The Brothers Hager

As stated in the last post, I promised to do a post on the Hager's, so here goes.

When that big panoramic picture of Hager's orchestra was sent to me almost a year ago, it shocked me at the amount of detail there was in the description. Every single person was identified, even the recording engineers. Even the mysterious Charlie Carson was identified in the picture(he was Russell Hunting's right hand man with the smut cylinders in the 1890's). 

Just to give you an idea, here's the picture in its entirety:

That looks like a fun group!

Hager is stated as being no. 10, right in the center. 

There he is! ❤

A lot of Hager's musicians were part of Victor Herbert's orchestra(what a surprise!) and many were also symphonic musicians. Of course Hager had the most diverse orchestra in terms of each musician's extraction, in considering his wide range of friendships and partnerships. He knew everyone in the Symphonic and operatic community to the highest regarded vaudeville performers. Hager clearly knew what's up, in terms of music that is. So in considering this, we would assume he got the best percussionist he could find. 

Well, that turned out to be his brother. 

Yes indeed folks, that "James Hager" that is listed behind Fred Hager is indeed Fred's brother. Those two looked too similar for them not to be related, so after I did a little digging on Ancestry, it turns out that James was the youngest of the Hager's. Fred was the oldest, and James was the youngest. There were four Hager's:

Fred(b. 1874)

Lena(b.1878)

Georgina(b. 1880)

James(b. 1882)

Fred couldn't find a better percussionist? Well, I guess it's always good to get a sibling some work. 

There they are! They so look like brothers!

So there you have it, Fred's brother James is that percussionist on all those records. For years I had wondered who that weird percussionist was, since they weren't always great, but when they were it formed perfectly to the orchestra. Fred started the orchestra in 1896, and it seems likely that he wouldn't have forced brother James to play all their gigs until at least 1898. Rather than having him join at 14, waiting until he was 16 seems a little better. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe Fred got him to join just as he started high school in 1896! Of course to illustrate this I have a cartoon!

Yep. 

I was thinking back to those stories that Fred Van Eps recalled to Jim Walsh about him pulling Frank Edgar Banta out of high school to make records and play gigs with the Van Eps trio. The Hager thing reminded me of the Van Eps-Banta story. 

There's some sort of gratification now going back and listening to all those Hager's orchestra(and Zon-O-Phone orchestra) records, knowing that the percussionist is Fred's brother James. To make things a bit more interesting, James Hager is listed on a few Edison records around 1903, which is around the time of that panoramic picture, and when the Edison catalogs were raving over Hager taking over their orchestra. Here's the most popular example:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder2811

It's funny that the Edison people were consistent with the "James W." in identifying him, even though that's not really what his middle initial was. That must have been used to closely place both Hager's, and maybe make it more assumed that they were related. 

When going back and listening to those Zon-O-Phone records by Hager's orchestra, it becomes clear that brother James improved as the years went on. 

By 1909, James was playing spot on with the group:

Zon-O-Phone orchestra playing "Kerry Mills' Rag-Time Dance"

When we dig back to 1900 however, it's still a little bit out of whack, but of course still far surpassing all the other studio groups at the time:

Hager's 1900 take of "Plantation Pastimes"

And to think in 1900 the Columbia orchestra still sounded out of whack because of Hylands! 

I'm sure with the exciting motivation of making records brother James was determined to improve, and make the records sound much better, which they did by 1906 or so. With this in mind, Fred wrote many arrangements that were heavy on the percussion, and it seems evident why this was so now. 

His pieces were strange, but very fun and complicated at the same time. Recently I got a two sided mint condition Columbia of two Hager pieces played by Prince's band. 

Here's the more famous Hager piece side:

https://archive.org/details/ToyShopSymphonyPrinceHager1915

His tunes are deceiving, they sound solely novelty and playful, but are endlessly complicated and require a skilled percussionist! (no sitting around back there counting!)

Here's the flipside:

https://archive.org/details/KiddiesHagerPrince1915

This particular side was a modern marvel of its time. It clearly exhibits how advanced the quality of recording was by 1915, and it shows also that Hager had tried everything to create a symphonic natured recording without an entire symphony. Hager wrote these highly descriptive pieces around 1907, and it would make sense that he did. Being a dad with three young daughters, it would seem almost expected of him to write such sweetly novel pieces as these. It also makes sense now why there's so much percussion on these; to exhibit the talents of his brother James, and to show off all the weird sound effects they had dug up after almost two decades of recording. 

In keeping with the Hager subject, I have been on the lookout for some of his illusive Rex records. Those records were essentially the first of their kind, the first very successful American vertical cut records. Here's a nice example floating around on the internet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rv9v8DJBns&t=24s

These records sounded particularly nice in their day, and they seemed to have had the strangest titles associated with them. This label shows Hager's true colors, very expansive and diverse. The Rex label recorded everything from Grand Opera to Rag-Time piano solos by Roy Spangler who learnt them by ear.

Don't Believe me? Well here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdEZE8hu20Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZMSzbqMAp4

How about that?

Just like he did with Zon-O-Phone ten years before, Hager made sure the widest range of music was recorded, and recorded well for that matter. I have a single Rex record, and it sounds okay, but of course without the proper apparatus to play it it's bound to sound crappy. 

I don't have transfers yet, but here are the pictures:

That is the later edition of the Rex label, from 1915. 

The music is really nice on these though, as expected of Hager, the orchestra accompaniment is definitely more interesting than other studio groups of the time. Since it's 1915, the accompaniment is a pseudo-"Jass"style, which makes it particularly interesting. This is more so on side B however. As it turns out, these records are very uncommon, which is strange considering the circumstances of which I found the Rex record I have. I stayed in Los Angeles a few years ago and went to the Amoeba records in Hollywood and found that record buried in the old timey section at the back of the store. 

I was just in LA this last week and found nothing nearly as nice as that Rex record this time at Amoeba. I have gotten some nice Zon-O-Phone and Ossman records there in the past and recently, but the Rex record is the sole standout find from there. 

With that, I return to the Hager's. Unfortunately, it will take a lot more digging to find more on James Hager. On the entry for Fred, everything is there, but the information on the rest of the family is very vague. However, when I did a little more deeper digging I eventually found his WWI draft card! You can imagine how happy I was to find it, and definitely be assured that it was the right guy. 

Here you go:

How about that?

Tall, Stout, and brown eyed. 

Hmm.

That's quite different from how his matinee idol brother Fred looked. I do find it curious that his hair is stated as being already somewhat gray by age 36. Usually thats an indicator of red hair, but let's not get too set on that idea. Just keep that in mind with him. Finding this card also proves a much more exact birthdate for him, as well as that he was working as a musician long after the Zon-O-Phone era with Hager's orchestra. 

Anyhow...

I wanted to do a section here on the new phonograph I just got, but I will have to save that for the next post. I have a handful of really nice records to play and eventually get transferred. The machine I got is a really early Columbia Q with some nice eartubes to go with it. The discussion of the records will also be done in the next post, as there's quite a lot to talk about surprisingly. 

Hope you enjoyed this!