Ah yes, Freddy Hylands, Columbia's "heavyweight piano artist"
He could kill the Rag-Time like a king, but that was not where all of his talent on the ivories stood. As the voiceless wonder on Columbia cylinders, all his words, phrases, misery, love, and tiredness all came out on the piano keys of Columbia's less-than-great-sounding piano. He can be described as a pianist who "wore his misery", in his weight and sometimes in his piano playing. But he was also a very kind, comical, fun, and quick-witted as a person, and a performer.
His records playing the more common, and respected type of music of the 1890's are also very interesting curiosities. As like always, each take is different, and each song has some odd improvisations, whether they make musical sense or not. Recently, I heard a record by J. W. Myers from 1901 with organ accompaniment on it, here is that record:
A most sad song, but it's somewhat hard to completely feel that way due to Hylands' TERRIBLE organ playing. He just was not good on the instrument. And this cylinder above truly gets that point out, and since the organ is so LOUD(oh Hylands...) it's easy to tell that J. W. Myers did not think this through when he wanted "Freddy" at the organ when they recorded this. But this was a typical thing with Frank Banta at Edison however. Banta was very skilled on the organ, and had a better style at playing the thing.
Now this next cylinder is a great 5-inch wide concert cylinder from Columbia, once again with the partnership of Myers and Hylands:
(the little home recording on this is also very fun!)
This cylinder is a different story. This one has the hard-handed nature of Hylands, and also gets some of his unusual sort of early-novelty piano playing here and there. The song is pretty fun also!
So, this next one is a Pre-Ragtime number from 1892 by Thomas Hindley, called the "Patrol Comique", which has always been a fascination with early-ragtime studies, recorded in c.late 1897-1898:
this one also exhibits all of Hylands' traits on the piano, more so than some of the ones above, even the quick walking octaves! George Schweinfest is also always a wonder to listen to, as he was the best piccolo player recorded on cylinders, in my opinion.
Now this one is an unusual sacred number by Steve Porter in 1898, and this one is particularly interesting because it's one of those few records where you can actually hear Hylands' mood in his playing:
(make sure you pause it right after the music cuts off!)
Hylands' playing is so heavy and strong. On this one, he's clearly not enjoying it half as much as Mr. Porter, his misery can be heard in his playing.
Hylands's playing can be characterized as rather typical for the time period, but it was unique in the sense that he was once a praised child prodigy, and his playing has many aspects reminiscent of those early days. So he played in some ways similar to his friend and fellow Rag-Timer Mike Bernard, with the same sort of flashy patterns that Bernard had cultivated from his child prodigy days. Hylands always had that feeling that he had when he was a well-loved prodigy. He believed that his charm and respect could get him through anything, and since everyone loved him, it only added to this mindset. He never had enough money to get truly what he wanted out of what he did, so the charm and love wasn't enough, and it took him to get out of his thirties to fully realize this. And he didn't live much longer than that anyway. This is why he could be considered a "lost soul" or a broken musician around the time he died. His rich friends would never fund him enough anyway, and when he was an older publisher, they just heard about it and let it pass by them, not willing to help an old friend.
I hope you enjoyed this!
The two cylinders by Myers are a particular delight. I never suspected him of having a sense of humour before! I think too that for the first time I can hear a trace of a Welsh accent in both of these. On 'Captain Jenks', whose voice is it that we hear before the singer's own announcement?
ReplyDelete