Vess Ossman and a little of Columbia's Transition period

At the West Coast Ragtime Festival this past weekend, I spoke with a very kind and knowledgeable Banjo historian named Peter Pardee. His plans for the future in studies of the banjo and the banjo in Rag-Time include a seminar about the subject in great detail, which seems exceedingly interesting. This got me thinking, after seeing a few rare images of the great Fred Bacon from his collection on his computer.

Among these recording stars, Vess Ossman remains an interesting one as far as the studio instrumentalists go. 

Cute and fresh-faced Vess in c.1893-94, looking very Germanic as he always did. 

Vess often could be interpreted as a small man, as before I knew any better, I had thought just that, but in reality, he was a tall and slim figure, appearing very fitting to play the banjo, with his long legs corresponding to the long neck of the instrument, and his long fingers gliding about gracefully on the harp-like strings. 

His skills on the banjo had been known to the masses since the late-1880's, and with that, he had authority in the community of legitimate banjoists that was sprawling all over the east coast. He was much like Mike Bernard, just that her played banjo rather than piano. Of course, just like Bernard, Ossman's success got to him rather quick, and its effects stayed with him for many years, which made some musicians refuse working with him more than once. He always had that notorious short temper of his, and often seemed helplessly in love with his Eunice, whom he married in 1891 when she was only 16 to his 21. Remember that he ran off with her the year before that, and couldn't legally marry her just yet, even if he already attempted to have a child with her before they had married. All of that was considered a mild scandal of course, since something like that was often looked down upon in that era. 

Ossman's story before recording is always interesting and fun to speak of, since it's more scandalous and eventful than the pre-recording stories of other early recording stars. 




One thing about Ossman's records that remains a mystery is the pianist on his 1895-97 Columbia records, as it seems likely that he dragged in Frank P. Banta for these sessions, since he was still working regularly with Banta. one record that has been recently transferred and put up on the Santa Barbara website is Ossman's c.1896 Columbia of "The Liberty Bell March":
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder13668
(the record is played too fast, so there will probably be a slowed down version of it pretty soon)
If you really focus on the music, you can hear how clear and dead the recording is. It practically sounds like and original recording, since the sounds that pantographing usually made are not present at all, even the sound of the long tube to make the copies is not present at all. The exceptional sound quality, minus the mold noise, is really what makes me think the date is c.1896. The sound of the recording room is nonexistent on this recording, which is very weird, since Columbia's rooms had a signature echo sound and fullness to them, that for some reason, this one hasn't whatsoever. After taking a few listens to the announcement at the beginning, it seems that the voice is that of Len Spencer, which is a little unexpected from such a strange recording. That fact makes the date little more speculative, and maybe a year or two later, though that's not likely, since the sound quality is that of an original "round" from the mid-1890's. With that being said, the pianist is probably either Edward Issler or Frank P. Banta. This recording is very similar to his January-February 1897 recording of "Stars and Stripes Forever", with Edward Issler on piano. Now that this recording has been studied extensively in terms of the piano accompaniment, we now know the pianist is Issler. It helps that this image:

was taken in 1897-ish, just around the time that Ossman recorded "Stars and Stripes Forever". The only thing about his recording of that that sets it apart from the strange "Liberty Bell" cylinder is the fact that the recording room can at least be heard a little better, and it helps that Issler(or Gaisberg) plays the piccolo part at the end so loudly. In fact, since I'm listening to the "Stars and Stripes" recording when writing this, it seems exceedingly anomalous how well that piccolo part was recorded in the piano accompaniment. It seems like they specifically did something different to the balance of the instruments to have that become the most well-recorded thing on the entire recording. That little characteristic right there is what leads me to believe that Issler is more likely on piano, since only he would have mastered how to record every note of the piano(even Spencer couldn't have surpassed his ability in doing this). Of course, like any of these transition era Columbia's(late 1896-1897), it's a bout on its own to try to dissect the piano accompaniment for any means of identification. It must be noted that both of these Ossman brown waxes are from the tail-end of the "round" era, and were recorded when Len Spencer was still bragging about making three hundred rounds a week. Here is the section from The Phonoscope that stated this:

This was from the August-September 1897 issue, which is very late for the round era, and it is taken from a section on the duplication machine, of which Hunting credits his friend Frank Capps for inventing. Spencer went on boasting of his stamina to sing three hundred rounds or more a week, and before 1896 probably more than that, including his placement as the sound effects man and announcer for Issler's Orchestra. Since he had done all of these rounds, he had among the highest authority of the studio stars by 1898, even though Issler was at the one who really had done the most rounds by 1898, no matter what unfathomable number Spencer bluffed or bragged. 


That's about all I got to say for now, in the next post I will get in-depth into Columbia's transition period and the fall of the U. S. Phonograph Company. 

