A Cabinet Card mystery and Eddie King digging

A few days ago I went on my usual cabinet card/tintype dig online. Every month or so I go through hundreds of cabinet and tintype photos on Etsy to see if i can weed out anything worthy of saving and preserving. In the past, my digs haven't ever produced very outstanding pieces that are the gold standard, and reason for, my digging. That 1880's tintype of little Tommy Glynn is still floating around out there, but no one has had the stuff to try getting it for a reasonable price. Maybe sometime soon I'll see what I can negotiate regarding that tintype. 

Aside from that, this week's dig produced perhaps the most valuable piece I have ever seen and will soon have in my own collection. Last time I did a post on a cabinet card dig, it was awhile ago, and I found a portrait of a fellow I thought looked somewhat like Hylands. Now that I've had a pair of very detailed portraits of Hylands for nearly a year, I have a very solid understanding of what he looked like(after nearly a decade of research!). I can say now that that last card I highlighted was definitely not of Hylands. However, on my last dig, I may have actually found a very nice clear early photo of Hylands. 

This time I mean it. Last time I had no idea what I was talking about. So, here's the picture:

So there ya have it folks. 

Yeah, that really does look like a young Hylands. From the look and style of this portrait, it looks to be from the late-1880's to the early 1890's. This date range would indeed correspond with Hylands' age. Hylands would have been about 17-20 in that time, and that does indeed look like the fellow's age above would be. Now, here's the thing really take a good look at the two very clear portraits I have of Hylands for comparison:

Well there you go. 

So, this very modest portrait from the late 1880s's or so seemed like nothing when I first saw it, until I started to get a better look at it. This is exactly why I dig through every box of Victorian photos, is for times like these. 

Just take a look!

The weird slightly crooked mouth, the flushed cheeks, curly hair(at least in the back), the big oddly pointy ears, the pleading eyes, strangely long and prominent nose, and even the dimple chin!

Everything lines up, even the awkward broad shoulders. I'm getting all excited just writing about this! Finding this thing is absolutely unbelievable, but I always had the hope that I might find an early portrait of Hylands somewhere. The only thing that's keeping me from really digging into the detail of this new old picture is the fact that it appears to be quite heavily retouched. And yes, if this portrait is indeed of Hylands that proves that he was indeed slimmer when he was young, further pushing the possibility that he's the pianist in that 1897 Columbia studio picture:

Even with all the retouching on the 1880's portrait, I can still see the awkward young Hylands come through, if indeed that's a teen aged Hylands. 

What's funny, is that I have drawn what I have conjectured a young Hylands would have looked like, and I wasn't far off!

I sketched this one recently. 

To further complicate my analysis of this very likely Hylands portrait, you may have noticed the location. The location of this particular portrait was Erie Pennsylvania, not in Indiana or Ohio where I would assume a portrait of any Hylands to have been taken. But! The location of this portrait isn't too far away or removed for it to be Hylands. Erie Pennsylvania is right on the eastern edge of Ohio, up in a corner where music congregated to sound quite similar to Hylands' style. There is a single piece I know of published in this very town that does indeed actually sound like Hylands' "The Darkey Volunteer". This piece that I am thinking of is called "Moose Rag", and although it was published in 1910, it carries many aspects similar to that of Hylands' and even Hager's composing styles. The beginning of "The Darkey Volunteer" has a distinct rollicking melody, one that can be heard in many later popular "Indian songs", such as Hager's "laughing water" and "Hiawatha". The first strain of the "Moose Rag" has this same melody, listen below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd6mSmNY-ms

I also own a copy of the original sheet, so I have gone back and checked just to be sure. Much of the leading melodies of this rag are very similar to Hager's composing style, but at the same time are reminiscent of Hylands' somehow. 

Listen to Hylands' "The Darkey Volunteer", and hear that distinct melody at the beginning as in "Moose Rag":

https://archive.org/details/DarkeyVolunteerOssmanwComposer1898

The overall structure of the first strain is almost identical to the "Moose Rag", even with the rollicking, constantly going 8th notes after the distinct melody. 

So what has this to do with the cabinet portrait?

Well, this says that Hylands did indeed have some roots back in that corner of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and I might add that their family did end up there often after Hylands was recording. Also! In Hylands' bio in The Phonoscope , it states that he worked in theaters in Pittsburg before coming out to NYC in 1896. By 1888, Hylands' father had exited the saloonkeeper business, and settled with his job on the railroad, so that in itself would have gotten Fred and Etta going a lot of places. So there ya go! 

Well, I really hope this portrait is of Hylands, it sure as hell looks like him! I already paid for it and it's currently on its way through the mail. I am glad it happens to be in good shape too, so it's not any more difficult to try and identify crucial facial features in comparison. 

Now, moving on!

