Battling Banjoists and their accompanist

Banjoists Ruby Brooks(1861-1906) was on the same level of banjo skill as Vess Ossman, but in some ways, Brooks presented a banjo style that was eccentric and primitive in ways that others weren't. 

Brooks made enough records for record scholars to get hints as to what the more folksy banjo styles sounded like in the early years of the rag-time era. Keep in mind that Charles Asbury's style is as folksy as it gets, and the best it gets, as he was a black man born in Florida at the end of slavery days and learned to play the banjo from the best black performers of the later minstrel era. There is no comparison between the white recorded banjoists and black banjoists of the time, as the authenticity and dynamics of Asbury wins out the recorded white banjoists. 

Ossman and Brooks were equivalent adversaries, doing exactly the same repertoire at the same time, and playing at the same places. One familiar accompanist tied them together, despite their powerful senses of pride. In 1893, in a Lyceum Catalog, there lies this advertisement:

Banta! 

There he is with Master Ossman. It's very likely that Ossman shoved Banta into the recording studio, and got him that regular job there for the next ten years of his life. Ossman and Banta were a package it seems, at least for a few years, by 1896 splitting up as an official duo to allow more studio time for Banta. But luckily for Banta, we know Ossman was notoriously difficult, so splitting with old Vess must have been good for Banta's soul. What has this to do with Ruby Brooks? Well, it turns out than Banta showed an interest in Brooks toward the end of the 1890's. With Ossman being chained to Columbia's contract for a little while in 1898 and early 1899, this allowed for Edison to take in the other famous "banjo king" Ruby Brooks. That's exactly what they did, and the end result from that is a handful of outstanding records that surpass many of Ossman's records with Banta from a few years before. Brooks brought a style to recording that was very unlike Ossman's. It was much smoother in terms of syncopation, and even though it was sometimes out of whack and stumped Banta, it's charming in a way that Ossman's style wasn't always. Ossman's style perfectly exhibits his control-freak nature, as he was always in tune, and the rhythm was precise down to the  quickest 32nd notes. Ossman when he was interviewed often stressed how important it was for the banjo to be in tune and for the rhythm played to be precise throughout. This is why we don't get any extra or dropped measures in Ossman's playing. 
Unlike Ossman, with Brooks we get a very interesting mix of folk aspects that Ossman cast aside in the logic of his playing. 
Here's an outstanding example of Brooks' playing:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder14584

Now keep in mind that the accompanist here is Banta.  Really listen to how ragged and smooth those last two strains are! Just a few years before Banta was working only with Ossman outside of the studio. Now, by 1899-1900 Banta had built a relationship with Brooks that provided some curious benefits. Brooks and his long-time partner Harry Denton had set up a publishing firm in the mid-1890's, and by the end of the decade had proved a popular publisher for recording stars and popular performers. With Brooks officially in the recording business, it made more sense to publish some fellow studio stars' work. That's just what he did. In 1899-1902, Brooks and Denton published some of Banta's most popular music, including Banta's "Ragged William"