Hope you enjoyed this! The West Coast Ragtime Festival was very fun, and all of "the squad" made it ever more enjoyable. Thanks everyone! 

Columbia as a workplace(1897-1904)

Despite the fact of Columbia's ledgers being long gone, we can piece together how complicated the building picture above was as a workplace for the talent, electricians, attorneys, laborers and everyone else. After a long discussion on this topic yesterday, it made me realise that Columbia was a larger operation than just the recording, even though it could be thought of that way beforehand. Columbia's 27th and Broadway headquarters were the center of the action for the staff in the late-1890's, it was where all the recording was done, exhibitions given, and primary store for record sales. The building seen in the image above was purchased by the Columbia management in 1896, and began operation in the first two months of 1897, a page from the July, 1897 issue of The Phonoscope wrote a very detailed description of the building seen above:

https://archive.org/stream/phonoscope13hunt#page/n137/mode/2up

(it's the first article in the edition!)

The building was certainly one of the brightest things on Broadway, and every description of the ground floor parlor never fails to describe those electric lights. In the section above, it is said that there were seven hundred incandescent lights. Seven hundred! Damn! Seven hundred chances to start a beastly fire is what that is! I'm sure it happened at least a few times, like those times when Len Spencer thought he could go an fix something simple, but it turns into a big problem. Remember this here, that was referred to many times later by the Columbia staff as an ongoing joke:

Indeed so, thinking of Spencer, he probably would have offered to try to fix more things like this, even after the piano practically screamed at him not do it on his own, and got what he deserved in trying to do so. Maybe piano tuning, light bulb changing, and running the pantograph machines in the basement. Other dangerous things like that seemed something he would try just because he could. If they didn't have one of the younger boys working there go to change the lightbulbs or clean the windows, one of the more ambitious Columbia clan members would go to it, like Len Spencer or Russell Hunting, or maybe even Victor Emerson. Remember that this was the 1890's so there would be little kids(little boys) running around the studio rooms to do small practical jobs, like cleaning the windows, carrying around crates of cylinders, going to fetch things from wherever to bring to wherever, and cleaning up the studios, such as the supposed gilt mirrors they had in the exhibition parlor(that's stereotypical Victorian alright!). It is clear that they had electricians there, and since there was such a terrible mess of electrical there, they most certainly had more than one, other than Frank Capps. One thing that I wonder if they had there in parlor was the supposed fad of multicoloured light bulb displays. 

It has been said that many phonograph parlors had light bulb displays that weren't just yellow-ish or white, but were red, blue, green, violet, any colours that could be dyed into glass. Maybe every once in a while when exhibitions were held at Columbia, they changed out come of the light bulbs for red or blue ones, or something wild and somewhat psychedelic like that. If they ever did that, it certainly would have made it more of a spectacle than it already was.We know what those exhibitions were like, and the great picture I've used countless times explains it better than any descriptions I've found:

The recent finding of the three electric fans makes this picture even better. Just to refresh, I am going to attempt to point them out in this picture: one is at the very top of the rack to left of the column that cuts it almost in half, another is on the shelf just below it, immediately to the left of the column, and the third one is set on the piano platform just behind whoever's elbow that is standing next to AtLee in the center. You may notice that the fans were running when the picture was taken, as they're a bit blurry, and that adds a sense of charm to it that makes the picture seem ever more less staged than every other studio picture.

A few studio stars and workers kept their mail at the building, and that was probably stored in the basement of the building, or maybe on the top floor where all the recording rooms were, either place would have worked. The recording rooms were always said to have had music going on, with some kind of activity constantly going, and people always moving from room to room, up and down the stairs, and back and forth through the halls. It seemed there was always something brewing, and gossip and stories being thrown around at every corner. The season of exhibitions in 1898 however must have especially been this way, since so much planning and organization went into hosting these exhibitions.  This is exactly why The Phonoscope is such an interesting and rare look into Columbia's studio gossip and inner workings, in a way that having ledgers wouldn't, and this can be proven by going through Victor's very complete and well-preserved ledgers. 

I have gone on rants before about Columbia's studios at different times of the year, and with knowing the electric fan feuds, it brings a better sense of what it was like to work there in the summer. They could have had more than three though, that would have been really helpful and would have diminished the amount of fights that ensued from these. At least one in every room would have done the best, though I'm certain that Emerson's and Easton's offices had all the luxuries the studios upstairs didn't. Of course, times in the winter there wouldn't have been any better, after they sent one of the young worker boys down to the basement in the morning to light up the furnace, and  get the radiators running, even if that could have caused some racket, they probably didn't have them in the recording rooms, and since they were on the top floor, it would stay warmer up there, maybe. The studio at 1155 Broadway became a place for many famous people to make appearances, as indicated in a few sections from The Phonoscope, though it was stated that this was more so when exhibitions were held, which makes more sense in that matter. 

