Well, I promised I wouldn't let a month pass by before my next blog post, but I did anyway. For that, I apologize. After that last post, I got a lot of correspondence from various sources regarding Ring and Hager. Before I move forward, I must say that I still remain passionate and rightful in my thoughts on them in the last post.
Anyway...Time to move on! This November, I am going to be giving a seminar at the West Coast ragtime festival. In the last month I have been consolidating a lot of the information I will use for this. This seminar will address the importance of why rag-time and music historians should study the studio pianists of the early acoustic era. I don't think I can explain this enough on my blog, as I have written so much on them, and keep spending more time thinking about them and their distinct styles. In recent weeks, I have spent a lot more time going back to my Hylands research, as I have been so buried in the Ring and Hager project. I often forget how visceral a reaction I get from hearing Hylands' accompaniments, more than all the others. There's just something about his playing that was so special and oddly emotional.
(Hylands in 1912 and c.1892 , from the author's collection)
Recently, the UCSB website posted a fascinating transfer that I will most certainly use for highlighting Hylands' style.
The second transfer listed here is the new one. I cannot fathom how perfect Hylands plays on this record. It is so loud and clear, fully exhibiting his rag-time accompaniment that was so highly praised right around 1898. Every important aspect to his playing is present on this one record, and with the rhythmic perfection of Billy Golden, it really doesn't get much better than this. When I heard this transfer for the first time, I just about fell out of my chair. It was unbelievable. Such loud and clear accompaniment, and a constant cut of Golden's time.
So this got me thinking, what is it exactly about Hylands' playing that's so attractive?
Other than the authentic Rag-time, what is it?
It got me thinking...Hylands was technically the best accompanist the record labs had at that time, as his sole job outside of the labs was to accompany performers. He had been doing this since age 10, and was revered for it. When you hear his accompaniments, it's almost as though he knew what was coming next. He was a step ahead of everyone else, and could anticipate and follow at the same time. It's really an extraordinary thing to ponder. Someone like Banta often made mistakes in this matter, often vamping for a bar too many and throwing off the pulse of a record. Hylands never did this. He made more mistakes than the other studio pianists, but one thing Hylands never did was throw off rhythm or lose the performer. He was an accompanist, but as I have said before, he often led the record. A good example of this can be heard here:
Even in 1897 when he just started working for Columbia, he was already doing this. Even while he was buried in an orchestra he could still push through. Here's a good early example:
(you can hear him at the end song here)
That's some really hot accompaniment there! Funny story about this record...I asked the (former)owner of this record about the date. I asked if the "New York City" announcement could be applied to dates from 1896, and of this he was skeptical. He stated that these announcements prove 1897 dates. Later he went on to tell me how difficult it was to part with this record, due to the extraordinary early rag-time accompaniment. Understood!
Hylands may have been weird, and somewhat disliked by the recording staff and bandmen, but they knew he was the best accompanist they could ever have. This is why it's really a shame that he wasn't spoken of in the decades afterward. Well, he probably was mentioned, but not taken lightly I'd think.
Just imagine it, listen to this record here:
This is an absolutely wild record, and not just because of Quinn or the song itself. That accompaniment is ridiculous! It constantly runs, and becomes relentless at times. Whenever I hear wild Hylands accompaniments like this, I always envision looking back there from the mouth of the horns and seeing those creepy dilated blue eyes downcast below a veritable afro of red hair. It must have been a sight many had planted in their minds till death. Certainly Hylands must been a sight in the recording lab, with a stare that many dreaded, but ability that was so unique and unequalled. There is certainly a reason that the Broadway media considered him one of the best accompanists you could get in the theaters. They considered him this right alongside Mike Bernard and Theodore Morse.
So considering all this tragedy Hylands went through, I'd think that when Justin Ring came along it was a saving grace.
(detail of Hylands and Ring c.1902-03).
It is still quite funny to me that there was substantial crossover between Hylands and Ring's terms in the Columbia studio. As I have explained before, it is very clear that Hylands had some influence over Ring and Hager. As Hylands was on his way out, there was Ring and Hager, young and green enough to take some lessons in recording and accompaniments from Hylands. The two of them would have been unassuming of Hylands' rotting reputation(Ring was probably at least). So that's where the Ring and Hager research comes in.