(from Bill Edwards' website)
Brooks and Denton also published Banta's  later work "Halimar", which is an oriental dance(don't have a decent picture of the cover though...). With Brooks' founded interest in Banta, it's likely that Brooks published the last bunch of Banta's work. Banta was only doing his job by accompanying Brooks at Edison, but it's clear that Brooks took a greater interest in the former Ossman accompanist. Their records prove a partnership that fits together better than ever. Banta's syncopation was just as smooth and graceful as Brooks', as can well be heard in the recording of "Hunky Dory Cake-Walk" above. This particular record is the best of the best in terms of Brooks' records in fact. The others that provide good examples are nice, but can't compare to the "Hunky Dory" take. 
Here's another good one from around the same time:
https://archive.org/details/RubyBrooks
It's an awful shame the piano accompaniment is so obscured by the crappy transfer. That's okay though, we get to hear Brooks' unequalled and unique skill loud and clear. What makes Brooks so different from Ossman is that Brooks had no formal training to play the banjo. Like singer Frank C. Stanley, Brooks learned how to play the banjo completely on his own and from hearing the old black banjoists around him. This is what makes Brooks style more authentic and attractive on records. His entirely itinerant style comes through on each of his records, and makes them all the more unique. This is what tied together Banta and Brooks, and what makes their records just that extra amount of special that Ossman's just aren't. Banta, as far as we know, was self-taught at the root of his style, and with perfect pitch that would provide reason for little musical training beyond basic theory studies. 
Banta, even though he had experience with Ossman and provided for some very sleek examples of banjo rag-time(accompanying Ossman), added something special to records he made with Brooks. 
Just to further illustrate this, here are a few more examples:
https://archive.org/details/CoonSongMedleyByRubyBrooks1897-1899
This one is almost just as good as the "Hunky Dory" take. 

https://ia802609.us.archive.org/30/items/CollectedWorksOfRubyBrooks/HappyDaysInDixie1905_64kb.mp3

https://ia802609.us.archive.org/30/items/CollectedWorksOfRubyBrooks/StarsAndStripesForeverMarch1902_64kb.mp3

That's as far as the Brooks transfers go online. There's not that much out there to hear unfortunately, but all that stuff gives us a pretty good picture of his style, and that he lives up to his itinerant roots. Considering Ossman's straight and set ways of banjo playing, he must have found the gift that Brooks had to be lesser, but working with Banta would have granted some respect in Ossman to the self-taught banjoist. If you think about it, Brooks isn't playing too differently from those outstanding unknown banjo player:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder12991
I wish there was some way to know who this amazingly folksy and rhythmically perfect banjoist is. Much of how the unknown banjoist plays that tune is similar to how Brooks played it on an Edison record in 1899 or so. 
So in considering all of that, we ought to build up an appreciation for Brooks' records, as before doing some more critical analysis of his records, I didn't find him all that interesting. Before digging in, I assumed that those handful of Climax records Brooks made in 1901 were the best representations of his playing style, but it turns out that was not true at all. These Climax records were questionable in quality, as the only thing you can hear at all is the piano(which is great for studying the pianist, Hylands!), and the banjo is basically not present in the music whatsoever. These records made me believe that Brooks wasn't the best banjoist, and therefore skim through them without interest. After digging into Brooks' story, it seemed more tantalizing and interesting than Ossman's, in terms of stylistic features. Other than all this, the records where this balancing issue was in place were very well made, as those are the examples listed above with Banta piano accompaniment. I wouldn't be able to tell why those Climax records are so out of whack, but every one of them sounds like the way I described. But setting those records aside, Brooks was a great banjoist with quite an interesting style that ought to be studied more often. We often look to Ossman's easy to find and listen to style, but when we step out of the usual Ossman and Van Eps records we find banjoists who were entirely unique, but were unfortunately thrown out of recording rather quick due to Ossman's essential monopoly on banjo records before 1910. There's also Fred Bacon to listen to. Bacon was an absolutely outstanding banjoist, who played very similar to the great Tommy Glynn:

This tintype of Glynn is still floating around out there in the depths of Ebay for nearly $2,000. Hopefully someone can negotiate a reasonable price for this beautiful little thing. 
Glynn was considered the best of these banjoists, and his untimely death at only 25 further created a sort of cult for the former competitors of Glynn's. These former competitors played Glynn's pieces all over, including Ossman, who recorded several of Glynn's pieces for all labels he worked for. This is where we get records like Fred Bacon's 1912 recording of Glynn's "West Lawn Polka". Brooks didn't record any of Glynn's pieces, but it's clear that all those fellow banjoists like Brooks and Ossman very much enjoyed sharing Banta's accompaniments. Considering Banta's status as a popular instrumental accompanist, without much doubt he must have accompanied every one of these famous banjoists, including the obscure Berliner duo Cullen and Collins.


