Now that we know Hager was one of those famed Rag-Time pianists on early recordings, it seems inevitable for more posts to be centered around him and Zon-O-Phone in general. Despite a yearning to learn more about him, there's not too much on him out there, everything there is about him is from later on in his career as a bandleader and arranger, from about 1907 to the 1920's, bit after that there's a huge gap of time before then and after that. Soon, we hope to dig up all of this information on him, much like we did on Edward Issler. We hope that these gaps will be filled at least somewhat, so a trajectory will be known to some extent.
Now for Hager's background and upbringing. This at least gets us an idea of how highly regarded he was from such a young age. He was born in Susquehanna County Pennsylvania in 1874, and from a very young age joined local regiment bands, as this state was known for such a thing at this time. In 1895, Hager was given a full scholarship to attend the New York Music school that had just been set up by the famous Czech composer Antonin Dvorak. He was sent here to study the violin, likely in his case under Dvorak himself, which is very strange yet amazing all at once! Once at the music school,he gained a reputation as a violin virtuoso, and a blossoming musician all around, playing brass and piano as well. By 1897, he had formed his own band, and this was given many awards as one of the top bands of all New York State, which is no small thing. He was soon invited to make records for the relatively small firm of Harms, Kaiser, and Hagen(as stated in The Phonoscope), and the next year, 1898, he was making violin records for Edison. Oddly enough, this caused some competition for Charles D'Almaine, who was then working for Edison and Columbia. It was around this time that Hager became a pianist for Edison, adding to their already three pianists on staff. Of course, just like with D'Almaine, Frank Banta must have unexpectedly entered competition when he came along, not aware at first of Hager's curiosity in playing Rag-Time. But Banta and Benzler underestimated Hager's curiosity and rather surprising skill when it came to actually playing the style. He didn't surpass Banta in this, but he came pretty close to doing so, in a rather short period of time, since by 1898, Hager was also playing Rag-Time accompaniments for Edison, to compete with that horrid mess of a pianist at Columbia. Edison had two Rag pianists to essentially equal one Hylands.
the equation was simple:
two Rag pianists:
Banta and Hager= equals one Hylands. Good.
That's Walter Miller's(Edison's Victor Emerson) logic for Rag-Time at Edison.
Anyway, Hager worked at Edison into 1899 and 1900, but it was around the latter that he became associated with the scandalous new company Zon-O-Phone. With this new company, he essentially was working with a clean slate, since this company had no history or baggage with any other company(save for Victor after 1900), and the orchestra was his to piece together. That's exactly what he did, and by 1901, he had created Zon-O-Phone's famed house orchestra, with some of his own musicians, and occasionally plucked out musicians from other studio orchestras. The end result was the best house orchestra of the era, and his arrangements made them ever better. Of course, since he was the orchestra leader, it seemed inevitable for him to become Zon-O-Phone's main studio pianist. He took his time at Edison as a trial for his piano skills to develop, and once he had Zon-O-phone's studio, he allowed this to be his time to really improve his piano playing, particularly his Rag-Time. His style of Rag-Time was very unusual, and it sounded like a cross between Hylands and Frank Banta, and all the other Edison pianists of the late-1890's. Luckily, that's why it wasn't too hard to put Hager's name on that style in the first place. His style was still very odd, combining the straight-laced and classically trained background with a very syncopated and rhythmically superior nature. Oddly enough, he played fifths in his left hand, and combined this with whacky yet syncopated right hand. Oftentimes his right hand was out of whack, but the rhythm in the left hand was always on point. It sounded like Hager had been to performances with Hylands accompaniment, or someone like that, such as Ben Harney, or Max Hoffmann. Wherever his inspiration came from, the style he created was unique and very interesting, obviously taking from Hylands. By 1902, he was eclipsed by his own competitor in Rag-Time, Fred Hylands, because once Hylands became horribly fed up with Columbia in 1902, he entered into Zon-O-Phone's studio and was welcomed by the management. Luckily, this relatively short period became the prime of Hager's orchestra, since he wasn't always going to be the pianist when Hylands was there. Between 1902 and 1904, the best of Hager's orchestra was recorded, you can notice a spike in Hager's Orchestra performances on Zono in this time period, and the overall sound was just as great as it had always been, if not a little better in this period. By the end of the piano accompaniment era(1905) Zon-O-Phone still held on to their piano accompaniment until the end of that year, much like Columbia did, for what seems the same reason. Hager wasn't dropped like Hylands however, he was given leadership of pretty much all the Zon-O-phone sessions, still keeping his orchestra there as the accompaniment, and for occasional band recordings. They were still a superior orchestra, with the superior sound quality that was a signature for the label. By the end of Zon-O-phone as we know it, Hager was thrown out, just like everyone else who worked there. But he feared not, his orchestra became what Issler's did, an old-style orchestra who got a surprising amount of work after recording. Hager was still young by 1912, so his orchestra didn't become archaic until the 1920's. Hager wasn't able to transition to Jazz, just like Issler, but by the late-1920's, Hager had joined the radio business. In the 1930 census, Hager is listed as "program manager-broadcasting", which proves this statement. He was doing just what he did for Zon-O-Phone, just for the radio studios. It seems that by 1940, he had left this line, and retired as a music writer, and general musician. Performances by his orchestra date as far along as 1952! That's dedication. Hager's orchestra must have sounded real old-time by the 1930's, and to think that he was performing twenty years after that! He died in 1958 at the age of 84.
Hager made sure that his family didn't seem unusual for the time period, and this can be well observed in census records. In November 1897, he married Clara Decker, and soon had two little girls, none of whom entered in the music business unfortunately. Not much of his personality is easy to put together, but it's certain that he was an agreeable musician, since he was able to work for many record companies, and not create any baggage with any of them. Record companies probably fought quietly over him, and it was likely that Columbia became envious of the perfect pianist and orchestra leader Zon-O-Phone had, since none of their own staff was as extraordinary all around as Hager. Another thing that kept Hager always well liked was that he was the best-looking of the studio pianists, not seeming to fit the pianist stereotype that Banta and Issler personified to the highest degree. Hager was tall, thin, had dark blond hair, long stick-like legs, well-sloped slightly feminine shoulders, and a gloriously classical profile, with a perfectly shaped forehead to fit this. His good looks and agreeable nature were hard to refuse to the record managers, and he earned respect and admirers from this.
Hager was a whole lot better-looking that most of these early recording stars.
Just saying.
Now for some records with Hager on piano!
Here are a few examples with Hager's interesting and distinct style:
what a wild record!
Well, there you go! Finally information on Hager! Thanks go out to Charlie Judkins for helping in finding all of this, some of the information also came from articles by Tim Gracyk and conversation with Craig Ventresco.
Hope you enjoyed this!
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