This evening I did some digging on Eddie King again. And no I still haven't found a picture of him yet. Hopefully a picture will turn up of him somewhere, the physical descriptions of him are too good to never see. I was finally able to track him quite well, and finally clear a few things up regarding him. I am certainly glad for all the stories people have told me about him, as they have actually helped me cross reference things and piece things together easier. Someone sent me a few pages from Nat Shilkret's autobiography, and all the little details that Shilkret puts in his chapter about Eddie King has actually helped me out a lot on my search for him. 

In these few pages that were sent to me, he talks about how after his first wife died, he remained single for a few years, which, believe it or not lined up perfectly with my digging on him. 

I was able to find him is all the appropriate census records, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940! what? Well, it seems that despite his rotten reputation, he outlived his recording lab years by many years. I was able to track down when he finally left the recording business, which was right around 1930, not long after his days working with Bix Beiderbecke and the crew in the late 1920's. 

I was able to find that he was married in 1894 or so first to a women named May, but she died around 1918 or so, he remained single for a few years then got married again to an "old maid"(I hate to use that terminology, but I want to remain historically accurate here) named Julia, who just happened to be his sister-in-law. Heh?

Umm that's strange.

But okay, whatever works, you do that. 

I'm seeing lots of parallels to Hylands if you know what I'm getting at here. I'm seeing even more than in the last post  I did on Mr. King. So I haven't yet been able to fine when he died, but the dates I have so far are thus:

Sept 1868-after 1940. 

That's a pretty damn good start on a guy with a pretty generic name and no previous information. And yes, I keep drawing cartoons with him in them, but of course not showing his face completely. His prominence in the early recording studios seems to correspond with Hylands and Justin Ring at times, form his early days at Columbia in the 1890's to his days at Okeh and later Columbia again. I hope the stories keep-a-coming, as he seems like a somewhat lovable eccentric who was too mean to die as some say. 

I also thought is quite telling to find that his father Ed Horatio King was a musician. Well, no surprise there, I guess he got started early like Justin Ring! No wonder the two of them seemed to click together so well under the Zon-O-Phone. Or maybe not, not too many studio workers has many nice things to say about him. I would like to finish with another cartoon I drew of him recently: 

That's King playing in a recording session with Hager's orchestra. 

Anyway...That's what I got for now folks. I will soon be writing for a certain rag-time related publication, so I may be taking a brief break from writing on here. Hopefully this new engagement turns our well, and hopefully some of you regular readers will see where my writing ends up going in this new gig. I hope to have some more digging on Eddie King done soon, but there are no guarantees on that, as I have done about as much of the basic research that I can to at least get a brief outline on this guy. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 

The Phonographic Threesome

In keeping with a similar theme to the Eddie King post, I have potentially dug something up that will impact a large portion of my record listening. 

To begin, here's this picture:

It seems like forever since I've used this curious group picture. As you can see, at the very bottom this funny group of musicians is The Columbia band(or orchestra) led by Charles Prince. Last evening, something struck me to remember seeing this picture years ago, and at that I dug it up from the depths of my computer. I stared at it long because I wanted to see if I could recognize any faces from this photo compared to the Hager's orchestra picture from around the same time. I stared back and forth at the two pictures for over an hour, trying to see if I could pick out familiar faces. Now in the end, this proved to be a great idea. A long while ago when I first saved the picture, I recognized Frank Mazziotta right away. 

Mazziotta as pictured in The Phonoscope 

And Mazziotta in the group picture above. 

That's definitely Mazziotta, no debates there. We know definitively that Mazziotta was identified in the Hager's orchestra picture:

There he is!

So that was easy enough, and it does indeed make sense that he be in that Columbia group picture. 

But is there anyone else I could pick out? Well, in referring to the title of this post, one particular fella in the Columbia group picture looks extremely familiar. Up in the right corner of the picture, there's this one guy who quite naturally sticks out because of his obvious age difference. 

Who is that?

That face looks awfully familiar. After I looked closely at that face, it hit me, that's likely Justin Ring! So what does this mean? This is a game changer. 

Just the mere fact that he's in that Columbia band(or orchestra) picture proves that Hager and Ring had a hand in every active major company in the era before 1910. But this also means even more. If Ring was working for Columbia around 1902-1903(the approximate date of the Columbia band/orchestra picture), then he was likely the pianist that succeeded, and likely worked alongside, Hylands.

Now I do not know if this guy is Ring or not, but I did do a lot of staring at the other pictures of him:

This of course is from the c.1902 portrait of Hager's orchestra. 

Ring at Okeh, c.1921.

Hager and Ring, c.1902.

So if this hot young sport in the Columbia band(or orchestra) is Ring, this means that much of the Columbia piano accompaniments beginning around 1902 were becoming more of Ring's. Around 1902, there was a shift in pianists at Columbia, as the whole Climax scandal forced some serious changes to be made. From many examples I've heard, Hylands was indeed still working at Columbia as late as 1904, but more often we hear another pianist who sounds somewhat like Hylands, but with a sort of style that was heard on Zon-O-Phone at the same time. 

