Piecing together Issler and Issler's Orchestra

Issler.

After doing some digging on these fantastic musicians, a little more about their coming together is clear. of course, we have yet to fully understand how Issler joined all of them together, but some of the digging has proved well and is giving us hints, and opening more ideas. This is all fitting into place now, especially after having more information on Issler in the first place, finding the others has proved interesting just the same. 

Let's begin with the beloved George Schweinfest. We know him well as the premiere piccolo and flautist of the 1890's recording business, more specifically with Issler's orchestra. Similarly to Issler, Schweinfest was a first generation American in his family, with both his parents being born in Bavaria(also like Issler!), his father's name being Casper and mother being Barbara. With this being so, it's likely that young George spoke German growing up, which would have meant for a slight dialect reminiscent in his speech later. Though of course, the records that we know he announces are interesting when trying to analyze this, take this record as an example "Robin Adair" from c.1899. It's still hard to know, though I am convinced that the voice at the beginning of the record just above is indeed the voice of Schweinfest. From what I could find on Schweinfest, he seemed to have lived a rather normal-seeming life at home, much like Hager did. He had a wife and three kids by 1900, which wouldn't make his being a musician too strange. Unlike Issler, his family life seemed much smoother and care-free, as it should have been, since being a studio musician wasn't an easy line. It really is a relief when learning of these recording stars and their family life wasn't so horrid, since that paired with working in the studio couldn't have been easy on any of the family of the recording star. We know that Schweinfest lived much longer than the other studio musicians, in fact, he lived longest into the 20th century compared to the other studio musicians of the 1890's. Recall that he died in almost 1950! With that being said, he essentially outlived everyone. The digging I did on Schweinfest didn't provide much in terms of newspaper mentioning, which was a little surprising. Despite that, he left a fantastic and well spread family, which means there are likely descendants of him. 

Such a kind sweet face. He really must have been a great guy, since there is absolutely nothing suspicious with him, and he certainly was easily agreeable. Being able to take Hylands after working with Issler for ten years is admirable to the highest degree. Also the fact that he was able fully to transition to Rag-Time in 1896 is also a very respectable thing, since he wasn't trained to play such a thing for sure, only to later compose a full-fledged cake-walk. 
Respect levels for him are extremely high with me. 

Anyway, now to move to Dana and Tuson. These two seem to be paired together earlier than expected, which is why I'm putting them together. I hate to use this terminology but, Dana and Tuson were a sort of "package" to Issler, since they already had been playing in groups since as early as 1888. On my search for them(separately mind you), I found several sections where Dana was mentioned as being in the same orchestra with Tuson, which seemed strange, being that I wasn't expecting them to be together. What made this ever more unusual is the fact that I couldn't find any traces of them together with Issler. In speaking of this, it must be noted that Dana was born in Patterson New Jersey in 1855, which would have made him 33-34 when he began working with Tuson. Interestingly enough, where Dana and Tuson worked was in a pit orchestra for a theater, and in the same section from 1888 I noticed that Thomas Hindley was also mentioned as a musician in the same pit. Any one of you early Rag-Time enthusiasts would recognise that name somewhat, because he was the composer of this piece here:

Yes indeed, "Patrol Comique" composed by Hindley in 1886, two years before that newspaper section where he was mentioned with Dana and Tuson. Oddly enough, this connection with Hindley intertwines two completely different lines of the early history of Rag-Time, one is a composer of an 1880's cake-walk and the other contributed to the earliest recordings of syncopated music. So now that we know all of this, maybe it was Hindley that helped the Issler crew along with better understanding the essence of black music, or he was involved to some extent. Clearly the Issler crew understood how to play all of this new-fangled(so-called, remember it had been around for decades by the 1880's), syncopated music. This of course, like anything, makes me want to know more about Thomas Hindley, since he was clearly able to well catch the early essence of a cake-walk better than many composers in the 1880's. Of course, none of this Hindley banter has anything to do with Issler, because only Dana and Tuson worked with him as far as we know. All of this strange connecting just gives a better understanding of how there were multiple pianists who played what we would call cake-walks in the 1880's and earliest years of the 1890's.  This all illustrates that playing similarly to how Issler improvises on these two recordings below:
https://archive.org/details/GeorgeWJohnsonWhistlingCoonIssler1891
(remember! This is the oldest recording of genuine Rag-Time out there, as far as we know)

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder11728
just wasn't too uncommon in the late-1880's and early 1890's. This also goes for Dana and Tuson, especially since they were more directly connected with Hindley in the 1880's. 

Also, just a side-note about the 1891 "Whistling Coon", it may be the oldest example of recorded genuine Rag-Time(genuine because it's got written in syncopation, syncopated improvisation, and it's a former slave singing the song), and despite not having heard all of these fabled recordings from the years before 1891, such as the Issler and Schweinfest piano duets and solos, it's a safe bet to say all of this, because there's no recordings from before '91 of Johnson. Johnson really makes the recording genuine, more than any slight syncopation Issler or Schweinfest played for North American in 1889. 

