A Zon-O-Phone dilemma and the search for more pianists

After exchanging a lot of conversation and ideas with Charlie Judkins within the past week or so, he and I have been trying to figure out more pianist names as far as these records go, of which not much luck has been had by us in this matter. Two names were found, but they were supposedly Victor pianists, which is just what we need to hear, since there was already a glut of pianists there in 1900 to 1905.  These two names were actually those of two women, unknown ladies that have no significance in Rag-Time communities and publications, which is unfortunate. These ladies are not well or highly praised, despite their mentioning specifically under a Victor section in a New York Newspaper. Nothing detailing these ladies has been found thus far after just seeing their names. Other than that, we haven't come across a treasure trove of pianist names yet. That will hopefully come later, in wherever one of us happens to find it. Victor and Zon-O-phone will remain the hardest to tell as far as pianists go with early disc records. With that, Lambert will stand as the hardest to tell with cylinders.  

Even with all this confusion, I think I have come to a realization. I was listening to a take of "The Nigger Fever" by Frank Mazziotta, which has some of the strangest rhythmic patterns I've ever heard on an early piano accompaniment record. With all of this strange left hand playing, I listened to two early Arthur Collins Edison cylinders just afterward, these two in fact:

Collins' 1898 cylinder of "Zizzy Ze Zum Zum"

and his 1898 recording of "All I Wants is my Chickens"

We have known for a while that Frank P. Banta is on both of these cylinders, with all of the evidence present on many later Victors from 1901 to 1903, and my previous explanations about this. After several listens to these records back to back, I realised that the pianist making up those strange yet very syncopated left hand things was Banta! The pianist identification on this record seemed irritatingly hard, until I inadvertently listened to the records to create the solution comparison for the issue. I cannot share the link to this Zon-O-Phone of "The Nigger Fever", in order to respect the one who shared it with me, but I will describe what is heard and why it sounds similar to the two brown waxes linked above. The strange rhythm patterns are heard primarily on the first one, "Zizzy Ze Zum Zum" in this case, which immediately caught my ears, as it wasn't identical rhythmically, but the similarities and touch to it were suspiciously present. These were all slight and strange characteristics of...

Frank P. Banta! 

(this is a sketch I did of him recently, really trying to perfect his strangely structured profile, I'm still trying to get it right...)

His attributes all check in on "Zizzy Ze Zum Zum", from that strange rhythmic pattern, that can be heard mostly at the solo sections and also at the choruses, to the fifths that Banta was known for playing on Victors. The final chord on that record involves a big and loud fifth, which really sounds like all of those early Victors, and on this 1899 cylinder with an unspecified label(this cylinder is still up for guesses on the pianist). It is still a strange and idiosyncratic thing that Banta played fifths n his left hand, since he was not a mid-western pianist nor native, which is usually where that originates from(from states such as Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri). The second cylinder listed "All I wants is my Chickens", has all of the fifths that is on the Zono of "The Nigger Fever", and even some of that strange rhythmic thing, which can be heard in the Choruses and very well at around 1:22 to 1:25. That very rhythm is exactly the same as the strange thing on the Zono of "The Nigger Fever", just played a little differently, and better yet, earlier on in the history of Rag-Time. 

What does all of this lead to? Well, it confirms that an Edison and Victor pianist played for Zon-O-phone in 1900-1902. This gives a little more insight into the queer and well-hidden studio of Zon-O-phone, but that still doesn't explain the brief period after that where Hylands worked there, but that's a different story that I have already addressed in previous posts. As always, I am not entirely sure if this pianist that I mean here is Frank Banta or Fred Bachmann, as it's one of the two. Remember that Bachmann was the only other studio pianist at Edison who moved to Victor after 1900. In this case however, it seems more likely to be Banta, since the two Collins cylinders were recorded so early on(1898), and Banta was known already to have been a Rag-Time studio pianist(so was Hylands as we know), and had several years of pre-ragtime on Hylands by performing with Vess Ossman. That don't mean anything when talking about Hylands' Rag-Time status however. In many ways, Hylands had the best amount of luck and status in the early(white)Rag-Time community. 