How can I back up this idea that this guy is Ring?

Well, after I realized who that probably is, I went back and listened to a lot of Columbia orchestra records from 1902-1904, and I noticed a few things. Let's start with some material Columbia recorded in this period, a few of these things were suspiciously related to Ring. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aLah2LkoME

There's his famous piece!
At around exactly the same time, this piece was recorded for Zon-O-Phone, as well as Edison. Here are the two other versions:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder8074

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtWiy__Eq90&index=32&list=PLTMwHLAObMjvIxCmtHTxHKMwOJhazzuHu&t=0s

What's so curious about all three versions is that they all have even the same feel and aggressive rhythm that I associate with Ring. It's almost like he was present at each session(sounding suspicious yet?). Another Ring piece that I've seen a lot of crossover with is his "Scarecrow dance", of which is was recorded on each of the labels mentioned. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9iqXuskmXk

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder6432

From my recent research travels, I got to hear the first recording of "The scarecrow dance": 

So this is quite a lot of crossover, more than what was usual in the era. Usually we wouldn't associate this much crossover within three competing companies that swore to the public that they hadn't anything to do with each other. When I went back and listened to about a dozen Columbia's from 1902-1904, I noticed that around that time there was some shockingly hot rag-time recorded by them. The Columbia orchestra wasn't really known for playing hot rag-time pieces, odd to say as such, because they had Hylands there for that crucial time. Around 1901-1902, the Columbia orchestra and band began to record some classic rag-time, such as and instrumental of "Coon coon coon","Peaceful Henry", and J. Bodewalt Lampe's "Dixie Girl". 

Listen to this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4527lb5eFDE

(it's not performed by Hager's orchestra, haha, maybe it is if you count Ring's presence  *wink wink*)

This surge of rag-time repertoire also seemed to hit the accompaniments of this time at Columbia too, and in a way that wasn't as antiquated or banjo-centric as Hylands'. It's the progressive kind, the hot and bluesy kind. Even as late as 1905 that distinct aggressive accompaniment remained at Columbia, take this record for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-u32elU1LA

Now I am almost certain that that pianist on Dockstader's Columbia's is Ring, mostly because of Ring's connection to the publisher of "Everybody works but father". Remember that Hager published "Everybody works but father". 

Even though Ring is likely that other Columbia pianist post-1902, there are indeed exceptions where I'm sure the pianist is Hylands, despite the obvious Hager-Ring influence. A great group of late Hylands records are Joe Belmont's solos from 1902-1903. Those definitely have the distinct antiquated Hylands touch of the late-1890's. Here are a few for reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSZeBgyM8e0

The dead give away on this record that its Hylands is that distinct ending. It sticks out and is as unique as his fingerprint. That walking bass outro I've heard on dozens of Columbia's from 1897-1903. 

https://ia802302.us.archive.org/18/items/JoeBelmont/JoeBelmont-WhistlingSusannaCoonSong.mp3

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder4686

So now I have a basic outline for the pianist cutoff for Columbia, and that's the end of 1902. Around the beginning of 1903, that's when Justin Ring(or if not Ring, just someone else) stepped in for worn out old Hylands. The 1903 cutoff date actually lines up really well with what I've done on my tracking of Hylands' locations by date. Before 1903, Hylands stayed in and around New York for the most part, and in 1903 he took the position as music director at the Majestic Theatre in Boston. He remained tied up with the folks in Boston until 1904, when he began writing his musical flop The Yankee Doodle Girl as well as his more successful The Beauty Doctor. So everything works out quite well with this Hylands thing. Also, I have finally come to a pretty solid idea that Hylands began working at Columbia in early 1897, but I'll get back to that later.

So, what about this Ring deal? If that is indeed Ring in that Columbia group portrait, that means Ring was working for three companies at the same time; Zon-O-phone, Columbia, and Edison. And it's important to wonder whether he was actually able to pull this off. Well, in 1901, the whole Climax-Columbia thing did allow for Hager and Ring to work for Columbia, Zon-O-Phone, and Climax all at the same time. So even after the Climax bust in 1902, it was possible to work for a company threesome. Indeed Ring had the ability to handle all this, because he hadn't any responsibilities at home, by that I mean he didn't have a wife and kids and in-laws to tend to. He had plenty of free time on his hands, as he was young and ambitious as well as industrious, all the qualities that a performer working for multiple phonographs would need. Hager was somehow less connected to Columbia, though he must have had some deal with them as he had many of his musicians record in their orchestra(Ring included). 

So I really hope that's Ring in that group picture. That would actually solve a lot of issues I've had with accompaniments on Columbia after 1902. Awhile back, I had this idea that one of those Zon-O-Phone pianists sounded an awful lot like the post-Hylands Columbia pianist, and if it is indeed Ring in that picture, that would pretty much prove this theory once and for all. 