Now onto some of the background about what I found on Issler. 

There he is, at Columbia's piano in 1897. 
Issler is turning out to be a little more complicated and interesting than expected. Unlike good Schweinfest, who lived a very normal family life under a light Catholic pledge, Issler lived more like a true musician. Of course, when I say this,  I don't mean that Issler was constantly in a state of suffering like Hylands. Issler lived more like a swell and stumbled into an interesting family life. Issler got married to Hannah Wade in 1880(puts into perspective how much older he was...) and had his first daughter Helen in 1883. As we know in the earlier days of his family life, he made a living as a general musician and music teacher(must have been a hard teacher as Charlie Judkins has jokingly stated!). Everything seemed all-right for the Issler's through the rest of the 1880's and the 1890's, until of course Ed began seeing trouble at work. 

Alright, this brings me to another subject that has rightfully resurfaced this week. We audibly and visually know that Issler remained at Columbia until at least the end of 1897, but after hearing all of those U.S. Phonograph records from those LP's, this notion has become in need of amendment.  After going back and listening to some odds and ends of 1898-99 Columbia, it seems the pianist is a little too stiff to be Hylands. Of course, these are records that are just slightly less like Hylands to where it's a little suspicious, here you go:
"The Laughing Coon" 1899

"How'd You Like to be the Iceman"(with Denny) 1899
One thing it for certain, these two records were not only recorded in the same year, but with the same pianist. The only reason these two takes sound more like Issler is the fact that they are just a little more stiff, sounding almost exactly the same as the pianist on "Uncle Jefferson" by Golden from 1897. The same stiff syncopation on "Uncle Jefferson" is present on both of these recordings, and despite the smoothness of Issler behind Johnson in 1891("The Whistling Coon"), it didn't turn out as nicely when he was seriously trying to play full-fledged Rag-Time at the height of the first half of the Rag-Time era(1896-1905). With all of this, it's finally seeming likely that Issler worked alongside Hylands for at least a few years longer than we thought before. So, as of now, Issler worked at Columbia until 1900 at the latest. But since we are doing a comparison here, listen to these two Johnson Columbia records from 1898-99, and compare them to the two listed above:
one of the best examples of Hylands accompaniment

and another take of the same thing
The first one is more likely Hylands than anyone else, and the other take has a similar story, especially since he ironically plays "Mister Johnson" at the end. 

So---with all of this, Issler was most certainly dropped from Columbia by 1901, because no longer after that do we hear that archaic style with all the 19th century embellishments and strictly perfect rhythm. After 1900, it seems that Issler saw some issues with his family life, as in the 1900 census, we can see Ed is living with his wife Hannah, daughter Helen, and brother-in-law Willie. In 1910, it's all different, he's listed as living with a woman named Jennie who was 16 years younger than he, still with Helen, but the brother-in-law is gone. Of course, we don't know what happened to wife no.1, but it's likely that she died. In 1900, it is stated that she and Ed had been married for 20 years, so it would seem a little strange if either one of them called for a divorce after that long, but that's always a possibility. Seems similar to how Hylands' wife dealt with being widowed to Fred, though she more light-heartedly ran off with another actor man, back where she started with Fred in Chicago(always seems a little funny to me).  According to the 1910 census, Ed had been married to Jennie for five years by then, and according to this as well, Ed is labeled as "M squared"(married twice), which is just kind of funny to say in terms of marriage. Even with whatever hit wife 1, Ed and Jennie made for a couple of swells, being mentioned in local papers often in the teen's for hosting gatherings at their house and Helen playing for the guests. Also, interesting thing to note, Helen was not yet married by 1920 by that point, and she was almost 40 by that point, just an interesting thing to note, also that she was a pianist(well, durr of course, if you were related to the first ever studio pianist, you'd be a musician too right?). 
With all of that, Issler seems like a little more complicated a man than Schweinfest. I get the feeling that Issler was very intense, and a complicated, moody sort of man; so into his music that not much else mattered. He was a union type it would seem, but we cannot find him mentioned in connection to any musician unions. Being picky about pay was likely part of why he was dropped from Columbia, and refused some other jobs after 1900. Yep, it's seeming that the years after getting thrown out of Columbia and disbanding his original orchestra were hard times for him. Other than that, things seemed to have gone rather well for him after the 1900's passed by, as that was when they were being considered older swells from Newark(well, at least Ed was by that point), with Ed working in orchestras until the 1930's. 




Before I end here, here's a fantastic(not very well labeled...) transfer of a 1900 Columbia of "Dancing on the Housetops":
https://archive.org/details/colbwnyl-15025
There's some loud low notes in that piano accompaniment. Throughout the record this is so. Classic early Rag-Time!

Hope you enjoyed this!