So now when I listen to Columbias from 1900-1904 with piano accompaniment, I really need to be listening carefully. The pianist could be either Hylands or Ring. Thanks to many years of research, we know that Hylands left working at Columbia regularly in mid-1903, and for the rest of the year he was working at the majestic theater in Boston.
So here's a good example, this recent transfer is very difficult for me to tell who the pianist is exactly. Other than the pianist difficulty, this record is outstanding, and has an oddly attractive piano sound.
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder16336
The accompanist sounds more like Hylands, but it's so weird and wonky that it should technically be Ring. In fact, at the beginning solo, the pianist adds a few beats. Of course, this record is outstanding, aside from all the weirdness. Columbia's from 1901 particularly have this deceiving accompaniment sound. Right at the end of the brown wax era, Columbia went through more changes, a lot like they did back in 1896-97.
So anyway, this has been a lot of my Columbia listening and research recently, and luckily I have been returning to my appreciation of Hylands' accompaniments. To this day I still do not know why Hylands was never spoken of by those who most certainly worked with him.
Now moving on!
So, a few posts back, I talked about the musician's club that Ring and Hager were part of for half of their lives, and I mentioned some of their fellow club members. One of the most important of their fellows is undoubtedly Edward Issler.
I mentioned how Issler was one of their most respected members. So I was thinking back to this recently, pondering how extraordinary he really was, and how all the recording folks really looked up to him. As record collectors and scholars(who know about him), a lot of us acknowledge Issler as basically the father of orchestra recordings, and this he certainly was. What's fascinating to me is that we think of him this way now, and from what I have found, the so-called "second generation" recording folks thought of him the same way. They all were coming up hearing and hearing of his highest quality records, and the absolute precision of them.
Isslet began recording in 1888, and he wasn't a youngster. Issler already had a career and a life by that time, he was 33 with a 6 year old daughter at home and a prominent music man in Newark(Banta was 22 when he started making records) . And unlike the studio pianists than came after him Issler had to take on recording as a project. He was part of the experimentation process, something that made him unique. Along with his sideman George Schweinfest, they were required to help learn the technology and techniques that went into making solid records, along with making hundreds of rounds a week. A great and historic example of this is the batch of piano solos and duets Issler and Schweinfest made in 1889. These records were obviously experimental, but they were made, and quite a few of them were.
Issler led his orchestra better than any other studio band men that succeeded him, as he had to do everything. Everything from adjusting the machines to writing the arrangements, these were required for Issler to do.
With all this in mind, it's no wonder that the younger recording folks of the late-1890's and post 1900 thought so highly of this man.
Another thing to consider is what happened to Issler's musicians. I have written about this in the past, as I did a small project on tracking the members of Issler's orchestra, though all of it is still unclear.
The particularly fascinating member of his orchestra is one of my favorite musicians of the entire era:
(George Schweinfest in 1898)
Schweinfest was arguably just as respectable as Issler, with enough talent to make all the NY conservatory boys jealous. When Issler started to fade from recording in 1897, Schweinfest stepped in to replace the position that Issler was in. With the management changes at Columbia and the fall of U.S., the Columbia folks were looking for a new musical director. I am almost certain their fist choice was Issler, but he likely very honorably turned it down, as he was just getting fed up with recording. At this time, I think that Issler had just joined the Newark musician's union and was quickly working his way up. He was getting wise to the entirely sinful ways of the recording labs. The studio managers chose Thomas Clark instead, a solid co-conductor and arranger for the Gilmore band(at that time the 22nd regiment band, being led in the public by Victor Herbert). Issler picked up and left, but Schweinfest had other things in mind and stuck around at Columbia. We know Schweinfest continued to make record for Columbia into the 1900's even when the brash and passionate Fred Hager took over in 1901. Schweinfest once again was forced to take a seat farther back from working his way up, but he continued to see it all play out.
Now there's a man who would have been an outstanding resource, having borne witness to so many historic changes in recording. When Hager had finally calmed his climactic gasps with Columbia in 1904, that was when Schweinfest made his move. It is unclear exactly when he became one of Columbia's management, but it was mostly likely around the time Hager had left his high position there. Schweinfest was said to have remained in management until the mid-1920's, and it is likely that he also played in the studio orchestra or band along with his fellow Issler musician William Tuson. From there, Schweinfest lived a very modest quiet life, playing organ at the Catholic church he was part of. He lived this modest life until 1949, passing at the remarkable age of 87, outliving all of the earliest studio musicians(who began at the end of the 1880's).
