Recent Esoteric Observations

This week has really been an interesting one for me finding new things and conjuring other interesting observations. Other than finding some new digitized cylinders finally, I have also made some other little things spark interest. First of all, I just cannot get over Hylands' piano solo in the last 15 seconds or so of this cylinder! 

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/14000/14259/cusb-cyl14259d.mp3

The fantastic Rag-Time is just amazing Hylands! You can tell that he was waiting the whole cylinder to go off on his Ragged musings. He played the song as needed, then he released the professor in him! It is true Rag-Time, even if it is really only for 15 seconds of it. the deep notes were recorded just perfectly on the cylinder, I just cannot get over it!

Since it is just after Independence day, I thought this cylinder would be appropriate for it:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/5000/5349/cusb-cyl5349d.mp3

So this cylinder was recorded in early 1897(when I say early 1897, I mean January or February). As Sousa had always said that he wrote the piece on Christmas day in 1896, hence the early 97 date. You can hear the announcement by the distinct Len Spencer at the beginning, Vess Ossman's fun "pluck-i-ness". The thing that's really interesting about this cylinder is the piano accompaniment. As it was recorded early enough for it to be this guy at the piano:

(That's George Schweinfest at the piano! the year that this was recorded!)

BUT! Something else indicates another pianist I recognize:

You got it! Frank P. Banta!

The cylinder was recorded too early for Hylands to be on the piano, but not too late for Banta to still be Ossman's official accompanist. As I mentioned in a post a while back, Ossman and Banta were a vaudeville act starting in 1894, and extending to the end of 1897, then after that, in came Hylands, then the clinging Vess was bound to trail along with freakish Fred Hylands. The only reason I was drifted away from just thinking that the pianist on this classic cylinder was Schweinfest, was this other great cylinder here:
https://ia802609.us.archive.org/30/items/CollectedWorksOfRubyBrooks/StarsAndStripesForeverMarch1902_64kb.mp3

I am 100% the pianist on this one is Banta, and in knowing this, the piano accompaniment is almost IDENTICAL to the brown wax Columbia of this with Ossman. The one thing that makes it easily identifiable is the fact that the pianist(who I really think is Banta now...) plays the famous piccolo solo in the correct register for the piccolo. I don't think I've ever heard Hylands play that. Since there's quite a gap of years between the cylinders, as the brown wax was recorded in 1897 and the Black wax(for Edison) was recorded in Mid-1902, you get a five year gap between them. I have heard Hylands play a very similar accompaniment for a certain song, that was recorded several years later than the first one. Two examples of this would be George W. Johnson's "Laughing Song" and Billy Golden's "Turkey in the Straw". 

Anyhow, onto another of these esoteric things. I have been digging around for some more Hylands sheet music than I have seen lately, but they are very hard to come-by apparently(so are Frank P. Banta's pieces according to Elliott Adams!). I haven't had much luck finding anything I haven't already come across. He didn't really write very much music anyway. I did notice however, something on his 1912 piece "The Rag-Time Boardinghouse"(yes, it is spelled with two words on the sheet music, how dated of Hylands for 1912!) here's the piece here:

I bet this is a fun piece. 

Other than the cover art being very fun, also that I heard recently that Trebor Tichenor has this very piece buried in his vast collection of rare and classic Rag-Time, which got me all excited when I heard from Virginia Tichenor that it was hanging up on one of the walls at Trebor's house recently as well.

Other than all of that, I have come to the speculation that the lady pictured in the cover might actually be Fred's wife. 

I know that the last name listed is not "Hylands", but I have noticed recently that Fred used quite a good amount of pseudonyms on his music in his later music writing years. This must have been somewhat connected to his infamy in the White Rat's Actors' union. By 1912, Fred had become slightly dreaded in the booking agents' curve, as he had been really doing a heap of advocating for them within the previous few years. So in all of this, I have come to think that it's Fred's wife Marie on the cover of this music. I mean, I see that ring on her finger!(Just as I do with fred in that picture from 1913)

I hope you enjoyed this! I hope you all had a wonderful Independence day!