Now then!
I just joined Ancestry and have been stuck learning an overwhelming amount of new information about a variety of recording stars and performers. Before I decide who to pair together in terms of who to write about next, here's a portrait of Victor Emerson's daughter Edna(born 1899) around the early 1920's:

What!
She's absolutely gorgeous! It's curious so see such a beautiful face to come from a notoriously hated man of the Columbia studio. She looks a bit like her uncle Georgie, with those intense and shadowy eyes, and the slightly poked in cheeks of her father and uncle Georgie. 
That's all I'll leave here now before I begin with all the new information in the next posts. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Revisions and More new Transfers

All right, scratch most of what I said about Hardman in the last post. 

This thing is becoming much more frustrating than expected. 

So let's say that this guy wasn't the funny British man. 

After going back at the handful of examples of his music, the two things don't seem to fit together. 

Think back to the post where I first used that sheet above to talk about Mr. Hardman, when I used all the comical imagery and union talk. 

This is who the guy was. More of the influence of socialism on Hylands than anything. Thinking back to the music he wrote in the 1880's, he likely had a similar background to Hylands, particularly thinking of songs like this:

That's curious. Didn't someone we know literally live in the same decade under similar circumstances?

Hylands!

Yes indeed. In 1887 Hylands' father Charles opened a grocery store in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This sort of thing is rather midwestern, which would place Hardman likely in a similar upbringing to Hylands. Take that combined with the Union song from the same time and we have a similar story to Hylands, but realized a little earlier. Of course we still have no idea how old he was, or where exactly he came from, but we do have little hints from the handful of published music that's out there. So even with all this digging and learning yesterday, we are still in the same place as before unfortunately. Just like last time, we can associate imagery like this with Hylands and Hardman's relationship:

It still makes the most sense, and with a midwestern background to tie them together, we can assume that's what got them together under the talk of reviving their music writing skills. 

So please disregard most of what I said in the last post about that book at such. Not everything I've said about him is entirely wrong, but let's just revert to what we had before the last post. 

So now that that's done, it's time to listen to some more new transfers! As per usual, I've been checking the vast archive of Santa Barbara every day for new transfers, unearthing new ones almost every day. Luckily, there is a new Issler transfer up, and those are always guaranteed to impress. 

There he is, looking all official and whatnot. 

We know very well of Issler's outstanding capability to play syncopation in his music, which is evident throughout his recording career. This new transfer is no exception to this. 

Here's the new transfer:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder17058

The first section of this quadrille has an overtly syncopated section that sounds an awful lot like cake-walks published around the time this was recorded. This record was made likely around 1895, as are the bulk of Issler's records that we hear out there. The syncopation on this particular record sounds like a typical cake-walk from a few years later actually. What sections like this would have been called in the early and mid 1890's would be "buck and wing" or just
wing dance", which is another direct ancestor to Rag-Time. Here are two published examples of "wing dances", published before 1899:

Marshall and Wolff's "Evening Pastimes"(medley), published in San Francisco in 1897

"The Texas Teaser" by George Lowell Tracy from 1898

Think of a weird combination of Irish reels and black folk dances. That's essentially what we're dealing with here. 

Another good example of one of these is actually Monroe Rosenfeld's widely recorded "Virginia Skedaddle". These pieces encompass a lot of the distinct characteristics of American music throughout the 19th century. This is why hearing Issler play this stuff on records is valuable. We get an entire summing up of American(and not just North America I mean, I'm also referring to the West Indies and southern America) music in a few recordings of 2 to three minute songs. In speaking of songs like this, Santa Barbara has a curious record listed by the Columbia orchestra with an interesting title:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder14525

"Wing dance",that ought to be just what we're looking for. And with that, the piece could possibly be an older piece that was carried over to the Columbia Orchestra from Issler in the early and mid-1890's. This particular record is of interest to Rag-Time scholars because of the primitive and jig like melodic lines, the ones that were distinct of the earliest minstrel show songs(like "Turkey in the straw"!). This is exactly where the primitive rag name "jig-piano" comes into the picture. This record overall is a standard example of the earliest Columbia orchestra, with half the musicians being Issler's, and the other half being prestigious Gilmore's band musicians. Since this particular record is from that issue-ridden gray area for Columbia(1897), it's hard to tell who the pianist in the orchestra would be. 