Since I took a few listens to "All I Wants is my Chickens" while writing this, I realised that the ending solo on it is almost identical in phrasing and feel as the Denny cylinder of "The Change Will Do you Good" on an unconfirmed label. Really take a listen! They are freakishly similar. 

We are still to yet find more names associated with Zon-O-phone, since it seems now that they had a flaming pan full of hot pianists, which included Banta and Hylands. 

With all of this said, it makes these two wild Zono's up for some more educated guesses and listening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi8K8iKZyXM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0u8HiXdrtI

(these were recorded on the same day, so whoever it is, it's the same pianist on both of them, one guess leads to two in this case, which helps a whole lot.)

Another matter I would like delve into is the time that Fred Hylands was actually hired to work at Columbia. it remains very hard to tell and pick out a timeframe that Columbia hired Hylands, even though the date range is early 1897 to early 1898. It can't be late-1896 since he was not really in New York until around that time, and it can't be later than early 1898 because he's mentioned in early 1898 issues of The Phonoscope, and the piano accompaniment had a polar shift in style in late-1897 at Columbia. After discussing the matter over with Charlie, we really think that he was hired by Columbia in earlier 1897, more like March of that year or so, earlier than we could have assumed, since he was reportedly working as a music director and stage accompanist at Pastor's Theater, and others as well. Since that was the case, he must have been in the studio by day, and by night was working in the pit and herding theatrical cats. The two records that have us suspicious of him working there early on are these two puzzling records: 
Billy Golden's "Uncle Jefferson" from earlier 1897

and "The Jealous Blackbird" from around the same time in 1897

The Billy Golden record listed above is still notoriously hard to identify the pianist on, until Charlie and I sorted it through, picking out small sections and comparing them to other records we heard with Hylands from several years later. The recording of  "Uncle Jefferson" particularly has many of the more idiosyncratic aspects of Hylands' style, which include the very "dotted" syncopated patterns and the heaps of tenths and twelfths. The one thing that really got us suspicious is the final rolled chord and tenth, which is something that was distinct to Hylands on Columbia records. If you're listening close enough to "The Jealous Blackbird", you'll notice that there's some of that rolled chord and tenth thing there too, which is very weird, but somehow they stick out. A record that comes to mind that has this tenth with a fifth and a chord ending is a strange 1899 cylinder by Len Spencer and Hylands of "My Josephine"(of which I can't share with you, sorry...). Spencer does a whistling chorus after the first verse, and after the whistling chorus, Hylands plays a short solo, where just at the end of it, he hits exactly the same thing as he does at several parts of "The Jealous Blackbird" with the fifth thing and ends on exactly the same chord on both records. It's starting to pull itself together it seems, as the similarities are beginning to make more sense, and are untangling just a little. It seems that the pianist on  the 1897 records of "The Jealous Blackbird" is the same as Len Spencer's 1899 recording of "My Josephine", which tells you a lot, and that that pianist had been there for a while by 1899. Much or how the pianist plays behind Spencer on "My Josephine" is actually similar to how Hylands' "You Don't Stop the World from Goin Round", was formally written believe it or not, so that really throws up a frantic red flag about the pianist here. 

The motion stands that Hylands worked at Columbia in earlier 1897, until we find something that contradicts all aspects of the statement. 

Hope you enjoyed this! Sorry about posting for so may days, school has been taxing and time-consuming this week, and hopefully I'll get to post more frequently this next week.  

Arthur Pryor, Ben Harney, Silas Leachman and more interesting analyses

Sorry it's been over a week since my last post, I have not only gone to another Rag-Time festival, but also began my new year in school. The school part is not exactly the most exciting, nor the most enjoyable part of what happened this week. I left my last post just prior to my going away to the Sutter Creek Rag-Time Festival, which was very fun and full of great music geeks just as usual. It's always fun to see everyone again, all the musicians, and friends of the performers just the same. I cannot thank Charlie Judkins enough for being able to put up with all of my antics and later being able to stay over at my home. He really made my weekend worth while!  All of the performers really made that weekend so much fun!