So a little farther up in this post I mentioned that I have a pretty solid idea of Hylands' term of Columbia. For years I have been puzzled whether or not Hylands started at Columbia in 1897, but it seems pretty evident now that he did. I have been hearing more Columbia's from 1897 recently, and have had more time to really dissect the accompaniments on them, also because I have been going back occasionally to make sure I know which pianist is Hylands. Just to circulate the image some more, here's that infamous Columbia studio picture from 1897:

Despite every one's still peeved opinions, I still think that pianist is Hylands as he looked when Columbia hired him in early 1897. 

Anyway, i listened to a handful of 1897 Columbia's recently to cross reference them with the later Hylands accompaniments, and they seemed to line up perfectly. 

I am convinced Hylands was on more "...New York City" announced Columbia's than previously thought. The NYC announcement was phased out by the middle of 1897, so the dates do work out quite well with the emergence of queer syncopation on Columbia records. Here are three good examples:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IqZr-mbGekuZjOWUTOvjf5q9kRcD4vc7/view?usp=sharing

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder13463

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder11728

All three of these records are NYC announced Columbia's, so they all date from early to mid 1897. I made sure to cross reference Indiana-Ohio rags published around the same time to be assured that the styles line up just enough, and they do. Here are two:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_E6VPpqyKU

In the first record example I used, note how eccentric and broken the syncopation is. It's just as accurate as the two rags listed directly above. And to further cross reference, I used Columbia's from 1898-99 that I know have that distinct Hylands "rag-time" accompaniment that the boys at The Phonoscope so avidly solicited. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgsxttjZ6FY

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By7WuiOUrg7YTVVTR1BlamV3SHdRWmNGSWU3MHRLR2JkdXRZ/view?usp=sharing

There's that Cincinnati swing we all know!

Before I finish off, a few things I've been noticing very clearly with Hager and Ring's accompaniments, is that they definitely listened to Hylands' accompaniments. Both Hager and Ring played that walking bass that Hylands played naturally so often, and even took bits of the Cincinnati stylings that one would only pick up if they really studied the records. 

I have no idea what i might write about next, so stay tuned folks! 

Hope you enjoyed this!

The Eccentric and Extraordinary Eddie King

In the last few weeks, I have become quite fascinated with a guy named Eddie T. King. I have mentioned him here and there in previous blog posts, more recently I have attempted to place his name in studio pianist research, but so far nothing on that has produced much. 

As I have become ever more intrigued with this eccentric Eddie King, many people have shared odd stories regarding him. From the dozen or so stories that have been shared with me regarding him, it is evident that no one really liked him too much, and that he was a classic eccentric. 

In the 8 years of record research I've done, King's name has come up here and there, never seeming to completely escape the research process. I might add that that's quite a difficult thing to pull off, but since King was lurking around literally everywhere, it really isn't much of a surprise. When I was starting out on my Hylands digging back in 2012, King's name came up a few times as a pianist alternative to Hylands(if the whole Hylands thing didn't end up working out!). But why would King's name be added to the mix with Hylands? Well, according to most sources, King worked at Columbia in the late-1890's and into the early 1900's, but what exactly he was doing there I do not know. I cannot confirm what he was doing at Columbia in the late-90's, but I would firmly believe he was there somehow. Recently I went on a dig on ancestry for Mr. King, and only found him in the 1900 census so far, but, I know it's the right guy! The record indicates he was born around 1868, which is quite early! 

Just to give you an idea, King was older than Banta and Hylands. 

So...In considering his age, it would make sense that he would be poking around at Columbia in the era of the Hylands accompaniments. 

It's quite possible that King traded off with Hylands playing piano accompaniments, but I have no way to know that just yet. 

King worked for Columbia through 1903, and around then he ended up as Hager's percussionist, making a few xylophone solos and regularly appearing as Hager's drummer(I do not know what happened to James Hager when King stepped in). King supposedly remained at Zon-O-Phone until their end in 1912, and then he was off to Victor until the mid-1920's. After Victor he returned to Columbia to supervise many famous Jazz and popular sessions. 

So that's the sequence of his employment, but there's a lot more to this story. The tales people have been telling me about him are larger than life. Naturally, I drew several cartoon involving him and his eccentricities. Oddly enough, he actually seemed to be an eccentric in a way similar to Hylands, the kind that everyone in the studio made fun of and mocked constantly behind his back. From the tone of the stories, it seems that's all they did. When they were all in the studio with him they had to act quite well, as when he was lurking around he'd raise hell and kick everyone's butts around if they didn't behave. Since I have known about Mr. King, I have never seen a picture of him, but from the very detailed descriptions of his appearance I feel like I have. There's a section on him in Nat Shilkret's autobiography, and he's also mentioned a few times in more than one book about Bix Beiderbecke's Paul Whiteman sessions. The boys in Bix's band provided a very colorful description of his appearance, it went something like this(I am entirely paraphrasing here!):

He had the head of a bull. He was a short man with a very large waist and bottom, but delicate hands. 

