, Ragtime light, more pedal, less pedal, you name it. The record companies(such as Victor or Columbia) all wanted a different piano sound behind their artists, to make their records more distinct, and in some ways, better than they already were.

Each record company had a different pianist, although some crossed over to other record companies occasionally. They each had their own feel on the piano and style, though being in the same time period, they all played the same types of music, though some played certain things better than their rival pianists. Such as Ragtime, it was a contagious fad that every house pianist of the late 1890’s and early 1900’s had to learn how to play it somewhat as it was bound to be recorded by the record companies in it’s heyday.

The two house pianists that will be focused on here are Edison’s pianist, Mr. Frank P. Banta, and Columbia’s house pianist Frederic Hylands. These two were pianists who came from completely different musical backgrounds; one classical and the other more out of folk music and early forms of Ragtime. From the records they’re on they had completely different styles of piano, and one was on the records more often than the other.

Frederic Hylands(c.1872-1913)

This man was a complete mystery until about a year ago, when a few friends of mine and I went through old newspapers, magazines, and census records. The first thing someone can notice when they’re reading through Russell Hunting’s magazine The Phonoscope is that the name “Fred.(or Freddy) Hylands” is mentioned more than a handful of times throughout the issues. That sparked the interest right away. So what has been dug up on this supposedly  well-loved and respected “heavy-weight piano artist”(From a page from The Phonoscope)

is rather surprising, as it seems that he was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana around early 1872 to a rather middle class family whose father was a railroad worker, but around 1887 he opened a grocery store which soon also became a saloon. Now this is most likely where young Frederic began to fiddle around on the piano and play various things that he heard at the saloon. So basically Hylands came from the same background as Brun Campbell, who is often known for being the only white student of Scott Joplin’s. And from the way that he played, his feel was very natural, loose, and sounds like he had perfect pitch, as he could completely improvise some of the wonderful things he played on those Columbia brown cylinders, and other versions of the songs from the same year don’t have anything close to what Hylands decided to play. Hylands probably had an idea of what Banta was playing, and Banta probably had an idea of what Hylands was playing, as they were both well-known pianists and bandleaders in their day in the same area of the country.

Hylands most likely attended the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago, as his sister got married there the same year, and he lived in Chicago for several years after 1893. At the fair, he must have gotten a good heavy dose of the wide variety of music that was being played there, as some historians have come to believe that this world’s fair was where “Rag Time” was first played publicly to the masses. And at this possibility, Hylands most likely got an earful of this new, upbeat, catchy, syncopated music. And also while living in Chicago, he must have heard the famous “Coon Shouter” Silas Leachman who was said to have the most awe-inspiring natural ear for music, but was said never to be able to read or write it, if so, not very well. Leachman was also an early Ragtimer, in the sense that he recorded Ragtime later when it was more popular in the way that someone who had been involved with for a while would, just the same as Hylands did. Hylands’ Ragtime sounded like that of a natural pianist and that of a player who had heard of “Rag Time” early in its life, as early as when “Rag” was just a slang word for a boardinghouse party....

Two Cylinders, 1898

 These two cylinders may possibly be those of Roger Harding’s own records, or some that the Spencer’s devised in 1898:

this is “Carnival of Venice” by Charles P. Lowe, but it is for CERTAIN that Fred. Hylands is behind him, and Len Spencer announces:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/5000/5279/cusb-cyl5279d.mp3

Here’s the other one, This is “The Darkey’s Dream” played by Vess L Ossman, with Hylands SURELY on the piano behind him, Hylands is not playing the melody by the way, he’s just going off doing some complicated quick improvising behind Ossman(this is truly a fascinating cylinder!)

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/5000/5286/cusb-cyl5286d.mp3

(Spencer announces here too)

I hope you enjoyed these!

A New piece of Art

This is a very accurate drawing of Len Spencer and Fred. Hylands, from around 1899. After I found that picture of Hylands, I drew a whole bunch of art that involves Hylands, now that I have a much better idea as to how he looked. I no longer have to guess.(they're in blackface by the way)

            Hylands is on the right here.

I hope you enjoyed this!

Rare Cards of mine!

I also have collected some Cabinet cards and original photographs over the last few years and what I've got it really cool!
      Here's what I have:

        Some of you may know who this is right off, but to those who don't get it right away, this is indeed "The March King" John Philip Sousa, without his trademark glasses! I learned not long after i got this that the company who took this photo was a very prestigious company who was very rather famous in the late 1880s to 1890s. This must have been taken in c.1889, just by how it looks.

     
           Here's the back, showing the company's logo:

      I'm sure all of you Ragtimers will know who this is, this is "The Ragtime Kid" Brun Campbell. When I got this picture, I thought it was awesome, I didn't have an original of Campbell.