With the three days of festival and two more of staying over, Charlie and I listened to many records, and played many of these rare songs that only he and I have really studied deeply. Since just before this weekend, I had been awaiting to hear the only piano solo that Arthur Pryor made. Rather than just thinking that this is probably just another boring solo of a tune that none of us find important, it must be taken into consideration that Pryor's Rags are actually great examples of a strange and very syncopated style that I often highlight on this blog. Of all early recording stars who wrote music, Pryor's rags are among the most interesting(other than Hylands' and Burt Green's of course!). They kept many of these old traditions of Rag-time playing into the later 1900's and early 1910's to some extent. Knowing that Pryor made a piano solo in 1900 could unlock many unknown doors into how the early style of Rag-Time was really played, and Pryor being from rural Missouri says all that needs to be said in this matter. Being surrounded by the early studio pianists like Banta and Hylands also gives us hints. Just to further back up that statement, Pryor made his only piano solo on the same day that Banta made his infamous solo of "Hello My Baby", that really tells you that Banta and Pryor were at least in the same studio on the same day, to make two infamously hard-to-find piano solos. 
As of now, I am still anxiously awaiting to hear the solo, of which it is indeed out there in someone's collection. Once I hear it, I will report the details. 

Charlie and I often discussed the interesting background of Silas Leachman throughout much of the five days seeing each other. Leachman had a background that was full of mysteries, and interesting theories. 

Leachman(c.1895)

He and I have concluded that Leachman was a traveling minstrel in various shows in the 1880's, performing in places like Detroit, Fort Wayne, Louisville, and later Chicago. With all of this traveling, Leachman stopped and performed in the hometowns of stars of the generation after Leachman, such as Fred Hylands, and Ben Harney. Leachman's recordings to this date remain among the best period examples of true and accurate imitations of black performers in the late-19th century. That may sound strange coming from a Len Spencer freak, but really, Leachman has Spencer beat by his accuracy, and it helps that the piano accompaniment on all his records was always great and fitting, regardless of who the pianist is. 

Now, here's the question, did Harney take from Leachman, or did Leachman take from Harney? 

It's hard to know, but since Leachman was a generation older than all of those Rag-Time pianists, it makes this dilemma even harder to solve. Leachman did probably perform in Harney's hometown in the early or mid-1880's, when Harney was just a youth, very bright and curious. With all of this curiosity from Harney, it seems inevitable that Leachman's performance style would have rubbed off on Harney. But of course, the only way to really get an idea of this is to listen to Leachman's rendition of Harney's most popular song for many decades:

http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/100002498/Pre-matrix_B-3355-Mr._Johnson_turn_me_loose

This is great in all ways, and this recording will forever be important to the history of Rag-Time. This is even more so with this theory attached to it. After listening to this record,  the only way to really get a sense of this would be to listen to Harney's 1910's-20's recording of "Good Old Wagon". 

I hate to do this, but who ever is hiding the fifteen or so other cylinders of Harney singing out there, WHY ARE YOU HIDING THEM FROM US?!

Apologies for that... I feel the need to say that finally. Anyway, Harney's recording is very much similar in a lot of ways to the Leachman recordings that we know of, especially that one of "Mister Johnson". I know that I have done the Harney to Spencer comparison before, but from the two other takes I have heard of Spencer's Lambert of "Good Old Wagon", it seems that Spencer is the most similar to Harney in singing style of any of these performers. It seems inevitable that Spencer would have known Harney at some point in the late-1890's, since Spencer made the effort to go and meet all of these singers that he imitated(others include May Irwin, DeWolf Hopper, Barney Fagan, and George M. Cohan). Spencer was also involved in the booking field with Harry Yeager in 1896-1900, and that is the perfect timeframe to have met with all of these pianist and performers like Harney, in fact, this area must have been where he first met Fred Hylands. Yeager not only got him shows as a minstrel, but also was able to introduce him to many great figures of Broadway and of vaudeville. 

I don't know exactly how long Harry Yeager was involved with Spencer, but it was certainly a few years, that began around 1897 it seems. Yeager must have been a great help to Spencer, who was obviously someone too smart for his own good. With this intellect, he was bound to easily lose things and forget things(there is solid evidence of this!), so I have the feeling that Yeager was his sideman before Fred Hylands came along and literally consumed most of his time and living. Fred couldn't keep anything for the same reason, so Yeager was stuck between them as the nightmarish bookkeeper constantly ridden with anxiety and stress. Regardless of all of that, Yeager outlived the others in Hylands' publishing firm. Harry Yeager remains still a mysterious character in the mix of these "Columbia clan" members, even if he was mentioned a few times in The Phonoscope in 1899 and 1900, and I have been able to track him somewhat in census records. 