Also he was very short tempered, easily triggered by small things. 

Yep, how about that for a colorful description! That immediately got me thinking, I needed to draw a few cartoons to poke fun at this, but of course he probably wasn't so grotesque looking in the 1900's and 1910's(sounds a lot like another Columbia studio pianist).  Since I have not seen a picture of him, I am only going off of these comical descriptions, here's my first  cartoon of him:

Of course this combines the detailed description as well as his relationship with Hager and Justin Ring. This is poking fun at how he likely changed quite a lot after Hager "left" Zon-O-Phone in 1906 and left Eddie to tend to his orchestra and musicians on his own. By 1914-15, Eddie was playing on many of the Fred Van Eps-Felix Arndt Victor's, beating on the drums to the discontent of Van Eps and Arndt. King's aggressive and somewhat antiquated drumming made for some odd sounds on these particular records. I quite like this particular record of his:

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/700000083/C-15093-Old_folks_rag

He's playing very straightforward percussion, sometimes sticking to the melody and other times not. The physical descriptions make for some elevated humor in the listening of any records he's on, particularly the Van Eps records. Now that I know about King being on them, I am glad to own a few of them. I can almost feel the cringe of Van Eps and Arndt on those records, having to deal with King's queen-like bossy rule, then having no choice but to allow him to be their percussionist. Just for the fun of it, here's another Van Eps record he's on, this time he plays some more pieces of the percussion! 

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/700000153/C-15162-Kakda

All the stories come together into one when I listen to records I know he's on, it becomes hard to keep a straight face at that point. 

The second cartoon I drew of King was illustrating one of the Nat Shilkret stories. In Shilkret's book, he told several stories about King, but one in particular is too great not to share. He told that after King's second wife died, he insisted upon performing a séance to contact her spirit. When he did this, he absolutely insisted that Harry MacDonough sat next to him(a little suspicious, but okay), and he was entirely passionate and confident about the result he got from the thing. The others he invited did funny little things to help get Eddie's goat and lead him to believe all that he was intending on. I did not draw him in the 1920's, but I did draw him with Hager and Ring again of course:

(I drew most of this waiting for the train in Santa Barbara)

So, if you are observant enough, you could see that the spirit he's attempting to contact is Banta's, as by 1905 Banta had been gone for almost two years. 

So this story was where I really understood that he was a classic eccentric, as only a true weirdo of the times would insist on grabbing a few friends to perform a legitimate séance, particularly at the beginning of the 20th century. 

No one liked working with Eddie King. He was bossy, aggressive, constant, and a serious grump. But despite all of these negatives, he was one of the most valuable people in the studios in his day, as he was a very well educated musician, and he played all the vital instruments for the foundation of a recording lab at that time. He played piano, all percussion, organ, and was a great studio manager. So it makes sense why he remained in the studios for so long, even with all his eccentricities and drawbacks.  Just as I'm writing this, I dug up an interesting record from 1920, where you can hear the voice of Eddie King quote clearly, and it's actually a familiar voice:

(right at the very end is where it's the best)

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/700010044/B-24810-Sweet_mamma_Papas_getting_mad

That voice is all over Zon-O-phone's in the early 1900's, doing all sorts of calls and shouts on Hager's orchestra records. So that's what he sounded like. 

The most unrelated cartoon I drew involving Eddie King was themed for Valentine's Day, but it also includes Justin Ring once again:

So from King's connections to early Columbia and Zon-O-phone,  it can be almost guaranteed that he knew both Hylands and Justin Ring quite well. The parallels between King and Hylands are quite astounding, as all the studio boys tried pulling pranks on him when they could, and spoke of him quite dirty all the time, a similar story to what we can gather from how Hylands was portrayed in The Phonoscope. 

In my last post, I used the statement two(or three)Zon-O-Phone pianists more than once, and there is a reason I did. There are two different pianists I hear on most Zon-O-Phone(and Climax) records from 1899-1907, but sometimes there are Zon-O-phone's I hear that don't fit into the dichotomy. So in this mission I'm on to unlock the mysteries of Zon-O-Phone, the three names I have as accompanists are Fred Hager, Justin Ring and Eddie King. Eddie King would likely be on Zono around post-1902, as he was still working at Columbia by then as far as I know. Unfortunately, I haven't heard enough of his accompaniments to decipher a distinct style, but hearing more of his drum attack is helping. This record here is about as good as it gets in terms of his accompaniment:

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/700002137/B-17118-Panama_Pacific_drag

I have been listening to this record a lot lately to attempt to pull something out of the accompaniment, but so far I only have little fragments that don't tell me much. However! A collector told me recently that in one of the Bix books, the boys in the band described his playing as antiquated, exaggerated, and well founded. Yes, that's helpful, but doesn't really tell me much. He naturally would have sounded like that, considering his age and high musical education. The only thing I can gather from his accompaniments is that he was a good accompanist, but aggressive and pushy, similar to the Hylands attack, but don't take that as an important characteristic here. In no way did King have the Cincinnati Swing that distinguished Hylands' accompaniments like a pin to the finger. King had the same aggressiveness in his accompaniments(not just on piano, but also his drumming) that would push around the performers, and create an extra amount of swing in the overall rhythm of the record. 

