Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Tracking those pianists and questions

Since I've become so dedicated to studying and identifying all those early studio pianists, I've come to the realization of how frustrating it's become to keep track of them all. Now that the major parts of my Hylands studies have passed and I can now utilize, it's become ever frustrating to keep track of where Hylands was at different times and when he was and wasn't in the studio. 
Hylands will always be a source of madness for me, that's just inevitable. 

So, as of now, here's a list of the pianists and potential ones in date order(by the time they started making records) that I have to study and keep track of:
Edward Issler(1889)
(1889)
Fred Gaisberg (1889)
Frank P. Banta(1892)
Fred Hylands (c.1897)
Fred Hager(1898)
and Justin Ring(c.1899)
I must admit that this list isn't everyone, but I do also study Christopher Booth, as he is an essential component of those early studio pianist styles, as he's on so many early Victor records and was so well respected among the other pianists. 
As I dig deeper into identifying these pianists, the definitive understanding becomes much less clearer; that's rather the opposite of what I'd like to happen as I learn more. 
Of course, understanding Frank P. Banta's recording history is the easiest of this group. We know now that Banta started in 1892 at North American/Edison, under the training and supervision of Edward Issler. After the fall of North American in 1894, Banta remained at Edison and recorded for more regional labels with his orchestra, as this is where we get records like these:
In 1896 Banta returned solely to Edison, but soon he took a sub job at Berliner and remained on and off with them until 1900. In 1900 Banta, along with Arthur Pryor, joined the newly formed Victor company, and he took his Metropolitan orchestra from Berliner to Victor with him. Until 1903 Banta remained at Edison and Victor only, until he died in November of that year. 

Pretty direct isn't it! Banta's rather easy to identify in terms of piano styles, and his lineage in record companies entirely makes logical sense depending on what was the most stable at the present time. Banta was a union musician, so many of his moves from company to company follow a unionist mindset.Even with this very straightforward information, I still have a few essential questions recording Banta. 
Why is it that "Banta's orchestra" that recorded in the mid 1890's sounded outstanding, but Banta's "Metropolitan orchestra" sounded so awful?
Really take a listen to those Banta's orchestra records, they're really really good! He had some great musicians in the mid-1890's, seems he really took after his studio teacher Issler. Here's another one from around the same time as the above example:
Now that you've heard that, here's one of the worst Metropolitan orchestra examples I know of:
What happened?
Who knows...It's one of the greatest mysteries to me regarding the brown wax era. 
also...
Did Banta write the music to "The Laughing coon"?
Banta was another one of those studio sharks who came to George W. Johnson's side when he needed it. But unlike Spencer and Gaskin, Banta stayed out of the serious issues like his abusive home life. Banta was wise to stay only in the music, but this begs the above question. In Tim Brooks' book Lost Sounds, he makes it very vague where the "Laughing Coon" came from, though he does make it very clear that Banta's name was on Johnson's original "Laughing Song". This is no small thing. As record collectors, and general enthusiasts of acoustic recording music, we see the many hundreds of versions of Johnson's "Laughing song" scattered all over the internet, and it can become annoying after awhile. The amount of takes of that song is quite tiresome for me to be completely honest, so I only listen to three specific versions on occasion. Even with all this, the tragedy and history that surround this bugbear of a song is worth noting. The fact that it was written down by Banta is quite significant. Sometime I really need to sit down with the original sheet music and see if there are any curious characteristics in the written accompaniment that are fit for Banta. This piece proves Banta's standing in the Edison studio, and that he reached out to Johnson in a way that was unique, in comparison to the more capitalistic approaches of Gaskin and Spencer. I would definitely say that the evidence leans toward Banta writing down "The Laughing Coon", as it's got the same kind of structure melodically as "The laughing song", and the takes I've heard by Banta are very clean and definitive, as though he wrote it out exactly the way that he's playing it. The exact arrangement is also very similar to the earliest Banta accompaniments we know of, such as the strange 1893 ish record I was raving about for its swung syncopation:
So with this in mind, I would guess that Banta wrote down the arrangement of "The Laughing Coon" around the same time he did the "Laughing song", 1894. In thinking of these questions about Banta, I'm really hoping to sometime find out that he wrote out the music for "The Laughing Coon". Another piece of evidence to lean toward this is the fact that at Edison other artists like Cal Stewart took on this song with Banta's accompaniment, but this didn't happen at Columbia. 


