Battling Banjoists and their accompanist

Banjoists Ruby Brooks(1861-1906) was on the same level of banjo skill as Vess Ossman, but in some ways, Brooks presented a banjo style that was eccentric and primitive in ways that others weren't. 

Brooks made enough records for record scholars to get hints as to what the more folksy banjo styles sounded like in the early years of the rag-time era. Keep in mind that Charles Asbury's style is as folksy as it gets, and the best it gets, as he was a black man born in Florida at the end of slavery days and learned to play the banjo from the best black performers of the later minstrel era. There is no comparison between the white recorded banjoists and black banjoists of the time, as the authenticity and dynamics of Asbury wins out the recorded white banjoists. 

Ossman and Brooks were equivalent adversaries, doing exactly the same repertoire at the same time, and playing at the same places. One familiar accompanist tied them together, despite their powerful senses of pride. In 1893, in a Lyceum Catalog, there lies this advertisement:

Banta! 

There he is with Master Ossman. It's very likely that Ossman shoved Banta into the recording studio, and got him that regular job there for the next ten years of his life. Ossman and Banta were a package it seems, at least for a few years, by 1896 splitting up as an official duo to allow more studio time for Banta. But luckily for Banta, we know Ossman was notoriously difficult, so splitting with old Vess must have been good for Banta's soul. What has this to do with Ruby Brooks? Well, it turns out than Banta showed an interest in Brooks toward the end of the 1890's. With Ossman being chained to Columbia's contract for a little while in 1898 and early 1899, this allowed for Edison to take in the other famous "banjo king" Ruby Brooks. That's exactly what they did, and the end result from that is a handful of outstanding records that surpass many of Ossman's records with Banta from a few years before. Brooks brought a style to recording that was very unlike Ossman's. It was much smoother in terms of syncopation, and even though it was sometimes out of whack and stumped Banta, it's charming in a way that Ossman's style wasn't always. Ossman's style perfectly exhibits his control-freak nature, as he was always in tune, and the rhythm was precise down to the  quickest 32nd notes. Ossman when he was interviewed often stressed how important it was for the banjo to be in tune and for the rhythm played to be precise throughout. This is why we don't get any extra or dropped measures in Ossman's playing. 
Unlike Ossman, with Brooks we get a very interesting mix of folk aspects that Ossman cast aside in the logic of his playing. 
Here's an outstanding example of Brooks' playing:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder14584

Now keep in mind that the accompanist here is Banta.  Really listen to how ragged and smooth those last two strains are! Just a few years before Banta was working only with Ossman outside of the studio. Now, by 1899-1900 Banta had built a relationship with Brooks that provided some curious benefits. Brooks and his long-time partner Harry Denton had set up a publishing firm in the mid-1890's, and by the end of the decade had proved a popular publisher for recording stars and popular performers. With Brooks officially in the recording business, it made more sense to publish some fellow studio stars' work. That's just what he did. In 1899-1902, Brooks and Denton published some of Banta's most popular music, including Banta's "Ragged William"

(from Bill Edwards' website)
Brooks and Denton also published Banta's  later work "Halimar", which is an oriental dance(don't have a decent picture of the cover though...). With Brooks' founded interest in Banta, it's likely that Brooks published the last bunch of Banta's work. Banta was only doing his job by accompanying Brooks at Edison, but it's clear that Brooks took a greater interest in the former Ossman accompanist. Their records prove a partnership that fits together better than ever. Banta's syncopation was just as smooth and graceful as Brooks', as can well be heard in the recording of "Hunky Dory Cake-Walk" above. This particular record is the best of the best in terms of Brooks' records in fact. The others that provide good examples are nice, but can't compare to the "Hunky Dory" take. 
Here's another good one from around the same time:
https://archive.org/details/RubyBrooks
It's an awful shame the piano accompaniment is so obscured by the crappy transfer. That's okay though, we get to hear Brooks' unequalled and unique skill loud and clear. What makes Brooks so different from Ossman is that Brooks had no formal training to play the banjo. Like singer Frank C. Stanley, Brooks learned how to play the banjo completely on his own and from hearing the old black banjoists around him. This is what makes Brooks style more authentic and attractive on records. His entirely itinerant style comes through on each of his records, and makes them all the more unique. This is what tied together Banta and Brooks, and what makes their records just that extra amount of special that Ossman's just aren't. Banta, as far as we know, was self-taught at the root of his style, and with perfect pitch that would provide reason for little musical training beyond basic theory studies. 
Banta, even though he had experience with Ossman and provided for some very sleek examples of banjo rag-time(accompanying Ossman), added something special to records he made with Brooks. 
Just to further illustrate this, here are a few more examples:
https://archive.org/details/CoonSongMedleyByRubyBrooks1897-1899
This one is almost just as good as the "Hunky Dory" take. 

