Saturday, March 14, 2015

I need help on a project! Help!


From the March, 1899 issue of The Phonoscope 

I have been wondering ever since I found this little snippet who this Burt Green guy is. As Hylands clearly met this fellow early Ragtimer when he was the music director at Tony Pastor's theatre in the first two years Fred was on the east coast. I have heard of this Burt Green in the actual death notice of Ben Harney in 1938, here is a piece of it below: 

"Harney was not [Ragtime's] creator but without his brilliant playing the new idea might have been presently forgotten. With his so marked, a host of imitators sprang up , but only two, Mike Bernard,  house pianist at [Tony] Pastor's, and Burton(Bert) Green, then playing for the shows at Huber's museum, approximated the brilliance of his performance, and both owe their inspiration to Harney[...]"

So from this curiosity, it seems that Mr. Green was a popular Ragtimer in the same circle of friends as Fred Hylands, Ben Harney, Mike Bernard, and the Spencer brothers. 

(side note: The "Spencer Brothers" were Len and Harry obviously, but to connect Burt Green to them, the Spencer's were listed as performing at the same Huber's museum in March of 1896 , where Green was apparently the house pianist who played this new-fangled thing called "Rag Time", so this is most likely where Spencer became acquainted with Green, and perhaps more interested in "Rag Time", this place is also where Len probably took his first interest in Ada Jones) 
So, the help that I want from all of you(very few obviously) viewers is anything on Burt Green! Please! I will not let another Rag-timer go forgotten under the shadow his more popular fellows! 
Anything you can find on Mr. Green will be written down and documented, deeply appreciated! 

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