One thing that was mentioned a few times in later editions of you know what, was a comical section about how the studio stars would show up in paydays all dressed up, standing on the corner, lined up to "carry off the coin" as stated in the November edition. It must have been a real spectacle to see them all lined up, dressed like dandies and swells, all smiling to take home their hundreds of dollars for their weeks' or so pay. Wonder if this was so in every salary day? How that would have been great to witness at a distance, probably sitting there on the corner of the other street for hours drawing as much as I could! 

Now for some music! 

These newly slowed down transfers are continuing to come along, with fantastic ways to finally hear these records made at the studio pictures above, and in others that were of a different name, such as Edison and Zon-O-phone. The new transfers for this post are two records recorded in 1898, one is by J.W. Myers:

and the other is by everyone's favourite "temperant" Dan W. Quinn!

The first record to be exhibited(ha! inside joke!) is a fantastic take of a rather boring but pretty Victorian song. Many of these old Victorian songs could be described that way, unless they're Will O'the Wisp or Captain Jinks, heh, both of which Myers recorded incidentally! 
Anyhow, here's his fantastic and beautiful, newly slowed down 1898 recording of "Alice, Where Art Thou":
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By7WuiOUrg7YeXhGWUF0LXg0MHhZUTg3Qk50TU5NbGZENzUw/view?usp=sharing
We can clearly hear that big long room they recorded this in, and the tone of the piano. I have explained before why I really like pianos to sound like the one on the cylinder just above, not just because old pianos generally sounds like that, but also because it actually has to do with how pianos were made in that time. With that old design, it made them sound more like guitars than a modern piano as we know it, and the sound of the piano in the record above exemplifies this fact. It's Columbia's old crappy piano, the one that was flipped over by Len Spencer in 1897, still sounding as aged and Victorian as ever, yet very pure, earthy, and dark. That's how Victorian pianos were supposed to sound, dark and "wirey", yet very pleasing to only certain ears. Many modern Rag-Time pianists don't realise this, they only think of it as an inaccurate stereotype, and many Scott Joplin freaks think that Joplin wouldn't have settled for a piano that sounded like the one on the cylinder above, but he probably hadn't a choice but to play a piano that sounded like so, since pianos generally sounded like that! 

Ha! take that neo-Classical Joplin freaks! 

Sorry, do excuse that. 
The second record to be listened to is a fantastic piece of 1898 Rag-Time by Dan Quinn, and it's one that many people didn't know had lyrics, here's Quinn's 1898 Columbia of "At a Georgia Campmeeting" newly slowed down:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By7WuiOUrg7YS0RDV2hHeXd0QXdPQW5YMjA3bTdkeUxqWWpJ/view?usp=sharing

It sounds amazing now, and all of Hylands' syncopation is very loud and clear, with all the typical yet atypical rhythmic stylings he had. This one particularly captures the syncopation better than most brown waxes he's on I've heard, and really captures the genius of Hylands' Rag style, that was very unique. His playing is so well captured on this record, that this transfer can be used as a reference in trying to identify his playing on other records from later on. It's very representative, and catches most of his distinctions, except for the walking octaves, which was an important aspect to his style. 


Keep yer ear-tubes runnin' out thar!

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Fred Gaisberg, the "Columbia Clan" and other things

Fred Gaisberg, the unexpected early recording star. 

In 1892, Gaisberg was a 19-year-old concert pianist in the Washington D.C. area, who had been a close follower and performer with the newly-formed Sousa band. Gaisberg once recalled that Sousa took such a liking to the youth Gaisberg that he often had him play a solo or two at every performance by his band, and sometimes played onstage with them. That must have been around the time that the Columbia phonograph Company's small staff manager Frank Dorian found him. 

(that's Dorian in 1892!)

Dorian saw potential in the youth, and he then went to "CEO" Edward Easton for his approval. Gaisberg knew nothing of recording at all, so first getting him to understand the workings of balancing techniques(keep in mind that this was 1892, when many ideas like pantographing and dubbing did not exist just yet). Gaisberg was getting into the business to early on that he knew the earliest methods of recording very well, but from his wits, he soon learned the flaws of these ideas. He became a regular studio pianist for Columbia by early in 1893, and somewhat became a member of the "clan" that Columbia was beginning in 1892-93. Who was part of this "clan" so early on? Well, here's a little list of it to get an idea:

Russell Hunting, Victor Emerson, Len Spencer, Frank Capps(inventor), Charles Carson(Columbia's first electrical man!), Billy Golden, Edward Issler(who was also a sound balancing genius), George Schweinfest, Dan W. Quinn, and a few more staff members. 