https://ia802609.us.archive.org/30/items/CollectedWorksOfRubyBrooks/HappyDaysInDixie1905_64kb.mp3

https://ia802609.us.archive.org/30/items/CollectedWorksOfRubyBrooks/StarsAndStripesForeverMarch1902_64kb.mp3

That's as far as the Brooks transfers go online. There's not that much out there to hear unfortunately, but all that stuff gives us a pretty good picture of his style, and that he lives up to his itinerant roots. Considering Ossman's straight and set ways of banjo playing, he must have found the gift that Brooks had to be lesser, but working with Banta would have granted some respect in Ossman to the self-taught banjoist. If you think about it, Brooks isn't playing too differently from those outstanding unknown banjo player:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder12991
I wish there was some way to know who this amazingly folksy and rhythmically perfect banjoist is. Much of how the unknown banjoist plays that tune is similar to how Brooks played it on an Edison record in 1899 or so. 
So in considering all of that, we ought to build up an appreciation for Brooks' records, as before doing some more critical analysis of his records, I didn't find him all that interesting. Before digging in, I assumed that those handful of Climax records Brooks made in 1901 were the best representations of his playing style, but it turns out that was not true at all. These Climax records were questionable in quality, as the only thing you can hear at all is the piano(which is great for studying the pianist, Hylands!), and the banjo is basically not present in the music whatsoever. These records made me believe that Brooks wasn't the best banjoist, and therefore skim through them without interest. After digging into Brooks' story, it seemed more tantalizing and interesting than Ossman's, in terms of stylistic features. Other than all this, the records where this balancing issue was in place were very well made, as those are the examples listed above with Banta piano accompaniment. I wouldn't be able to tell why those Climax records are so out of whack, but every one of them sounds like the way I described. But setting those records aside, Brooks was a great banjoist with quite an interesting style that ought to be studied more often. We often look to Ossman's easy to find and listen to style, but when we step out of the usual Ossman and Van Eps records we find banjoists who were entirely unique, but were unfortunately thrown out of recording rather quick due to Ossman's essential monopoly on banjo records before 1910. There's also Fred Bacon to listen to. Bacon was an absolutely outstanding banjoist, who played very similar to the great Tommy Glynn:

This tintype of Glynn is still floating around out there in the depths of Ebay for nearly $2,000. Hopefully someone can negotiate a reasonable price for this beautiful little thing. 
Glynn was considered the best of these banjoists, and his untimely death at only 25 further created a sort of cult for the former competitors of Glynn's. These former competitors played Glynn's pieces all over, including Ossman, who recorded several of Glynn's pieces for all labels he worked for. This is where we get records like Fred Bacon's 1912 recording of Glynn's "West Lawn Polka". Brooks didn't record any of Glynn's pieces, but it's clear that all those fellow banjoists like Brooks and Ossman very much enjoyed sharing Banta's accompaniments. Considering Banta's status as a popular instrumental accompanist, without much doubt he must have accompanied every one of these famous banjoists, including the obscure Berliner duo Cullen and Collins.


