Fascinating new Theories

After conversing with Ryan Wishner last evening, we came to some interesting conclusions and notions that had not previously been discussed. Before I get into all that, I must revise some of what I said in the last post, and add to it. It seems that with a little help, we've been able to find some more on these two:

 Dana 

and

All-right, so it seems that we've figured out the birthdates for everyone in Issler's orchestra! Now that's better than collectors have known for many a decade! So, lets list them in chronological order, birthdate and deathdate:

David Brown Dana(1850-c.1914)

Edward Issler(1856-1943)

George Schweinfest(1862-1949)

William Tuson(1864-1943)

Got it! It seemed really surprising to Charlie Judkins and I to find that not only was Dana older than the others, but he was older than everyone had expected, and than all the old recording sources gu-estimated. With his birthdate being 1850, Dana would have been 39 when he began recording with Issler. He would have been in his 40's when recording regularly with Issler which is very unusual for the time, and really puts it in to an interesting perspective. Also, something to correct from the last post, Dana was not originally from Patterson New Jersey, that's where he was in the 1880's, he was originally from Rhode Island. Something interesting to note, Dana's father John was a machinist. This fact further cements the strange connections of machinery/engineering and musicians in general. If there's an engineering mindset in a family, there's going to inevitably be a musician in the family somewhere, it's just how it happens. 

Think about it,

Ben Harney was a fantastic mathematician before he found music.

Hylands' father was a Locomotive engineer. 

Dana's father was a machinist.

Banta tuned and repaired pianos as a child

It's all starting to fit together. Finally was have somewhere to start with Dana, though we don't know when he died. The guesses that many sources online state are actually not too inaccurate, since from what we can find, he certainly died in the mid-1910's, but the exact year is what we can't find. Either way, he was in his sixties when he died, which was certainly better than average in the era. We found Tuson's dates, which were much more exact than expected, since these Issler members seem to be a real project in terms of piecing together. Tuson lived a long life like Schweinfest, at almost 80 when he died, that's nearing Issler and Schweinfest's age(they were both 87 when they died). Not much else was found on Tuson, though the dates were really what we needed to start, since no one seemed to have found them before then. 

Now that we got that out of the way...

Now back to the beginning of the post. 

So last evening, many of these new theories we discussed were some that need to be shared. Most of these seem as though they were completely wild and outrageous. To begin, we go back to that strange connection in the last post between Thomas Hindley and the Issler crew. 

It's likely that the only reason this piece was recorded so many times in the 1890's is because Hindley was a close friend of the studio musicians. By that, I mean the first studio musicians, Issler and his orchestra. The sole fact that Hindley was mentioned in a single section working in the same pit orchestra as Dana and Tuson suggests a direct connection between "Patrol Comique" and the earliest recording stars. It does seem a little strange that such a somewhat obscure piece like that was recorded so many times in a short period, by essentially all the popular studio musicians. 

This brings me to another theory, what about Hindley directly? What if...he  was in the recording studios? It wouldn't come as a shock if Hindley just happened to be one of those studio pianists for the more obscure record companies early on(1889-1894). Really think about this, what is the composition of "Patrol Comique" like? Well, if you were to ask me, I would say it sounds an awful lot like the style that was associate with Fred Hylands, and only Hylands in this matter, because it doesn't really sound like Issler as much as it does Hylands. Okay, here's the piece as written:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKKOMK4may4

Not only do we see well founded syncopation, we see alternating an ever-interesting left hand playing. Hmm...

I'm not saying that Hindley is on any of those dozen or so takes of "Patrol Comique" out there, but with all of this being said, there's a slight possibility of this being so. Of course, the likelihood of this is so slight that it shouldn't be well-noted. However, the possibility of such a pianist as Hindley being a studio star is a little more than just a coincidence. After doing some digging on Hindley, he appears to have been the music director of the famous fifth avenue theater in New York in the 1880 in to the later-1890's. 