That was how small their clan was in 1892-93, it is so early on that Gaskin could not be listed, Vess Ossman, Steve Porter, and all the late-1890's artists had not come on the scene just yet. Gaisberg quickly became part of this group, even if it was not exactly something he wanted to do. Being the piano player for all of those rowdy Columbia people had become a tradition that their pianist be part of the main staff. Gaisberg was the start of this long-running custom(or curse, if you think of it a different way...). He worked for Columbia all through 1893 and through most of 1894, until Emile Berliner came back to at last to produce his discs in the U. S. Berliner had heard of the young Columbia pianist Gaisberg, and plucked him out of Columbia to have him work for the small staff that Berliner had. This is when he began to really work like a studio pianist. 

He only got a little taste of it when he began working for Atlee at Columbia in '93, but when working for Berliner and Columbia, he began to feel it. Since Berliner's staff was all a group of young clumsy chaps, they all had to work together to get things done around there, and get all the artists recorded correctly. Berliner got them to work very well together, and he observed their every move, to make sure things were being done right. It was in late-1894 that Gaisberg had many stories from, working for Berliner in that time was always interesting, and meeting all the singers and performers made the days even more curious. He recalled Russell Hunting coming in several times in late-1894, coming in with a black sack of clothes for what he did after he made records---perform in comic opera. He didn't want to imagine Hunting onstage doing all of that, in those strange costumes, and everything else. One time this happened, Hunting explained to Gaisberg what it was he was doing, which was playing Mephistopheles in a local production of the musical "Faust Up-to-date". He only saw and heard Hunting as his normal self, and him describing his roles to him did not make him the least bit comfortable. That's only a little of what else he had to deal with at Berliner. He saw Billy Golden, George Gaskin, David Bangs and more. 

He continued to work at Berliner and Columbia from 1894 to 1896, until George Schweinfest stepped in at Columbia and wanted to take some of the studio work off his hands. It certainly did help, even though he still had to come in and make some records at Columbia. Schweinfest was his sub in the 1896-97 period. After mid-1897, we pretty much know what happened at Columbia...(at least I hope we do.) In 1898, Berliner chose Gaisberg and Sinkler Darby to go out to London and make records there. That's when Gaisberg broke from the "clan", but he began his own out in London in 1898-1900. 

It's actually alright that he broke from the "Columbia Clan" when he did, because the "clan" was becoming much more complicated and full of weird personalities that Gaisberg certainly wouldn't have fully approved of. Think back to what he thought about Russell Hunting. 

In 1898, this "clan" became the much more "sporty" bunch that they were known for, as Steve Porter was in the group, leading the yacht races of course, Fred Hylands was one of the "society leaders" of the group as well. In 1898, the "Columbia Clan" was this:

Len Spencer, Steve Porter, George Gaskin, Roger Harding, Fred Hylands, J. W. Myers, Russell Hunting, Vess Ossman, Billy Golden, George Schweinfest, George P. Watson, Dan Quinn, Will F. Denny, Tom Clark(leader of the Columbia orchestra) and a few more staff members. 

But by the year after that, "the clan" had expanded to people who weren't recording artists(like Burt Green for example), thanks to Hylands and Spencer with their publishing firm. The whole staff of all record companies expanded in 1899-1900 also because of Hylands and Spencer, as Sallie Stembler made some records, it is questioned, but Fred's wife Marie:

(from a piece of music Hylands published, durr...)

She may have made a few records under the pleading of her husband, and if so, probably under a pseudonym of some kind.  I don't know what her name could have been on records, if she made any, but it would be weird either way if she did. 

Edison's staff had their "clan" as well, but they weren't really all together working as one over there. Most of the Edison "clan" later became Columbia artists anyhow. It's a group of eccentrics that only could work under Victor Emerson. 

Speaking of Emerson, he became the studio manager of Columbia in 1897, after Frank Dorian had been chosen to go and manage their newly-established Paris office. That was when the "beatings" began. Under Victor Emerson, the Columbia staff were worked until they dropped, even when the "round" era had passed by 1898. Emerson was at all the sessions, and made sure work was getting done every day in his studio. Emerson was always considered a real pain to all the studio artists, and they always played pranks on him, and got him lavish gifts for his birthday. 

That's an illustration from the January, 1897 issue of The Phonoscope of the Columbia headquarters. That was where all of those records were made from 1897 to 1905. They once described the place as a true spectacle of modern times, lit with hundreds of electric lights, and with all sorts of eccentrics and dandies coming in and out of the glass doors at any hour of the day. It was at this very place that these two pictures were taken:

(see the glass doors way in the back?) that's right. 

and of course this one:

Yep. now do you see it? Those same odd-looking windows really give it away. 

That's where they worked, and it was certainly always a "hot time" there at 27th and Broadway in the late-1890's! 

I hope you enjoyed this!