That's supposedly him in the early-1910's. 

He would have been about in his mid-40's at the time of this picture. That makes sense, considering the age of the others in the publishing firm. Yeager seems like the sort of man who was the best to communicate with when wanting to consult Hylands' firm. Hylands was not often home at reasonable times, as was Spencer, Burt Green was too good-looking and young, but with all of this, Yeager was the "straight-man", or just the regular businessman at the firm. He was the man that you'd've wanted to meet with when you called. You be damned if you met with Hylands himself! 

Yeager's official role in the firm itself remains unclear, though it's certain why he was involved in the first place, as that was the work of Spencer pulling Fred's leg earlier before the firm began. He did have to beg him it seemed. Harry's role might have been for to be the bookkeeper, and just another salesman, even if they had plenty of those. It must be noted that he was also a performer and show organizer, so that gives us some clues. He was clearly organized, and much more of an everyday man than Hylands, Spencer and Burt Green, even if he just happened to also be a singer. Things are yet to unfold about Harry Yeager, and we haven't that much to work with as of now. 

Other than going to Sutter Creek and spending time with Charlie, staying up 'til two in the morning listening to records, and beginning school again, there's not much more I have to say for this post. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Underhanded Music Dealing in the 1890's

The name Fred Hylands is mentioned very often on this blog, as he was not only a prominent studio pianist at the prime of the early Rag-Time era, but was also an important part of the comedic side of early Broadway. His name and influence fits into many subjects that go into this line of study. One of these subjects is the title of this post. The under-the-table dealing of music in the 1890's is a very understudied topic, as it simply wasn't written about often. One of these strategies that we have all heard of is handing a singer or performer an advance copy before the music is published, and surprisingly, this happened more than most people think. There weren't specific publishing firms that were begun by recording stars to unite the two parts of the music business, early on in the 1890's that is. 

One famous composer-phonograph singer friendship was

Monroe Rosenfeld and

Len Spencer.
Most people don't know about this friendship, since it was well-hidden, but advertised occasionally in earlier editions of The Phonoscope. We know of many composers that Spencer endorsed early on, but one of the first would logically be Rosenfeld and also Barney Fagan. Rosenfeld came first, since his early "negro dances" were so popular, he also wrote lyrics to these pre-ragtime pieces, many of which Spencer became well-known for recording. Many of Rosenfeld's pieces from the 1880's were minstrel songs with slightly syncopated melodies, and with that, Spencer was bound to make hundreds of rounds of any of them. When speaking of this, I mean early on in Spencer's recording days, in the era where he worked regularly with Issler's Orchestra, 1892 to 1896 that is. The solos he made during this time were done under pseudonyms for the most part, but he was still known as the prime coon song singer on phonograph records. With this fame, the composers and publishers took an interest in Spencer, and kept their ears open for a time to hand him an advance copy of a new song. This probably happened with Spencer a few times in the mid-1890's, though it's not well-documented, according to others in the business, it did happen with Dan Quinn and J. W. Myers. Quinn stated in some of his letters to Jim Walsh that publishers handed him songs before they were published to singer before all the others got to it,he claimed to be the first one to sing 

This great early Rag song with a very racist cover(typical for 1896...). 
I'm not sure whether to believe that Quinn was handed an advance copy of this in 1896, but it's not impossible. I would believe it more if he said that Spencer was the one who got it first. I have seen so many advertisements that mention Spencer's record of "The Bully" as being one of his best records, and the most popular as far as his individual records go.  This had to be so, since it was reported that Spencer was making rounds of this tune into early 1898. I don't know who was handed the advance copy first, even if Quinn stated that he was the one who got it first, not everything he said is to be trusted, remember. Other than Quinn's "Bully Song" statement, there wasn't much early music dealing in the era before 1897, though there was probably more than what we are presented in this matter. 