BUT! I didn't realize what this really was until I flipped it over...

Autographed! and signed out to the owner of Riverside records! "S. Brun Campbell", I love it!

Now this next one is a little bit of a stretch, very few will know what this one is:

Most of you who don't know what this is will think that this is from "The King and I" but really it's DeWolf Hopper and Della Fox in their 1891 production of Wang which is somewhat similar to that, but is more of an early burlesque musical set in Siam. I love this card, only because you get an odd image of the man who popularized Edward Thayer's "Casey at the Bat". Also because I have often heard that the Coon Song singer Arthur Collins was in this show(somewhat surprising...) in 1891 and 92, so it's good to get an idea of what Collins would have worn in this show.

I hope you enjoyed these!

They All "Blacked up"

I was recently reading the wonderful book Monarchs of Minstrelsy (which is a great source for anyone interested in minstrels from the 1830's to 1911 when the book was written) and they had a big "They all blacked up" page with some surprising names listed. So in seeing that, I wanted to list some that weren't on this page with their names, jut as the book did.

                            Dan W. Quinn

                               Byron G. Harlan

                                George Graham

                    George J. Gaskin
   

Len Spencer (pretty obvious, he should really have been on the page...)

J. W. Myers 

And to close off, I need to explain why I think this picture is so important: 

this is what the website I found it from says about it:

"Len Spencer's "Columbia Minstrels" on display at Coney Island in 1907. The music and talking was concealed by Columbia Sound-Magnifying Graphophones. One of the wax models was supposed to represent Billy Murray. (Can you tell which one?) Others include Len Spencer, Arthur Collins, Byron G. Harlan, Steve Porter, Frank C. Stanley, Albert Campbell, Henry Burr, and J. W. Myers. The exibit was later destroyed by a fire. Library of Congress, Jim Walsh Collection."

this picture is very important, regardless of the fact that it isn't in the best of quality. I know that Spencer is in the middle, no doubt. And that I can kind of identify who everyone is(not everybody though! Don't get your hopes up...) I am certain that Collins is the second from the left end, and that Harlan is most likely on his right, I can kinda see it. I can't really make out everyone else at the moment, but if you want to know who anyone is, just make a comment about it and I'll try my best to figure it out.

 So this was one of the MANY schemes that the notorious hustler Len Spencer came up with. He decided(since he lived at Coney Island in 1907), to display a grand stage dedicated to the minstrel records that he and his "Columbia Minstrels" (really just the people he worked with at Columbia who were also minstrel singers).

Spencer also must have done vaudeville acts with his brother Harry in the 1890's at the famous shows that Coney Island is often known for in this time period. As they were and act and Spencer must have gotten his sketch writing skills from somewhere. He must have also found several new recording artists while visiting fairs and shows. This is another possibility as to where Columbia found Hylands...(hint, hint)...

More Hylands!

This has been a VERY productive day in my Fred. Hylands research, and i've even found another piece of sheet music just a few minutes ago, that isn't self published, and he's with a completely different lyricist here, and it's in the vicinity of when he was writing music with Len Spencer and when he was Columbia's pianist.

this was published in 1899, and I'm sure when he played this, he played it with more syncopation, as that's how he seems to have played on the cylinders he's on. He's truly a wonderful pianist that should be more acknowledged by Ragtimers everywhere. He was a REAL Ragtimer(and an early one!) just like Jay Roberts or Brun Campbell.

Finally! Picture of Fred Hylands!

As I was digging through some more sheet music on the internet this morning, I stumbled across a piece of sheet music that had this image on it:

     You may or may not know why I was just hysterical when I found this. IT'S A PICTURE OF THE PIANIST FRED HYLANDS!(he's the seated one here, obviously...) I had my art pretty spot on! I do have to go back an fix some things though, but it's so odd that I can often guess how many of these performers look and get SO close or perfect on how I draw them. One of the many interesting things about this picture is that Hylands is in blackface! I didn't know he was a full on minstrel man, I just thought he was a pianist, Ragtime performer, and a musical director.

        He really does look like Len Spencer, I can see why the two became immediate friends...

To-day, December 4.

                On this very date, one hundred years ago to be exact, the great Mister Leonard Spencer died a sudden and unpleasant death. He was more than just a singer and recording artist, he was a great vaudevillian and a prominent man in his community. He was one of the first to truly shape the recording industry, starting in 1889-1890 when Columbia began to record him, his vast ideas of recording music were influential, and progressive. He inspired singers to become owners of the music business, both in publishing and in recording itself. His work in establishing the modern music business shall forever live on.

       May his wonderful baritone voice live on forever...