This next record is quite different from the last one in term of content. 
It's been a little while since J.W. Myers has had a significant mention, so here you go:

Myers around 1893. 
This new Myers transfer is just interesting enough to keep me listening. Normally I am drawn to coon songs and funny popular songs, rather than what this record is. Here you go with John Philip Sousa's "The Man Behind the Gun":
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder17164
You will notice how loud and clear this record is. In fact, it's so clear and well recorded, that a friend and I discussed the possibility of this record being and original(directly recorded to cylinder, with no copying process). My friend stated how original records were sold(by Columbia) in the brown wax era, but were more expensive and the standard 60 cent Columbia record. With Edison records this wasn't the same process, Edison was known to sell originals all around for the same price. Anyway, what stands out about this record is that Myers of course was a great singer, but the piano accompaniment. Hylands is playing pretty typical accompaniment stuff, but the quality of which we hear it is outstanding. We can distinctly hear the very chord inversions he's playing, down to every single note coming through nice and clear. Hearing records like these reminds us how even though the process of recording was frustrating and sanded away at the lives of those who made them, the outcome was often loud and clear. With that, we can all live that moment in time, no matter what take it was, or what time of the day it was. 

This last record is one that I've been anxiously awaiting its transfer since the moment they listed it online. Of course all of the overt Coon songs Spencer did that are listed are gradually being put up to be listened to, and this one is just another great example of them. 

This particular one is another popular May Irwin hit from 1897, as are most of the better coon songs that Spencer recorded with Hylands accompaniment. The original transfer that was put up on Santa Barbara was far too fast, so slowing it down to a more respectable speed was of order. Just to get the comparison, here's the original transfer:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder14535
It's hard to listen to honestly, so here's the better slowed down transfer, where the piano accompaniment comes through much better:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By7WuiOUrg7YdldGc2ZWMW9WWmIyeDJrZ1YycWg1Y2h4Ymg0/view?usp=sharing
It's much more tolerable now, and sounds perfectly ragged. Yes, this isn't a great example of Spencer's singing(this is my perfect pitch coming through...), but the piano accompaniment far exceeds the rather out-of-tune singing of Spencer. This sort of Spencer record is exactly what I look for in terms of great examples of pre-1900 rag-time. This record and his "Get Your Money's Worth" from around the same time are among the best examples of their collaborations from pre-1900. These records are the zenith of recorded rag-time at the height of the first rag era(1893-1903), it really doesn't get much better than this folks. 
All the significant Hylands characteristics are present in this new transfer. You get the walking bass notes, pushy rhythmic syncopation, and out of whack following of the singer. It's records like these where we're reminded of how hard it must have been to accompany Spencer. Spencer was known for distinct pauses and little talking sections in the middle of records, and therefore made life for the accompanist very difficult. With other performers and singers, Hylands didn't naturally do the weird pause thing and aggressive speeding up of verses and choruses, but with Spencer, this was essential. This makes Spencer hard to follow, even if you're someone who understands what he did very well, he still did more of talking through songs than actually singing them. There isn't a thing wrong with this habit, it just gets us thinking about how hard Hylands' job was. I'm sure even Banta would have found Spencer to be rather difficult to accompany. Banta at least didn't have to deal with too many singers like Spencer at Edison and Victor(exceptions being Billy Golden and Silas Leachman). Keep in mind that Banta did indeed accompany Spencer on Victor and on Spencer's early Edison records. 