I believe that Schweinfest was contacted by Jim Walsh in the early 1940's, and I recall that he attended at least one of the John Bieling day gatherings(probably the earliest one in 1947). But other than that, I do not know much of his whereabouts after the 1920's. Considering his connections and interest in the recording business, he was probably interested in what was going in within the trade, I can see him thumbing through editions of Talking Machine World in the teen's and 1920's, sipping some strong tea, with his glasses tipped on his long straight nose.
He knew everything, but he didn't talk much, a lot like how I've described an old wilting Justin Ring.
So, before I close the post here, I'd like to share a really nice find while digging on Banta's family. A few days ago I went back and looked though the very detailed Banta family tree, just as a preliminary search, with no real intentions and focus. As I started digging I went through a lot of the same old stuff, and I saw a familiar looking cabinet card.
It was unfortunately mis-labeled in the family tree, but I recognized that face before seeing the details.
Okay, if you ever wondered how passionate and emotional I am about all this stuff, how I reacted to seeing this picture really sums it up.
When I saw it, I stared at it for a long while, and my my eyes got all teared up. I have no idea why it hit me so hard when seeing just a simple cabinet card as that(and one that I have already seen in newsprint). Seeing how he awkwardly knotted that tie, and gazing into those big black eyes almost makes me see the suffering he saw, and what little time he had left to see--that's what got me. Something is just captivating about seeing him in great detail like this. That black hair styled in a way reminiscent of his studio mentor(Edward Issler)--there's just something about Banta that makes him more intensely attractive than the other studio pianists(in terms if personality and appearance). You can see the intensity in him, but his kindness and wit seem to seep through in his sympathetic face, with that ever so slightly up-curled shadowed side of his mouth.
Now I can firmly have that beady stare implanted in my mind when I hear his accompaniments. Those eyes will never escape my mind, and they will continue to haunt me, now in painfully sharp detail.
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder17123
Anyway folks...I apologize for the kinda scattered writing this time around, I have had a lot of ideas in the last month, but I have been having trouble organizing them in a reasonable fashion. I really want to write another post within the next week, and with a article on Jimmy Hager to be published soon, hopefully I will have more to talk about. I hope this is a substantial post for the time being, it's pretty out of whack. I did not want to leave you all without some writing for more than a month. I must say, it was a bit difficult to follow up on the last post, but I appreciate all the feedback I received regarding it!
So now when I listen to Columbias from 1900-1904 with piano accompaniment, I really need to be listening carefully. The pianist could be either Hylands or Ring. Thanks to many years of research, we know that Hylands left working at Columbia regularly in mid-1903, and for the rest of the year he was working at the majestic theater in Boston.
So here's a good example, this recent transfer is very difficult for me to tell who the pianist is exactly. Other than the pianist difficulty, this record is outstanding, and has an oddly attractive piano sound.
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder16336
The accompanist sounds more like Hylands, but it's so weird and wonky that it should technically be Ring. In fact, at the beginning solo, the pianist adds a few beats. Of course, this record is outstanding, aside from all the weirdness. Columbia's from 1901 particularly have this deceiving accompaniment sound. Right at the end of the brown wax era, Columbia went through more changes, a lot like they did back in 1896-97.
So anyway, this has been a lot of my Columbia listening and research recently, and luckily I have been returning to my appreciation of Hylands' accompaniments. To this day I still do not know why Hylands was never spoken of by those who most certainly worked with him.
Now moving on!
So, a few posts back, I talked about the musician's club that Ring and Hager were part of for half of their lives, and I mentioned some of their fellow club members. One of the most important of their fellows is undoubtedly Edward Issler.
Isslet began recording in 1888, and he wasn't a youngster. Issler already had a career and a life by that time, he was 33 with a 6 year old daughter at home and a prominent music man in Newark(Banta was 22 when he started making records) . And unlike the studio pianists than came after him Issler had to take on recording as a project. He was part of the experimentation process, something that made him unique. Along with his sideman George Schweinfest, they were required to help learn the technology and techniques that went into making solid records, along with making hundreds of rounds a week. A great and historic example of this is the batch of piano solos and duets Issler and Schweinfest made in 1889. These records were obviously experimental, but they were made, and quite a few of them were.
Issler led his orchestra better than any other studio band men that succeeded him, as he had to do everything. Everything from adjusting the machines to writing the arrangements, these were required for Issler to do.