It took until the "rag" fad to spread in 1896 for music publishers and composers to take more of a direct interest in recording stars. New publishers such as Joseph Stern took in some of the most popular studio stars under Russell Hunting's obliging with the Universal Phonograph Company. Many of their advertisements are in editions of The Phonoscope, here is their earliest one:

This came from the January 1897 issue of The Phonoscope. 
Their ads were often in pieces of music published by Jos. Stern in 1897, of which I have one of these buried in my sheet music collection. They were usually small triangle-shaped things that said simply that the song this is on can be found on records made by the Universal Phonograph Company. That's perfect in illustrating this point of publisher and recording artist, so early on in the era as well. 1897 would be toward the beginning of this idea of uniting the two aspects of the music business, as most people think of this happening in the 1910's and 1920's, but in reality, it began in the late-1890's. The Universal Phonograph Company didn't last to see the end of 1897, but it proved that a publisher could join with a record company to sell music and make records. This quick venture for the Columbia staff got everyone thinking about beginning something else like that, but they needed a better publisher for the job.
Composers still remained friends of many studio stars, such as Barney Fagan and Len Spencer or Quinn and May Irwin. It took until Columbia threw out their old pianist in mid-1897 for this idea to resurface. Fred Hylands was not yet a publisher as we know, but the ideas were formulating. There weren't any reports of music being dealt under-the-table in 1897 and 1898 at Columbia and Edison, but by early late-1898 and early 1899, the staff had begged Hylands enough to begin a publishing firm, and so he did. He was exactly the kind of publisher that Columbia's staff wanted and needed, since he worked there, it all seemed to work perfectly. 

No one saw their finish of course. 

But that doesn't matter just yet, it was the perfect everything for Columbia. If you really want to talk about some severe under-the-table music dealing, Hylands Spencer and Yeager is the firm to study. 

Pretty much everything that Hylands published was given to someone as an advance copy before he published it. This was especially so with anything he wrote(durr...). The instrumental music was given out after publication, but not the vocal pieces. Hylands handed his "You Don't Stop the World from Goin Round" to Len Spencer before he published it, so they could record it first, then sell the music, and he also did this with his "Prize Cake-Walker is Old Uncle Sam", and he gave that one to Dan Quinn of all people(that's kind of strange if you think about it). The ladies that Fred took a liking to eventually were ones who got music before it was published, such as Ada Jones, Sallie Stembler, and some of his wife's friends in the performing business. As the firm began to fade by early 1900, Hylands stopped handing out advance copies, as someone might have told him to end his habit of doing that, or something else, I really don't know, but it seemed that he stopped doing that after the end of 1899. It was around this time that everyone involved saw their finish, or Fred's in this case since he was the one who was going to take the harshest blow after it fell through. After the firm's end in November 1900, the idea of publisher and recording star lost its novelty, and all the old Columbia stars didn't bother to associate themselves with specific publishers or composers any more after that. 
The second wave of studio stars adopted some of these ways, as many collectors are aware of the Collins and Harlan friendship with Theodore Morse, which lasted over a decade. Harlan had been part of Hylands' publishing firm, but after about five more years, Harlan was working not only with Collins, but found Theodore Morse a better asset than Hylands, which is many ways was a smart move on Collins and Harlan's part. This 1890's tradition carried on into the 1910's, 20's and even the 1930's in fact, and it seemed to become a much less hidden subject as the decades went on, making it not as sleazy and interesting as it was early on. 




*I just want to take a moment to send my love and regards to Tom Brier and his family, as he was recently in an awful car accident and will take many months to recover. We will miss you at Sutter Creek this weekend! Some of the soul of the festival is lost without Brier there.*

Hope you enjoyed this! 

"Hiding in the Bushes"

The title of this post is a phrase that I use for those involved in this line of study who disappeared after their prime careers. Some who would be part of this include Max Hoffmann, Russell Hunting, George Schweinfest, and J. W. Myers just to name a few. Many of these recording stars(more particularly the earlier ones), disappeared after their recording career's were over, and some of them stayed in the business vaguely, but were not really heard of after their years in the studio ended. One that I did not mention, but certainly is one of these disappearing stars, is Harry Spencer. 

Haven't seen this sketch I did of him in a while, so I thought it be a good time to use it again. 