The most difficult pianists to identify at this time are definitely Hager and Ring. With Hager I have some kind of foundation as to what his piano characteristics were, with Justin Ring however, there's very little to almost nothing. One thing is for sure though, those two sounded similar, no matter which style belongs to whom. Luckily with these pianists, I can group them together based on the record company overlap and time frames. Issler and Banta go together with Schweinfest, and Hager and Ring go together. Hylands is a stand out from the rest of course... There are a few Ring compositions floating around out there on records, to give us some kind of idea of his character in terms of rhythm and how he saw music fit together. Luckily with Hager, there are many more examples of written music and orchestra arrangements to help piece together a very dense and educated style. 
Hager's style was a crazy quilt of all the pianist styles on records in the 1890's. He clearly listened long and hard to all those pianists, and fully took advantage of his access to records from his connections in the business. He likely heard a lot of those nickel-coiners in the early and mid-1890's when they were the hottest ever, and became fascinated with them and the music that he was hearing. By 1896 he eased his way into a few regional east coast record companies, eventually by 1898 making his way to being a gold ticket for those who read and wrote for The Phonoscope. He rose up the recording food chain faster and higher than Fred Hylands ever did. Without doubt, Hager had the charisma that not even Banta could have, and that's really saying something, considering all the kind words the old studio stars had for Banta. Hager bridged the worlds of Rag-Time and opera with his style, with those very dense chords that sound really awful on some records, and the very quick technical strains of octaves to embellish the singers. For a rural Pennsylvanian son of a locomotive engineer he had quite a hot style. Occasionally his style outdid Banta's and Hylands'. 
With Hager we get everything, just like how he lived his life in music, always changing with the times and seeing beauty in everything. We get the hot stuff like these:


Around the same time we also get painfully beautiful violin solos of his like this one(with Hylands!):
I'm going to be completely honest, the first time I heard this record it made me cry. 
But there's also really upbeat and ear-worm inducing operatic gems he recorded on piano:
I've awakened from sleep with this stuck in my head multiple times, thanks Hager!

It's the same pianist folks! This is the wonder of Hager, his ability to remain distinct throughout styles from the lowest of low down to the highest of high class. 
What about Justin Ring?
Well, that's where it gets a little more complicated. One thing I know about Ring's style without even having much to piece together sonically, is that it's weird, and rhythmically similar to Hager's. Ring's rags are very unique and melodically ramble sometimes, but that's not a bad thing like it usually would be. What's clear from Ring and Hager's music is that they definitely were playing a lot of the more obscure and underground rag-time of the day. By this, I would mean Scott Joplin pieces, and other mid-western rag composers(by saying this in regards to Joplin I am not attempting to demean his musical standing or composition in any way, I'm putting this in the context of what was being recorded before 1906, before "Maple leaf Rag" was recorded and other Joplin pieces were recorded in the years afterward. Joplin's Texas-Missouri style was not often played in the East before 1910). In considering this, it was Hager and Ring that decided to record such hot rag-time rarities as Joplin's "Wall Street Rag", "Jungle Time", and "Possum Hall Rag". Clearly these guys got their rag-time from the source, and didn't shy away from good music, regardless of the circumstances of its publication. Considering this background in true hot rag-time, Ring's rags reflect bits of that, as well as his classical background as the son of a musician:
I know little about where Ring was outside of the Zon-O-Phone studio (at least before 1910), though since he and Hager were virtually inseparable it seems, it wouldn't surprise me if the two of them were stuck in the studio almost all the time while working at Zon-O-Phone. 

I still need to find more information about Ring's work outside the Zon-O-Phone studio, but for now, he seems to have been stuck there much like Banta was at Edison in the late-1890's. In the picture above, Ring is labeled as the orchestra accompanist, meaning that he's that pianist on most of those Hager's orchestra records, at least as long as Hager had a pianist in the orchestra. I'll just keep listening to those Zon-O-Phone's to try and figure out the two distinct styles of Hager and Ring, i still haven't heard enough of them to completely piece together two styles. So far, I only have one partially completed, thanks to the reasonable amount of Climax records that are floating around online. This particular record is a perfect Hager example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvNiWY1Cj3c

The piano playing on this can help define that point I made earlier about Hager and Ring digging out and playing some of the most authentic and detailed rags(like "Maple leaf Rag" and "Jungle Time" by E. Philip Severin).

With all this written here, it's clear I still am figuring out all this pianist stuff, though I have been focusing more on Hager and Ring lately, as that's where more needs to be uncovered and understood. 



Anyway...
Before I close out, I'd like to share a mediocre transfer I made of my most prized brown wax. back in July, I finally got a phonograph to play my cylinders on; a machine that was made for brown wax of course!
With that machine I got a late-1897 early 1898 Columbia of Gaskin singing "Drill ye Tarriers Drill", and it's definitely not a take that's online anywhere. Here you go:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Tvo7CNJ-j1twYEyWwLyuzDvQpp39Owcm/view?usp=sharing
This cylinder was unmarked when I first picked it up, so of course I wanted to know what it was, to know whether it was worth my money. Damn well it was! It has two chips on the surface, but it plays just finely otherwise. This particular take features not only Hylands playing interesting cake-walk accompaniment with a syncopated jig at the end, but it features Russell Hunting speaking just after the 2 minute mark. I have heard a similar record to this one online, in fact it may have been recorded on the same day or close in time to this one, here's the twin record:
https://ia801409.us.archive.org/12/items/GeorgeJGaskin/GeorgeJGaskin-TheBestintheHouseisNoneTooGoodForReilly.mp3
That's part of where I got a better grasp of the date for this record. These two sound awfully similar, and definitely have the same pianist on both. 
In my next post I will exhibit another brown wax of mine, just as interesting and unusual, if not more so than this Gaskin gem. I will speak of my very productive meeting with John Levin in the next post, as there was quite a lot to process from that meeting...


Hope you enjoyed this!