The Genius of Hylands' playing and other ramblings

I meant to do a post last evening, but there was a big failure with the electricity and the Internet yesterday. Other than listening to a healthy dose of early Jazz lately, I have listened to a lot of  Fred Hylands accompaniments closely, and I have noticed some things I haven't really thought about before. One thing that I kind of had a slight idea of before was the fact that Hylands didn't just play the traditional Rag-Time chord and octave or note left hand, he played things over the syncopated right hand that are indirectly related to the style of boogie-woogie. Yes indeed, some boogie players may challenge this notion to death, but I find an indirect relationship between these two seemingly completely different styles of piano. 

This idea of Hylands playing two completely different things at once is the work of a true genius no doubt, and it seems that even when the man was drunk he could still do this! Two perfect examples of this are here:

one from 1898.

And one from 1902.

The two records in the links above are extraordinary examples of Rag-Time from pre 1904. The second one is especially amazing, because Hylands is much easier to hear than on the first one. I have tried many a time to play the weird thing that he plays in the choruses behind Collins, it's a mixture of walking octaves in a specific melodic pattern, and a slightly blues-y right hand pattern. It's really a hard one to dissect, and just to try to play in general. 

I know of another very good example of Hylands' "two-sided" accompaniments(as I call them now), which is a Climax record from 1901 entitled "Baby Mine(Sand Dance)" by S. H. Dudley(which I should ask the friend of mine who owns the record for a transfer!) where as I recall now, he plays a bunch of chromatic patterns under the melody of the song, and even at the "Sand Dance'' part of it where Dudley does his signature whistling chorus.I just know that it is in the same format as this record here. 

It is a different song, but done in the same sort of sequence, as are most of Dudley's solo records. 

In my post a few days ago, about the sheet music thing, I meant to point out a few pieces of music with J. W. Myers on them, and how great the pictures are! I found these two pictures on two pieces of music both dated 1894:

Now I know for a fact that the first picture of Myers is older than 1894. It just looks quite a few years older than 1894, also because of how different his hair is, and collar and tie as well. He looks very young as well you may notice. So if I were to give a date to these two pictures of Myers, the first one is from c.1889 and the second one is from around 1893-94. The unusual thing about the first picture is that you can really see how bright his eyes were, in most of the other pictures of him, his eyes looked very dark, but not at all in that one. They look more blue or green than brown as one can be at first be misled to believe. It would make sense that Myers was photographed so early on in his career as the late-1880's, as he was already gaining stage fame by 1888, and by 1890 was a big star as far as the solo baritone singers went. 
It's not surprising, because of this picture here:

Yep, Len Spencer in 1889-1890. That's always a picture that interests me. It does for several reasons:
1: that look in his eyes!
2: His weird looking tie
3: his old-styled 1880's looking coat and collar(that particularly gives the date away better)
4: the fact that he still looks like a college student
5: and his hair!
I'm not really sure if this picture came from a record catalog, or was ever used for one, but it's very unlikely. I always see this picture and think about Spencer when he made those early records back in 1889 with setting five phonographs atop a crappy old upright with him singing to his own accompaniment. I known of a few of  his records from 1891 and 1892 under pseudonyms that still exist, but I have heard only one of them. 
Since I have been listening to quite a few Spencer and Ossman records this evening, I wonder now, did Ossman ever have the time to travel around with Spencer's minstrels? Or just maybe come as a guest artist? It's very possible, but since Ossman was so busy, I thought of this with speculation. Though, Spencer's minstrels toured extensively in late 1899 and early 1900. I just wonder about this because Spencer first teamed with Ossman in late-1896 and began recording with him in 1897, with records such as this one.
A collector friend of mine owns all of Spencer and Ossman's Victors, and when I was visiting the man's house last, I dug them all out and listened to them closely. Spencer must have enjoyed Ossman's playing, since he teamed with him so many times between 1897 and 1906, even though he had his musical affair with his piano man Fred Hylands in that exact time frame. 

I hope you enjoyed this!