Well, that's about all I got on Eddie King for now, hopefully I can dig up some more on him in the near future, as the odd stories keep piling up, as do the cartoon ideas. No matter what I study in this recording world, his name will always pop up, as his name is on the most Victor records in their ledgers, just to give you an idea of his significance. He was obviously an important figure, despite his eccentricities, because he remained working in studios from the 1890's to nearly 1930!

To close out, here's a Hager's orchestra record I know he's doing the calls on(as well as beating away on the woodblock throughout):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyyrqam0FaE

I really wanted to get this Eddie King post in before I forget, that's why I'm doing it so close in time to the previous post. I was so anxious to share this, as I have never been so tantalized by a character I have never seen and know hardly anything about. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Recent Research Travels

In the last week and a half, I have been on quite a journey, to Southern California. 

Just over a week ago, I returned from a 5 day trip via train to Santa Barbara and then to Los Angeles proper. I mentioned at the very end of my last post that i would be visiting UCSB, and that's exactly what I did. In the weeks leading up to my visit, I spent hours combing through the lists of what Santa Barbara's library holds in terms of early disc records, picking out things I wanted to see when I visited. The requests kept piling up, until I had about 40 records to listen to when I called. The amount of records were astounding, so many things that ought to be beautiful, and how they were. After a day of frustrating but in the end pleasant train travel the previous day, I finally found my way to where the special collections are kept on campus, I was led to their modest reading room overlooking the beautiful mountains. I was entirely at peace, sitting there in the quiet listening to these 40 or so records, and writing notes down on each one, it was heavenly. 

I don't want to share every single image I
took of these records, as it's quite a few, but these are a few of the standouts from the little collection I requested:

(yes I took pictures of every record I requested, just for my personal reference)

(Keep in mind that this is nowhere near everything else I heard from the stack)

So...why did I go through so much to do this? What would be the point of doing this if i couldn't take the transfers with me? Well, as I stated above, I took very detailed notes on each record, more particularly the Zon-O-Phone's. The reason I went though as much as I did to come and see these records was to study two dozen early Zon-O-phone's to try and build a better foundation for the 2(or three) pianists that worked for Zon-O-phone from 1899-1907(or so). For example, when I picked out the records to listen to, I specifically chose a few doubles of the same song by different artists, but on the same label. The most telling example I chose were 2 versions of "strike up the band, here comes the sailor". The versions I chose were both recorded on Zon-O-phone in the same year, but by Edward M. Favor and Billy Heins(I posted a picture of the Heins version above). One thing that became very evident about these takes was that it was certainly the same pianist on both of them. But what does that mean?

Well, I am recalling now how I described one of the takes in my notebook, one take was much more precise and took stranger risks at the times for solos. The take I was previously more familiar with was the Heins take, with the familiar and extremely well executed "sailor's hornpipe" at the very end, the Favor take had this ending also, but somehow they found the time to place the same tag in the middle of the record!(very hastily and sloppily I might add). You can hear a not too great transfer here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eNE07ozZ38

This take is the better one overall, much better composed and thought out, the accompaniment anyway, Heins was always great. The two choruses of "sailor's hornpipe" seemed very improvised on the Favor take as I'm recalling now. But it's assuring to know that it's the same pianist on both, which isn't entirely surprising, but good to know. 

So did I come to any conclusions? Well, not really. I was hoping that hearing 35 more early Zon-O-phone's would solve my issues with Zono's accompanists, but it really didn't in the end. But there were some interesting things I observed about two records in particular. 

These two were particularly fascinating. I went back and listened to them perhaps half a dozen times each because of the accompaniments. The first one i would immediately assume to have the so-called Hager style accompaniment, and the second to have the Justin Ring accompaniment, and yes they did. But what about them made them so fascinating? 

Well, the first one is definitely the most unusual Zon-O-phone I've ever heard in terms of accompaniment. Denny sings the song very slow, and the accompanist follows in the most unusual and playful way, here are the notes I wrote about it:

Record 16--Goo Goo eyes by Denny, 1901 etched Lyre Zono. very funny and exaggerated intro and very playful as well as dynamic accompaniment. sung very slow by Denny, definitely an outstanding accompaniment...That pianist has got to be Hager: so dynamic, playful, humorous, adventurous, and full of odd syncopation as well as fifths and chords in the left hand for extra emphasis. rolled ending chords, can't forget the absolute precision and daintiness! 