The thing about Harry Spencer is that we actually know what happened to him, and I have been able to track him in census records from 1910 to 1940. What's interesting about him is that he outlived pretty much all of the other earliest recording stars, even Dan Quinn and Fred Gaisberg. He didn't outlive George Schweinfest and Edward Issler though, that's really astonishing. Harry was living much different from his brother Len, and after Len died, he took over his brother's massive endeavor as a Lyceum owner, which was too much for him, and by the middle of 1915, the business had fallen. After all of this, Harry was on his own, and didn't make any more records, and it seems that after 1905, he wasn't making records anymore. The new Charles Prince's Columbia orchestra rid of him in that period of transition. After 1915, Harry lived in various boardinghouses with his dusky Italian wife Gazella, working as a local investigator after the whole recording jag passed over. No recording came for him after all of this, even though some collectors still speak of him maybe being a behind-the-scenes worker in the early days of radio. The only good account of what Harry was doing many years after recording is from Joe Belmont, who stated that he was a train-caller, which is not inaccurate considering that his voice was so well-praised and perfect for anything. I wonder how Belmont came to know that... He knew a lot about where everyone left ended up in the 30's and 40's. He had stories about practically everyone, well, who was left in this case. There weren't too many of the original "clan" left by the 1920's and 30's. Harry Spencer was not interviewed by Jim Walsh for a few very obvious reasons:

1. He was hard to track, as he was living from boardinghouse to boardinghouse in the 1930's.

2. Joe Belmont didn't exactly know where or what he was doing, someone probably told him that he was a train-caller. But who?

That's not the point here...

3. By the early 1940's, he was living at a mental hospital, which kept Walsh from him for certain.

It's frustrating that he didn't get to Harry, because it was within his reach to go find him. He did find Quinn, and Harlan, which is why I'm saying this. 

Another one of these recording stars who vanished and "hid in the bushes" so to speak, was Russell Hunting. 

As much good as he did for the early recording business, being the most liberal and progressive of all of them, he did essentially vanish from the business by the late-1920's. Hunting was still working for Pathe by the mid-1920's, but after that, he handed the management to someone new, officially ending one of the most important eras even in Pathe's history(they still exist to-day!Thanks Hunting!). He didn't leave the U. S. or anything, but he did just what Max Hoffmann did, and enjoyed his retirement doing whatever the devil he did. This is exactly what I mean! We don't know what he did for the last twenty years of his life, as he lived into the mid-1940's, and Walsh didn't bother to look around for him. The kind of stories he would have told would be like none of the others, and would, without doubt, be more interesting and complicated than any of Quinn's or Murray's. We would, essentially, understand the 1890's recording business a whole lot more if Hunting were interviewed in the 1930's or 40's. Our view into this history would perhaps be very different if this happened, and certainly it wouldn't be a subject that all collectors would approve of as well. 

There's a reason that Hunting is my favourite of these early recording stars, and I don't care a rap about what you all think. 

Max Hoffmann is a great example of someone who "hid in the bushes" after his prime passed over, even if he wasn't a recording star. 

Now he seemed to fade away gradually by 1910, as he wasn't really writing too much music after then. As I have said before, he allowed his wife Gertrude to do all of the work for him, and take the spotlight for the next fifteen years or so. Not much is generally known on him as of now, which is surprising since he was really one of the few to truly "kick start" the rag craze of the late-1890's. It continues to shock me how little every one of the famous Rag-Time enthusiasts have refused to study him more. His impact was larger than Ben Harney's in a way, in the means of published music that is. Harney was more influential as a performer than a composer. Hoffmann was influential and important as a composer. He was essentially the first composer to write down the early Rag-Time style in the most excruciating of detail. He really analyzed how to play and write out this style, he perfected how to do this from being a pianist in mid-1890's Chicago. He really did write out much of the strange Rag style that we hear on records, just not purposely relating them to records at all. He began writing out these so-called "rags" in c.1895, and became known for it in chicago at that time, only to later take it with him when he went to New York. 

This cover has dates that are hard to trace, as it says 1891 inside the cover, but has photographs from 1896, other than that, this is one of the earliest mentions of "rag" in the sense we know of on a cover of sheet music. 

Here ya go Rag-Time freaks!

