We record collectors have all heard Fred Hylands.
And as geeks, of these old wonderful records, we notice that pianist behind those booming singers. Frank P. Banta had his own light and jumpy style that had the listeners hooked on the rhythm.
But then there was Hylands.
Hylands was either a pleasure to listen to, or a painful mess of a drunk pianist. He either was perfectly in-line with the singer and/or performer, but when he was drunk, how that changed. He played out of sync with the singer, had lingering time, and barely hit the octaves with his left hand. What really turned him loose was the opportunity to play Rag-Time at his own will. Pair this together with his drinks, and you got a wildman of a pianist. He was already that way in general, but the Rag-Time went through him like the drinks, and made him loosened and overly-anxious to play.
Oftentimes, just a little too anxious.
But as Columbia artists, you didn't just tell Hylands that his playing was terrible. That would anger him far too much for it to be safe.
Anyhow, here is the record that this post is titled after:
This is one of the most fascinating records that I have heard Hylands on. Even if it's rather short, it is a real piece of history in Rag-Time. Hylands is out of sync with Dudley, and he's taking as much liberty with the melody as he possibly could, by syncopating the hell out of the tune. And from that AMAZING solo at the end behind Dudley's whistling, he's obviously dead drunk, also from that slow pattern at one point where he's lagging so much behind Dudley that it's bound to get any music geek cringing(it made me cringe!). Those pounded octaves at the end! The crystal clear intro at the beginning with loud octaves! It is truly all wonderful, even if Hylands is wasted.
If I was the singer though, I would have turned around and asked Fred about that solo at the end, and why he lagged behind the singing. I would have tried to "straighten him out" as much as I could for the next take.
It is a record truly to go through and analyze. If you're a musician who can play reasonably by ear, try out this record. It's really interesting and fun, but exceedingly hard to keep up with, due to Hylands' unexpected rhythm changes, and lagging behind the loud singer. For the ear playing record geeks, Hylands is playing in F minor to start, and to A flat, then at the whistling chorus, he's playing in a lumbering D flat. He also speeds up as the record comes to a hasty close, just like many of the records he was on, and just in general for the tim period.
Just for the hell of it, here's another great Rag-Time specialty with trusty piccolo player George Schweinfest(ha! take that know-it-all collectors! Schweinfest can't be on the piano here! HA!) also from 1901, playing the dynamic cake-walk "A Rag-Time Skedaddle" on the same Climax(Columbia) label as the one above:
(try your hand at this one Ear-players!)
I hope you enjoyed this!
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