All right then. I should end it here, I was going to talk about Ruby Brooks in this post, but there seems to be enough to do an entire post on him, so that will be next!

Hope you enjoyed this!

A Mystery Partially solved and words from Banta

Thanks to the help of Charlie Judkins and Mason, it seems we now have at least an idea of who Will J. Hardman was. 

The reason that is had been a dead end every time anyone looked for any traces of Hardman is because he was English! It makes so much sense now why there was next to nothing out there on him in terms of finding the basic biographical information. What's more, Hardman wrote a book in 1884 called A Trip to America which is an endlessly entertaining read. Just today I was sent the link to the book and powered through 80 pages of it since it quickly captivated me. 

If you want to start reading the thing, here's the link:

https://books.google.com/books?id=bZkLAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=will%20hardman&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8j8_Ajr_bAhXRu1MKHawFAEcQ6wEIKjAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Don't get sucked in too far!

I'm not entirely certain whether or not to connect these lines yet, if that's the same guy. It's got to be though, since he can be found in public records around the late 1880's living in Brooklyn as a printer/bookbinder. At least that clears up why he would be of use to Hylands and Spencer. After reading a lot of that book, it's really nice to get a well founded idea of what the guy was like, and that it oddly corresponds to the strange and poetic lyrics that he wrote with Hylands. Though Hardman is basically exactly the opposite kind of person I had long guessed. You can't get them all turns out... 

Hardman was described in the book as "Aggressively English"(which is a hilarious term I will now appropriate). But oddly enough he was also described in a similar way physically to Hylands, which also would be an object of attraction for Hylands. It's very clear that Hardman was a very educated man, who loved books more than anything. This is very much evident throughout the book's chapters and vibrant descriptions of New York in 1883 and of the entirety of the U.S. in that time. There's quite a bit of humor throughout his descriptions of travels, which mirrors that of his work with Hylands. Even though Hardman had been writing music here and there in the 1880's and 1890's, it still seems strange to find a man so intelligent and greatly invested in literature to reach the low point of working with such a hustler as Fred Hylands. In his 1884 book he describes the common character of old New York, the "confidence man" who so often scammed new travelers and unknowing street people. Hardman himself was taken by the arm of a few of these scammers, and they turned out to be famous lottery brokers, who tinkered with the numbers and players. To assume Hylands in a similar position, Hardman would only think of Hylands in a similar way, especially with his faux background in economic studies as a teenager. Surely Hardman was wise to the ways of Hylands, of course after he got to know the studio rambler(Hylands). Likely from the convincing grin and genuine business intellect of Len Spencer, Hardman was swayed to revive his musical talent and write with Hylands. Again, after reading through that book, he doesn't actually seem too different from what we can piece together about Hylands. 

Yes now that we know all this, it's all fine and dandy, but the basic questions still haven't been answered. We don't know how old he was, when he died, or anything else like that. I would guess he was born around the same time as Silas Leachman(1859), since he said that he was married in 1883. He seemed to have a particular fondness for the theater and the music that was played, as evident in the chapter in his book regarding New York theater society. This remains another hint at why he connected so well with Hylands over a decade later. 

What's also rather humorous is how much he had to say about New York Hotel food. He spoke of the subject matter in such great detail, and with such admiration whilst also exhibiting his clear astonishment of the portions and perfection. Such a thing hints more at similarities to Hylands. Wink wink...

We may not have the basic information we would need to piece together Mr. Hardman, but at least we know why, and how and why he was of such value to Hylands, Spencer, and Yeager. Now that I've had the chance to read a bunch of his writing, his strange lyrics to "You Don't Stop the World from Going Round" makes much more sense, and its curious origins are much clearer. 

https://archive.org/details/YouDontStopTheWorldFromGoingRoundLenSpencer1899

Now to move to something that relates to the last post. In the last post I broke down Frank P. Banta's most eccentric characteristics in terms of accompaniment. 