It seems that Hoffmann was famous for arranging "ragged" interpretations of popular coon songs as early as c.1895, as the music just above indicates. 

With all of this amazing history to Hoffmann, he went and completely faded away from the public eye by the 1920's. After that, his amazing musical endeavors seemed to have become largely forgotten. He outlived pretty much everyone he worked alongside in the early "rag" scence, living until 1960 beats everyone in his generation of the "rag" scene. Nothing is known of what he did after 1920, we just know that he lived out in Hollywood(I hope he's buried here in California! I want to go find him!), because his son worked in Hollywood in the 1930's. His son's films are still trying to be tracked by many of us Rag-Time freaks, but none of us have come to discover them just yet. We all just want to see if Junior looked like his father. 

The final performer I would like to mention who "hid in the bushes" is Edward Issler. 

(from Tinfoil.com)

Just recently, a treasure trove of information on Issler was presented to me from Charlie Judkins. We not only found how long he lived, which was much longer than thought for perhaps seventy years. As it turns out, Issler was still living when Walsh was contacting all of these recording stars. Talk about someone who outlived everyone...Issler is the perfect example of this. He was 86 when he died, and he lived pretty far into the 20th century for someone born literally in the middle of the 19th century. It's funny to put into perspective that he was the first studio pianist, but he outlived all of the ones that came after him in the era. Now he would have had some amazing stories, that no one else would have, since he was in the business in 1888-89, and he witnessed all of the 1890's madness at the U. S. Phonograph company and at Columbia. Issler and Schweinfest had similar stories after they ended recording(though Schweinfest ended later as we know), where they were not making records, but they were still performing in military bands all over the place in New Jersey and New York. They were separate for the most part in the decades after recording, but I have always had the feeling that they regrouped for occasional performances, since they were such good musical friends. Issler remained performing in military bands into the early 1920's, and left the business by 1930. He didn't remain a popular bandleader in the 1900's and 1910's, but he still performed in bands at that time. He was never heard of again after 1900 with the recording business though, which is surprising, since he was so popular in the 1890's, and around the time he retired, the "nostalgic" look back to the 1890's had started to come in as a fad. I'm surprised that he wasn't interviewed on any sort of radio program in that time, as he would have known the music business in that time like no one else still living at that time. After 1900 or so, Issler hid in the bushes, and a few years after that, Schweinfest joined him, to keep the old deep-running friendship going. 

The two of them did make piano duets together in 1889, do take that into consideration when analyzing their obvious friendship. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Delving into Hunting, and The Phonogram

This is just one of many great photographs presented amid the pages of The Phonogram. (This picture is now my favourite one of Hunting!)

Just within the last two days, the entire set of editions of The Phonogram were put up on the Internet Archive(or Archive.org), and it has made for some great time searching around in its pages. Now I'll admit truthfully, that it is not nearly as fun to read as The Phonoscope, but it's still interesting, since it's much earlier on in the business, when much of the action didn't happen yet. It began in a very somewhat too young and uneventful time in a sense. It was begun so early, that there wasn't too much of the infamous craziness going on yet. Hunting began The Phonoscope, at a perfect time, and not a time could have been better. Now that I have the chance to go through The Phonogram, it seems that Hunting's purpose with beginning The Phonoscope, was not exactly the most serious of matters. He began it for the same reason of The Phonogram, but he created a comical and rude spin-off in a way to it. It was more so this way toward the beginning of its existence rather than when 1900 neared closer. Hunting's intentions were much less serious than those who ran The Phonogram, and it seems clear by the very existence of the Our Tattler section that always included some of the funniest things having to do with the late-1890's recording business. That column is where we get these sections:

(still don't exactly know that that means...)

still funny. 

I like that Hunting found this funny, and the rest of The Phonoscope people did too. 

Most of the sections I use often are from the Our Tattler section, and it's the most questionable of these sections from The Phonoscope, only because they are often little items of gossip and the official so-called "scandal-sheet" of the magazine. Items of gossip are not always to be fully trusted, though the fact that Hunting was behind most of it until late-1898 gives credit up to that point, he was a better insider to have been writing about this than some of his friends. There was none of this in The Phonogram, which strangely seems Edison/North American biased, as we know very well that The Phonoscope was Columbia-biased, though there were many articles and such on old man Edison. Those boys at The Phonoscope did portray Edison not the nicest ways, aside from easily getting across his genius with the Phonograph and the electric light. The Phonoscope people were the kinds who would go for Tesla in the Edison vs. Tesla debate over AC and DC electricity. 