So you can probably observe that I think that pianist is Hager. I am really starting to think that that strange and very distinct early Zon-O-Phone pianist is Hager, and thanks to a few passed down accounts of Hager's accompaniment, I am becoming increasingly certain of this. All of these characteristics seem to fit perfectly with what I gather of his personality, which is also quite nice. So, what about the second one above? That one was also just as good as the Denny from 1901, despite it being from the very end of the piano accompaniment era(1904). Already, the song proves for some good accompaniment to be expected(that's why I chose it!). If you haven't already heard it, here's a 1904 Columbia of it also by Bob Roberts:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder10595

This song is already bluesy and well composed, so the accompaniment on the Zon-O-Phone I heard was no less. This record especially stood out because of the repeated use of many different early blues motifs(and this was recorded in 1904). It was definitely not the same pianist as the 1901 Zono I paired with it. The pianist is very similar, but it's not the same person. This pianist is the other familiar Zon-O-phone pianist, with the less dynamic and more aggressive touch that was common on many later Zono's with piano accompaniment. For this 1904 Zono, here were my notes:

Record 17--Wouldn't it make you Hungry by Roberts, 1904 brown 9-inch Zono. Very bluesy accompaniment exaggerated syncopation, every core blues motif present. This is likely Justin Ring! There are also bits of walking bass, very similar syncopation to that of Ring's "sweet potatoes" and "jovial Joe". 

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the pianist on later Zon-O-phone's. So I think that pianist is Ring, just logically, and considering his own rags and arrangements written around the same time. When I got back, I made sure to cross reference all the Zono's I had heard before with the corresponding labels, and pianists I think are the same. 

For the Denny record, I used these for cross reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ITot33CDuo

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

And for the Roberts I used these: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVP33Ix8sp0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaTarCSS6gc

The accompaniments pretty much line up quite well with the assumed accompanists. The different styles fit pretty solidly into the periods that I associate them with. Occasionally I have heard standouts from this pattern, as I have heard a Zon-O-phone from 1901 where the pianist really sounds like the Justin Ring pianist, and I have heard teal label Zono's from 1902-03 that have that Hager accompanist on them. Naturally this would not be the case all the time, just thinking of this logically. Of course Hager and Ring would cross over often, it wouldn't always be Ring at a certain period of time, or vice versa. 

So aside from the majority of Zon-O-phone's I studied at UCSB, the few Berliners and Columbia's I chose were beautiful as expected, I listened to George Schweinfest play "Sand Dance" a dozen times, as it was so loud and clear, as well as catchy as hell. The melodies are so nice in that seemingly modest piece, but they are haunting. I have bits of that record run through my head still. I should say in referring to a popular 1890's song, "her smile haunts me still", Schweinfest's playing haunts me still. To keep an even amount of space to tell the gist of this long tale, I will move along to the next phase of my travels. I will come back to some more of these records I saw and heard at UCSB in the next few posts. 

The following day, after another 3 hour train ride, I got into LA proper, met with a friend that evening and was beyond excited for the day ahead. The next day I went to visit John Levin. I listen to brown wax every day, and a large percentage of these brownies are from the collection of Mr. Levin. So with this in mind you could imagine the overwhelming anticipation and excitement this brought me. I can barely describe the amount of extraordinary things I saw in his collection. I am still remembering little details of my 8 hour visit over a week removed. I only took two pictures from this visit, as it seemed I had no time to take out my phone, and out of kind courtesy I remained disciplined and intensely focused on the cabinets full of priceless brown wax. When he gave me the tour, there was drawer after drawer of every shade of brown, channel rims, and handwritten slips of every kind. he has two cabinets and three drawers full of Issler's orchestra records. There was a drawer of Kansas City Talking machine records, dozens of original wooden cases of U.S. records, and record boxes of every kind, some I could have never even conceived of existing. 

Here's the one crappy picture I took of any brownies he had. Look at that beautiful channel rim!

he allowed me to choose any bunch of records I wanted to hear, and those records I chose were:

"Echoes from the Snowball club" by Issler's orchestra(1898)

"La Paloma" by Issler's Orchestra(c.1895)

"Dora Dean" by Leachman(1898)

"The Cocoanut Dance" by Ossman(c.1893)

"The Cocoanut Dance" banjo solo by James Dunn of Kansas City(c.1897)

"African Wedding Dance(cake-walk)" by Issler's orchestra(c.1894)

"The Cat Came Back"(The singer's name escapes me now) North American record(1893)

That's quite a bunch! I had always wanted to hear Issler's "african wedding dance", as I assumed it to be a cake-walk or negro dance of some kind, an important thing to look for in studying early rag-time. To add to the significance of that particular record, Len Spencer does the calls as usual, and at the beginning Spencer states, "all ready for the cake walk!". 