This time we actually have words from Banta!
I mentioned in the last post that there aren't any hints to Banta's personality, but now there's a tiny little glimpse that sums him up pretty well. 
There's a newspaper article from June of 1893 regarding the newest realm of recording for the North American phonograph Company. When reading over the little article on the dense page, it takes a little while to see the words "Mr. Frank Banta" written on the page.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1893-06-25/ed-2/seq-5/

Banta in a nutshell:
"Oh that doesn't matter...just hum it over once and I'll catch it."

Yep, that's pretty much how Dan W. Quinn described Banta. Quinn praised Banta's perfect pitch and ability to play a song entirely through after once hearing it. This very quote above to the fullest extent supports Quinn's claims regarding Banta, and why all the studio workers enjoyed working with him so much. In this situation of having a Banta quote, I should most certainly dig out that record by Banta's orchestra that likely has the voice of Banta himself in the announcement. 
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder11738
That voice at the beginning has got to be him. Never has a voice so perfectly matched the appearance of a studio star. 
Also, I think that's Banta's voice because I've heard a similar one on Edison records later on records that are of sketches, such as ones by Len Spencer. 
An example of this is here:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder7434
One of those laughing voices is certainly Banta. The timing would indicate that he's there, as well as the little bit of piano accompaniment there is on the record. The thing about those laughing voices on this record is that there's this one that particularly sticks out at the very end. It's really exaggerated, but it has that same sort of weird twang that the voice at the beginning of the Banta's orchestra record has believe it or not. 
You can hear that same voice here too:
http://www.tinfoil.com/cm-9911.htm#ch0410


So now with that input, really try to imagine that twangy New Yorker voice speaking those words from the Sun article. 
Not often do the voices of these recording stars match their appearance, but it seems Banta's does. 

That voice suits that look surprisingly well, as do the very words that we have immortalized in that newspaper article. 

Before I finish, I'd like to share a new Santa Barbara transfer that is worth mention. Us Rag-Time scholars are on the hunt for records of early Hylands, which means recorded for Columbia for certain in 1897. This record I'm sharing is one of these so important records. 

here's the record:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder14095

Just to clear it up, the title they have listed is not the correct one. 

This tune was a popular one of 1896, originating from May Irwin's outstanding and renowned performance in The Widow Jones. 

There we go. 

The name of this early coon song is "I Want'cher Ma honey". 

This particular Hylands and Spencer record is very well recorded, and that means we can hear that piano loud and clear as ever. It can also be observed that the piano being played sounds rather awful. It's not out of tune so much as it's rather beat up and in rough shape. The accuracy of the piano's tuning is hard to tell because Spencer's singing was always questionable. But one thing is for sure, that piano had seen better days. Luckily(and unfortunately), this particular record allows for this to be heard with great clarity, particularly in the solo after the first chorus. That single note that Hylands plays to end the solo is really more like a thump than a tonal note. This is a time where we can be thankful that Edison's piano always sounded good, and there's a reason for it. Banta had experience in tuning pianos and the general mechanics that go into the piano. Hylands didn't know a thing about piano tech. Without this knowledge, and no Banta to tend to the thing, their piano at Columbia sounded the way it does in this 1897 record. What's odd however is the fact that Columbia's piano sounded okay after 1898. It's only in 1897, and not even the entirety of that year in fact, that their piano sounded thumpy and stripped of most dynamic capability. This fact does help us date records such as this early Rag-Time record by Spencer, but it leads one to question why this was true. Of course there is no way to definitively know why Columbia's piano sounded to awful in that short period of time, but the fact that Edison's piano always sounded good must have something to do with Banta's constant presence. 

Technology was not Hylands' specialty, and a crappy sounding piano can be a piece of evidence for this. 

But aside from that, the crappy sounding piano rather adds to the aesthetic of the record, as Hylands does play some banjo imitation riffs and a piano that sounds like that can often evoke such a banjo sound that's more realistic. 

Hope you enjoyed this!