From what I've gathered in The Phonogram, it seems more like a magazine for the salesmen and managers of record companies rather than the group of recording stars themselves. It didn't have all of the great gossip and stories that we all love The Phonoscope for, and it ended so early on that it missed all of the good stuff that Hunting was around to see and write about. 

Had The Phonogram gone a year or two longer, they probably would have taken back all of the praise they gave Hunting in 1892, as they didn't see their finish as arcade owners with Hunting's "experimental" records. By that, I mean all of his infamous smut cylinders. They would have freaked out the same way that all of the "Columbia clan" did when the Johnson murder trial befell them. The first scandal of the business was essentially Hunting's smut cylinders, as before that there was the fall of North American, but that wasn't a scandal at all, it was just two major companies sparring over patents, which happened all the time, so that wasn't really a big deal. It just ended a very innovative and unique early record company, that's all. Hunting's scandal was the failure of the slot machine owners, but his moment of glory as Anthony Comstock's men scrambled for every last one of the records. All the records were destroyed during the trial and while he was in prison, so there wasn't much he could do about it. This scandal practically ended the slot machine age for the phonograph, even though plenty of phonograph parlors existed after the fact, they were more likely owned by recording stars or exhibitioners, not saloonkeepers and enthusiasts like they used to be. 

Take for example Roger Harding's phonograph parlor, which was clearly advertised in The Phonoscope in 1897, which was one of many places where the "clan" could gather, and where Harding could get credit for his "sales commission" that began at Columbia in 1898. I don't think I need to explain that, as it is pretty much what it sounds to be. 

From reading through The Phonogram, it seems that John Yorke AtLee was a much more prominent and popular recording star than previously thought. I knew that he was popular in the early days, and remained as such into the late-1890's, but the amount of writing on him in The Phonogram really says a lot about how important they all thought he was. 

Here's two of the same picture from The Phonogram:

Here's the original, sorry it wasn't copied very well...

There ya go, an actual photograph of AtLee!

Here's an etching of the same photograph:

Now you can inadvertently see it better. 

Well, he still had the best whiskers at Columbia, without doubt.

He looks more like a policeman than a recording star! Those are the most civil war-era looking whiskers I've seen. The picture of him is probably from c.1888-1890. AtLee was prided by Columbia more so than Edward Issler and Spencer were in 1895-1897, which is really saying a lot. He and the U. S. Marine band were really what Columbia was advertising in 1889 to 1892, all of the famous recording stars was know well came a little later, though a few of them are mentioned inThe Phonogram. Spencer, Denny, Gaskin, Schweinfest, Issler, and Hunting were all advertised in The Phonogram in 1892, which makes sense, but it seems a little early for Spencer to be specifically advertised as a soloist, since there was practically nothing on him in that magazine in 1891, and at that time, he was using pseudonyms for the most part, and was working in Issler's orchestra. Maybe they were mentioning that he was an Issler worker, since that's where most of us hear him before 1896. If you are not entirely aware of this, here are a few examples:

"March of the Marines" with Spencer announcing and playing bells!

"Wang Gavotte" played a little fast, but also with a Spencer announcement

a fantastic recording of "Dancing on the Housetops" with a strange Spencer announcement

One thing I don't think I've noted about "Dancing on the Housetops", is that it's genuinely syncopated, which is very strange for a schottische of the early 1890's that isn't a "danse de negres"(as Gottschalk's music was called). It is actually a very good and well-hidden piece of early Rag-Time. It was much more socially acceptable in this case. Since this is the oldest one I know of, and it has the syncopation, that makes it inadvertently an early piece of Rag-Time. I'm sure Issler would not like to hear that. 

Well, I will have more onThe Phonogram within the next few days, but there's not really too much to take away from it, since it's so early on and not full of charming gossip. I hate to like Hunting for this, but you can't go wrong with his points made inThe Phonoscope.

Hope you enjoyed this!