It's my 100th post! and I've come a long way!
Now to go off with my 100th post, I would like to speak of the terrible rivalry between Columbia's phonograph company and Edison's, as clearly seen in the satirical cartoon above. The cartoon above has Len Spencer(who is also being poked at by the way he looks!)beating out Edison's manager Walter Miller, and the Columbia end is in better shape as the fight goes, also alluding to Columbia's more progressive and smarter staff.
It was a cut throat business in the 1890's, recording was a very open, but hard field in this decade. It was a line of work only truly owned by a rather small group of people.
These who owned the business however knew what they were doing. With someone like Len Spencer taking a high position at Columbia's staff, there was no doubt that it would work very well.
Edison did not have as many devoted artists on staff, as Edison was too up tight as a "CEO", if you will, and he found the wild and raucous means of Columbia's tightly-knit staff immoral. None of Edison's devoted employees were devoted enough to start a magazine like Russell Hunting! The only truly devoted artists on Edison's staff was Frank P. Banta, but he was just their pianist, nothing more. All on the Columbia staff were eager and young, wanting to create vigor and competition in the recording business.
"the old man" couldn't let go of his old ways even with the moderately young artists he had employed.
"Vic"(Mr. Emerson, Columbia's manager) was all for the new age and the youth of his company's staff.
The artists' attitudes toward the records and their demeanors in general symbolize their companies. The Spencer's were young, ambitious, and good with the machines(representing Columbia). Arthur Collins' announcements were loud, from-the-back-of-the-room sometimes, and were not always the best said(representing Edison).
The relationship between the managers and the staff also represents these feuding companies. Columbia's great and somewhat hated manager Victor Emerson was in very close reach with the best, and all of his staff, even if he was not the best guy in the world.
Edison NEVER met any of his artists and staff unless he absolutely needed to, and those who actually met Edison were very specifically liked by him. So most of Edison's hundreds of artists never even stood in the same room as he did. All of Columbia's artists(well, before 1915) who came into the studio ever, would have met with "Vic", as the boys all called him, at least once during their term at Columbia.
Another factor that defines these companies is of course--
Their pianists of choice.
The pianists who are housed at any record company define their staff and preferences of people. Edison's first pianist(Edward Issler) was a very funny German guy who played very strongly in many senses and had the "pre-Ragtime" strain in him very well. Issler was a very good and loyal pianist(you had to be in order to be taken into early record companies anyway...). But after Issler's term, around c.1895-96, they went out and caught one of their new specimens, a recommendation of Vess Ossman---Frank P. Banta. Banta was a real change from the burly sounding German Issler. He was a very sickly-looking, light handed, classically trained pianist. He was not an improviser, but he did have reasonably good ears and rhythm. Issler, then Banta, then came the natural successor for the short period after Banta's death, Albert Benzler. Benzler had almost an identical style and technique to Banta, proving that Edison's now(as of 1903) progressive staff preferred light-handed and highly classically trained pianists behind their singers.
Now Columbia was a different story.
As you all know, Fred Hylands was their trademark pianist of the late-1890's, he was their pride and joy. But unfortunately, the only pianist who could be identified before Hylands was Fred Gaisberg(hmm... maybe they had a "thing" for Fred's...) and Gaisberg was their pianist for only a short time in 1891 to about 1894. Then from there he went off on his long association with Berliner. So there is a little bit of a gap between 1894 and 1897. Who was their pianist in that time? Who knows... Columbia was at a bit of a loss of life in early 1897, so in their curiosity, they set out all over Manhattan and surrounding areas for a new pianist. They weren't really sure who or what kind of pianist they were looking for, but when they found them, they knew. They looked and observed many of the hip new Rag Time pianists, such as Mike Bernard and Ben Harney, but they were too flashy and too popular to be used regularly. After months of searching, they stumbled upon this fat but confident musical director who would sit at his desk by day, and play his heart out for the massive crowds by night---
Frederic Hylands.
How they found him is unknown, and will never be known, but they were immediately stuck on him. His playing was just right, not perfectly formed, slightly messy, heavy-handed, and Oh, how the man could play Rag-Time! He had the style they wanted, and his captivatingly sweet but dark personality was just like the rest of their staff, and he had the spirit of the topliner artists, like Len Spencer and Russell Hunting.
the pianists represent the companies in these ways--
Banta(for Edison): played very lightly but sincerely, perfect on his technique, and made no mistakes, but had a rugged demeanor, as his background had kept up with this factor. Had little money to spend and often had a very ugly cough(due to long-standing asthma).
Meaning: Edison's company was built on rough circumstances, but kept a hands-off feel to it's rather industrial and unimproved atmosphere. It had a kind of Old-fashioned industrial revolution feel to it. Did not really improve its means until 1902.
Hylands(for Columbia): played with very heavy hands, very determined to succeed in whatever he pursued, created something new every take, forwardly-minded, eccentric, crazy on the piano keys when came time Rag-time he could take the liberty to play, and just in general.
Meaning: Columbia was a company built by progressives and curious intellectuals, and early too, in 1886. Edison did not improve on his last model of the phonograph until 1888, and his company did not truly go commercial until 1892 and 1893. Columbia was a company not barred out by the means of bias like Edison was, and they took in the best singers possible, and had the wealthiest on their recording and administrative staff, so their records were better in quality. And, their records did sound better in many ways than Edison cylinders, as they found the best ways to record their rather hard-to-balance burly pianist.
Well, you choose who you think won this battle! I can't truly back up my opinion, but it can be considered rather obvious by how I described the record companies' strengths and weaknesses.
I hope you enjoyed this!
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