With all this in mind, it's no wonder that the younger recording folks of the late-1890's and post 1900 thought so highly of this man.
Another thing to consider is what happened to Issler's musicians. I have written about this in the past, as I did a small project on tracking the members of Issler's orchestra, though all of it is still unclear.
The particularly fascinating member of his orchestra is one of my favorite musicians of the entire era:
Schweinfest was arguably just as respectable as Issler, with enough talent to make all the NY conservatory boys jealous. When Issler started to fade from recording in 1897, Schweinfest stepped in to replace the position that Issler was in. With the management changes at Columbia and the fall of U.S., the Columbia folks were looking for a new musical director. I am almost certain their fist choice was Issler, but he likely very honorably turned it down, as he was just getting fed up with recording. At this time, I think that Issler had just joined the Newark musician's union and was quickly working his way up. He was getting wise to the entirely sinful ways of the recording labs. The studio managers chose Thomas Clark instead, a solid co-conductor and arranger for the Gilmore band(at that time the 22nd regiment band, being led in the public by Victor Herbert). Issler picked up and left, but Schweinfest had other things in mind and stuck around at Columbia. We know Schweinfest continued to make record for Columbia into the 1900's even when the brash and passionate Fred Hager took over in 1901. Schweinfest once again was forced to take a seat farther back from working his way up, but he continued to see it all play out.
Now there's a man who would have been an outstanding resource, having borne witness to so many historic changes in recording. When Hager had finally calmed his climactic gasps with Columbia in 1904, that was when Schweinfest made his move. It is unclear exactly when he became one of Columbia's management, but it was mostly likely around the time Hager had left his high position there. Schweinfest was said to have remained in management until the mid-1920's, and it is likely that he also played in the studio orchestra or band along with his fellow Issler musician William Tuson. From there, Schweinfest lived a very modest quiet life, playing organ at the Catholic church he was part of. He lived this modest life until 1949, passing at the remarkable age of 87, outliving all of the earliest studio musicians(who began at the end of the 1880's).
I believe that Schweinfest was contacted by Jim Walsh in the early 1940's, and I recall that he attended at least one of the John Bieling day gatherings(probably the earliest one in 1947). But other than that, I do not know much of his whereabouts after the 1920's. Considering his connections and interest in the recording business, he was probably interested in what was going in within the trade, I can see him thumbing through editions of Talking Machine World in the teen's and 1920's, sipping some strong tea, with his glasses tipped on his long straight nose.
He knew everything, but he didn't talk much, a lot like how I've described an old wilting Justin Ring.
So, before I close the post here, I'd like to share a really nice find while digging on Banta's family. A few days ago I went back and looked though the very detailed Banta family tree, just as a preliminary search, with no real intentions and focus. As I started digging I went through a lot of the same old stuff, and I saw a familiar looking cabinet card.
It was unfortunately mis-labeled in the family tree, but I recognized that face before seeing the details.
Oh my god! It's the clearest most beautiful portrait of Frank P. Banta!
When I saw it, I stared at it for a long while, and my my eyes got all teared up. I have no idea why it hit me so hard when seeing just a simple cabinet card as that(and one that I have already seen in newsprint). Seeing how he awkwardly knotted that tie, and gazing into those big black eyes almost makes me see the suffering he saw, and what little time he had left to see--that's what got me. Something is just captivating about seeing him in great detail like this. That black hair styled in a way reminiscent of his studio mentor(Edward Issler)--there's just something about Banta that makes him more intensely attractive than the other studio pianists(in terms if personality and appearance). You can see the intensity in him, but his kindness and wit seem to seep through in his sympathetic face, with that ever so slightly up-curled shadowed side of his mouth.
Now I can firmly have that beady stare implanted in my mind when I hear his accompaniments. Those eyes will never escape my mind, and they will continue to haunt me, now in painfully sharp detail.
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder17123
Anyway folks...I apologize for the kinda scattered writing this time around, I have had a lot of ideas in the last month, but I have been having trouble organizing them in a reasonable fashion. I really want to write another post within the next week, and with a article on Jimmy Hager to be published soon, hopefully I will have more to talk about. I hope this is a substantial post for the time being, it's pretty out of whack. I did not want to leave you all without some writing for more than a month. I must say, it was a bit difficult to follow up on the last post, but I appreciate all the feedback I received regarding it!
Hope you enjoyed this!
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