Character Studies--The Columbia orchestra(1897-1905)

That's half of the Columbia orchestra. 

I just know that doing a post on this group solely would be hard. Despite that, I will try my hand at it anyway. Now before I get into the describing, I must point something out that I did not notice until a few minutes before I began this post. 

See that chair the trombone player is sitting in? Right here:

(that's David Dana by the way!)

That chair looks like a familiarly queer-looking one from a picture I recognise:

 Which chair? 

That obviously miserable chair. 

Hmm, I wonder whose idea it was to give Fred that chair for the exhibition hall of all places at Columbia's Broadway address? There's a strong possibility that Fred obliged. That chair is very different from all the other ones, I wonder what its specific use was? It wasn't just Fred's chair, as David Dana can be seen in that picture(with Hylands!) sitting in that strange chair. 


Anyhow, sorry to get side-tracked, back to the Columbia orchestra. This group, as I have explained, was formed by all of the leftover musicians from the fall of the U. S. Phonograph company in early 1897, and unfortunately, Edward Issler was filtered out after this transition, which meant the end of Issler's orchestra at Columbia. Without Issler, the members of his orchestra blossomed in this new group of musicians. 


The Columbia house orchestra was a stew of musical misfits, from confident and classical William Tuson, to ragged and rough Fred Hylands. They were all selected by the bewitching hands of Master Edward Easton himself, each getting his approval one-by-one, so it's assured that they were well-liked musicians among the picky management. Most of them were Germans, with some odd sprinkles of English and Bohemian here-and-there, so they were a mix of European stew. Much of their repertoire before Fred Hylands came along was popular music, with the arrangements made by Tom Clark, and older ones that were handwritten by Issler. Many more soloists were recorded with the Columbia orchestra in their earliest days, as for some reason, this idea faded away as the years went on. Though Len Spencer was not one of the musicians in the orchestra, he was a member regardless, as he did all of the sound effects, many announcements, and even sung some choruses on the popular vocal selections they recorded in 1897-1899. Hylands was not the first pianist under this new orchestra in 1897, as it was originally Issler, but after about a month or two, they got their new trial-pianist some work, by playing in their house orchestra. Leader man Tom Clark found Hylands a complicated character, and did not like a lot of his habits, as did many who worked at Columbia during Hylands' term. Hylands made some of the arrangements they recorded in 1898, though Clark was the one who did the arrangements, Hylands still did many of them, and his arrangement of "The Darkey Volunteer(s)" was a real doozy. After an exhibition one night in July 1898, Hylands came in the next morning exhausted and hungover, but with something new written down for the orchestra. The first to see it was Clark, who at once got out his cornet to try and play this piece as written. It was fully of comical quotes, and had runs of notes practically spilled in long streams in the melodies. This piece was:

Yes indeed. 
Everyone else in the orchestra looked at it with unsure scowls, as when they got to practicing the piece, it sounded very strange to them, but Hylands yelled out to them and stopped them when something wasn't right. When they recorded Hylands' tunes, he owned the room, and all the people in it. There were few times when it was hard for the musicians in this group to stay together, but when recording this tune, this was very much a problem. 
Here's the band recording of it(with Hylands on piano): 
Recorded in 1898(not sure who the announcer is...)
It's like the man was messing with them. The tune is already hard enough to play on piano, then try to get twelve musicians to stay together playing it. He must have told Clark, "Oh no, it's not too difficult. It will sound perfect!" In the orchestra recording of it, George Schweinfest and William Tuson can be heard very well playing those ridiculous lines in unison. 1898 was the peak year for the Columbia orchestra, as they had all their best musicians playing great always, and they could play anything they Mr. Clark picked out from the old pile or created new ones. In many recordings of Rag-Time they did, oftentimes Hylands was wanting to play a different rhythm than the one chosen, so everything sounded all weird, such as on their take of Monroe Rosenfeld's "The Virginia Skedaddle" from 1898(begins at 8:05!). The rhythm sounds all out of whack at some points here. From what I can hear, it's the piano that's causing this. but of course, nothing was as bad as their 1899 take of "Smokey Mokes" from 1899(begins at 57:48!). I don't think it could get as bad as that one. At many points, Hylands is a measure behind them. He might have counted off wrong, or he wasn't paying attention to the rest of the orchestra. It's especially bad toward the beginning, but he remains a little out-of-whack throughout. The rest of the orchestra is fantastic though despite Hylands' strange ignorance. The problem is that the piano is so loud on this one, that it's hard to avoid. This was a problem that leader man Clark ran into when learning how to manipulate stubborn Hylands, and the evidence in clearly stated. After 1900, some special recordings with vocalists and the Columbia orchestra began to show up more, such as Dan Quinn singing "Pretty as a Picture" in 1900, and Spencer singing Hylands' "You Don't Stop the World from Goin Round". After 1901, they were recording many instrumental Rag-Time pieces, and re-recording some older takes as well, such as their 1902 recording of "The Darkey Tickle"(from 1892!), and their 1901 take of "The Darkey's Dream". They also took on the classic Rag-Time cake-walk "Creole Belles" recorded in 1902, and this strange recording of an oriental dance called "Obaja" recorded in 1904. They also recorded "Peaceful Henry" in 1903, but the people who put that up took it down from their site, which is really frustrating, because that was a masterful piece of early Rag-Time. By 1903, their specialty for "descriptive selections" was beginning to fade, as they were not as popular to record buyers by then, though they did come up with a few new ones, along with recording old ones. Here's Len Spencer's specialty with the Columbia orchestra called "The Levee Scene" from 1903. They ran out of time at the end, and this time is was a bad failure, before their last chord, the record cuts out. As we know, the Columbia orchestra had been known for their variety of fun "descriptive selections" since the formation in 1897, with a strange mix from "Charge of the Rough Riders"(hear Hylands sing!), to their "The Village Orchestra". The spark of playfulness that was had when they made these had faded by 1903 and 1904. They still had many of the same musicians, but they were not exclusively in the Columbia studio by that time, so these selections were not as much needed. By 1904, they were mostly recording popular dance numbers, such as many popular marches and songs such as "Hiawatha".  By 1905, the Columbia band led by Charles Prince was taking over the old orchestra spot. Only a handful of columbia orchestra selections were offered in 1905 and 1906, and with many of the original musicians dropped by the end of 1905, it was inevitable that the group would end by 1906. They were a unique and fantastic group of musicians who we now have the absolute pleasure to hear on hundreds of records from 1897 to 1905. Many of their selections were unique to only Columbia's orchestra, not any others, like the Peerless orchestra, or the Edison orchestra.

Here are two of their great selections from every year they made records:

1897:  "The Jealous Blackbird" with George Schweinfest
"I thought I Was a Winner" with Len Spencer

1898: "Jolly Fellows Waltz"
two takes of "Schubert's Serenade"

1899:a recording with the Imperial Minstrels(listen for that yell at 35 seconds in!)
"Upon the Golden Shore" with the Imperial Minstrels(Hylands is kind of out of sync again...)

1900:Ethelbert Nevin's " Narcissus" 
"The Santiago Waltz"
1901: "Kentucky Jubillee Singers Scottiche" announced by Dan Quinn
"The Sea Flower Polka" by Tom Clark and the Columbia orchestra

1902: their re-recording of "La Serenata Waltz"
"Smokey Mokes" played a little too slow on the trasnfer

1903: Their re-recording of "The Darkey's Dream"
a hot piece of Rag-Time called "The Dixieland March" 

1904: a hot "Slow Drag Cake-walk" called "Jovial Joe"
their re-recording of their famous descriptive selection "The Bugler's Dream"

1905: This is the last one I have found with Hylands still on piano in the orchestra, "Selections from 'The Yankee Consul'''
The other ones I have found from '05 don't have the piano accompaniment, and that was actually a very important aspect of their unique sound. 

Hope you enjoyed this!