Here's a not-so-great drawing of him from a New York Theatrical Paper, dated 1891(though the picture's probably from c.1887)

It was stated that oddly enough, Hindley was from Manchester England, and he emigrated to the U. S. in 1870. Okay, so it seems he was probably around Dana's age, because it says that he got work in orchestras out in the U. S. by 1871. It seems that he was a cornet and piano player, which is an odd combination, but makes sense since he was mentioned as working with Dana, who was also a cornetist. He seemed to be mentioned in theatrical papers similarly to Hylands, since they were both music directors, and worked in various popular orchestra pits in vaudeville. Funny to think that Hindley was likely connected to the recording studios, as well as being a pit rival and director of Hylands, and even a musical writer! Wow. Seems we've kind of found a Hylands double! Well, he was doing all of this a little earlier than Hylands was, but the amount of parallels seem to be surprising. 

Wow! The similarities between Hindley and Hylands are astonishing!

It must be noted that Dana was in Newark NJ in the 1870's, as well as Issler, and Hindley just the same. So without a doubt it seems that these characters knew each other, and were likely friends from working in similar pits and with similar companies. While more unfolds about Hindley, I will report in coming blog posts, since this strange connection of him maybe being a studio pianist is not just a small crazy thing. We need to keep this in mind when listening to brown wax. There's not much we can do with this information as of now, but we need to save it for when more unfolds. 

Okay, now to another fantastic theory. 

We certainly know that freaky chap. Yes indeed, Len Spencer. So, his beginnings in recording may seem pretty clear on the surface, but in reality, they're missing a lot of the essential pieces of information. First of all, the dates are often a little fuzzy, some people say 1889, 1888, and even 1887. Why the hell does this matter? It's just a date.

Well, I'll tell you why it matters. 

This may seem a little outlandish, but think about this. I firmly stand on 1887 as the date he began working with the phonograph. Only because he must have started having to run errands for his father to fix the new-fangled machine(phonograph) owned by the college. The local company in Washington at the time(1887) was Bell and Tainter. Of course, during this time, the boys(Bell and Tainter) were working on all sorts of strange sound devices, though their latest triumph over Edison was the Graphophone. They also invented the idea of wax cylinders(Ha! take that Edison!). 

With this being said, young busy teacher Len Spencer had to run some errands for his old dad. Think of it like how young people now have to often help old people with their cell phones. Same thing. Len's curiosity soon boiled over for this graphophone thingy. But of course, since Len was curious, he soon got to a different idea. Doing something different from office dictation(what it was intended for). Spencer recorded sound effects like tapping a pen on a table, hitting a wine glass with a spoon, and soon wondered, "What do I sound like?"

There you go folks. In 1887, Len Spencer was likely one of the first to ever think that recording music was a good idea, and had public potential(NOT JUST AS EXPERIMENTS!!!) and therefore likely made the first commercial recordings of popular music. This is Len Spencer folks. Just before Columbia  was formed, he was already pitching the idea to Bell and Tainter that the future of the graphophone was music! Oddly enough, it was around 1888 that Bell and Tainter began experimenting with recording music for their contraption. Well, there you go, because of Spencer, Bell and Tainter(who in 1889 fell into Columbia) became the first commercial recording company. We know that Spencer recorded commercially by 1889, but it's likely that in 1888, he was doing the same he did for Columbia, for Bell and Tainter. Thanks to Frank Dorian, we know how Spencer started, at Columbia that is. 

See there's your issue. Dorian didn't know about his association with Bell and Tainter, which would HAVE  to have been what he was using if he was conducting all of those experiments in 1887 and 1888. Columbia was not selling their own machines under patent until 1889(ish). Spencer likely made trips to the Volta Lab several times in 1887 and 1888, until he learned of Columbia getting set up at their famous Lab on Pennsylvania Avenue:

Thinking of dandy Spencer, he probably rode a fancy bicycle to the Volta and early Columbia labs to buy and steal parts and pieces from them for his experiments. Of course sooner than later Master Easton took to the young man and allowed him to record and conduct his experiments under their roof rather than awkwardly doing so at the business college. It also must have been out of the fact that the slim management Columbia hired at the time were well-interested in Spencer's curious desire to promote recording music. We know that in 1889, that was when recording music took off for all the record companies. Spencer's influence was no longer present after that. 

We also know that 1889 was when studio musicians were hired for the first time, since recording music was the future at that point. In about early March of 1889, Ed Issler became the first studio pianist, and around the same time, Issler brought in his newly-formed parlor orchestra.

Whew! With all of that being said, I'll save the Rag-time theories for the next post. Those were just as important as these listed above, but will make this post too long. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Piecing together Issler and Issler's Orchestra

Issler.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

Hope you enjoyed this!