There ya go folks, that's one of the earliest authentic references to the cake-walk on a record as far as I've heard. Why is it not surprising that it comes from Spencer? 

In keeping with my formula for studying pianists through cross referencing, I naturally chose two versions of the same song by different banjoists, I'm referring to the takes of "The Cocoanut Dance". Recently this particular piece has become especially interesting to me, as it's a great example of a dynamic and well composed negro dance, the direct predecessor to Rag-time. This piece was written in 1891 by Andrew Hermann, and was recorded countless times since that year, recorded as late as 1907. The Ossman version was interesting because it was a very early take, recorded almost certainly before 1895. I have been wanting to study more of Ossman's early recordings, as I would like to think that he dragged Banta into the studio to make them. Also, I think that Ossman played very slightly differently in his earlier days, his playing seemed a bit smoother and technically more odd. 

But the Kansas City "Cocoanut Dance" was something very different. I had never heard of James Dunn, but of course the label and banjo playing was entirely attractive to me no matter what. Those Kansas City records were all originals, so each one sounded superior, and this particular "Cocoanut Dance" was nothing less. It was swung and ragged in a way that one could expect from a record made in Kansas City in the mid-1890's, pretty much already sounding like Rag-Time, despite the piece being published several years before. The accompaniment was quite modest from what I remember, but there were points where the pianist followed with the swing quite well, but others where it kind of broke down(in a bad way) and got out of whack. 

The Leachman was special. It was one of those so highly prized brownies he made at home in the 1890's, but this particular far surpasses even the "Wedding of the Chinee and the Coon'' that's transferred online. https://archive.org/details/ChineeandtheCoonLeachman99

Well, for one thing, this other Leachman wasn't nearly as messy as the one in the link above. I recall that his own accompaniment on this "Dora Dean" brownie was fantastic, eccentric, and ragged as usual. Despite Leachman's handicap of being barely able to read any music, his piano playing is about as close as we can ever get to hearing an authentic itinerant Chicago pianist of the pre-ragtime era. Aspects of his playing are reminiscent to those of the rags of William Krell and even the accompaniments of Fred Hylands. I cannot stress enough how significant Leachman's accompaniments are, if you could hear how I would be passionately speaking about this it might help. 

Soon I will be able to very well dissect and study Leachman's accompaniment on his "Dora Dean". For now his odd humming chorus is forever going to reappear in my mind. That song is awfully catchy. 

After we got a few things transferred, he took me downstairs to see his disc record collection. Several hours earlier I spoke to him of my mission to dissect those two(0r three) Zon-O-Phone pianists, he took note of this as we poked around in the basement. As he began searching for a stack of Zon-O-Phone's, I was standing by attentively hypnotized on all the records surrounding, and he ever so modestly handed me a stack of about 15 5-inch Berliner's, like it was nothing.

"Here--look through these while I find the 7-inch Zon-O-phone's"

5-inch Berliners! The first commercially made disc records in history. 

Soon I spied an oddly shaped green box I had never seen before. 

The box looked like this:

(of course on the 12 hour train ride back I drew a cartoon that included this little box)

Yep, that's what it was, a Zon-O-phone record case. This case was intended for 9-inch records, and it was a nice shade of green. 

In this case, there were a handful of Zon-O-phone's that we listened to, including the one below:

Of course, pandering to my odd feelings about Hager's violin playing. But that aside, this record was fascinating, as it's quite upbeat compared to the other material Hager recorded violin solos of. So logically the pianist on that would have to be Justin Ring, right? Well yes, and actually, I must say that the accompaniment had similar aspects to that aggressive accompanist that I associate as Ring. 

In this bonus Zon-O-phone stack, there were a few Rosa Chalia records, despite those being operatic, I am very much interested in those, as I am almost certain that the accompanist on those(her Zono's that is) is Hager. It can't really be Ring, as Hager spent a few years in music school to study every kind of music, opera most certainly included. Keep in mind that I still do not know what Ring was doing in the late 1890's, but it's quite possible the two met while both in music school. 

Here's the best example I've heard so far:

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

It helps that Chalia was a great singer, and luckily since these ones I heard were on Zon-O-Phone, the piano was well recorded, but quiet as usual for them. 

There were a few Hager's and Zon-O-Phone orchestra records in this little stack, each one good as expected, and luckily all of his Zono's were in great shape, so each one sounded nearly new. 

When I got back to where I was staying, I was drained mentally and emotionally. It felt like I was recovering from an 8 hour long high, as it was so much to process. I'm still processing all that I saw that day. 

Anyway, there's a lot more for me to talk about from the last few weeks, but it's getting late as I'm writing this, and I would like to finish this post in one shot. In the next post I will speak of the illusive Eddie King, and how he's becoming a more significant figure in my studies each day. 

Hope you enjoyed this!