Now then!
I just joined Ancestry and have been stuck learning an overwhelming amount of new information about a variety of recording stars and performers. Before I decide who to pair together in terms of who to write about next, here's a portrait of Victor Emerson's daughter Edna(born 1899) around the early 1920's:

What!
She's absolutely gorgeous! It's curious so see such a beautiful face to come from a notoriously hated man of the Columbia studio. She looks a bit like her uncle Georgie, with those intense and shadowy eyes, and the slightly poked in cheeks of her father and uncle Georgie. 
That's all I'll leave here now before I begin with all the new information in the next posts. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Issler's Syncopation and The Slow Speed effect

Edward Issler, the first studio pianist there ever was, and the first one to syncopate behind a singer on a recording. 

It's amazing to fathom that fact, that Issler was the first to play syncopated rhythm behind a singer, and it just happened to be the first recording that the first black recording star made in his career. Issler would have hated to have been known as the first pianist to clearly play "ragged time" on a recording, but it's without a doubt true. It was bound to happen anyhow, as George W. Johnson grew up surrounded by music and melodies that were not the typical straight rhythm tunes that we all know of Victorian Music, it helped that Johnson grew up on a Virginia Plantation, and heard who knows what. Clearly Johnson had the typical sense of "swung" rhythm that many blacks were very familiar with from the days of the early minstrel shows. Issler luckily was gifted with the relatively rare perfect sense of time and pitch. His rhythm was metronomic, rare for the era in which he was schooled musically, and proved an advantage later when making records with his orchestra, as well as learning new rhythmic styles for singers. After going through the few recordings of Issler's where he plays this "ragged" time, is seems likely that learned how to play this way from hearing Johnson's syncopated whistling, since the type of syncopation he played later after recording with him in 1891 is the same rhythm and type. Issler was probably not well-acquainted with the new style of music that was emerging that was being played in minstrel shows and vaudeville functions, but certainly would have been after recording with Johnson in 1891. It is Johnson's recording of "The Whistling Coon" that is the oldest example of a recording of what "rag-time" would have sounded like many years before 1897. Here's the recording:
https://archive.org/details/GeorgeWJohnsonWhistlingCoonIssler1891
Without a doubt, this recording gets across the point of syncopated rhythm very well, on Johnson's and Issler's part. Johnson is whistling all sorts of syncopated rhythms, and Issler tags along and plays some occasional sections with the same, but different types of syncopation. 
In fact, it seems that Johnson's syncopation at about 56 seconds in is the exact type that Issler played on later recordings by his orchestra. A similar type that Issler later used is also Johnson's at 1:56. The first type at 56 seconds in is exactly the same type as that on the perplexing c.1896 recording of "Dixie" by Issler's orchestra(announced by Len Spencer). The syncopation is just after 1:20 seconds in. How that's the strangest thing! It is not the earliest example, but clearly Issler learned how to(kind of) do that from someone, and it is likely that working with George W. Johnson informally taught him how to play that way. It is clear now that Issler was able to play syncopated music, but of course, not in the most natural or loose manner. Since we know that he's on that infamous recording of "Uncle Jefferson" by Billy Golden, there's another good example of what Issler was capable of in terms of improvising. It's clearly syncopated, and a little bit more so than the other examples here, but it's certainly Issler, and it helps that the other recordings have the same syncopation and reasonably set dates to them. That record of "Dixie" is likely from 1896 more than any other year for many logistical reasons, such as the fact that Len Spencer is the announcer, the syncopation is there, and that the company that made the record(The U.S. Phonograph Company) had completely dissolved by May of 1897, and Spencer had left them in January of that year, so there's really no way that the recording is from very early 1897. That makes it one of the few examples of Ragged time on recordings from pre-1897. In that category, I know of about five recordings so far. Hoping to find more out there! 




Now to transition from this matter into a subject that continues to puzzle record collectors all over. When you play recordings from this era at much slower speeds, you can really hear the high and impressive quality of the recordings, from things as slight as single bass notes in the piano accompaniment to specific syllables that singers utter. It's a very strange phenomenon really, and in fact, some of these recordings seem to be made louder when played slower. I tried this yesterday with a few favourite recordings of the collection I have, and all of these aspects came through all the same, and the recordings sounded better overall. Tried playing a few Victors slow, and they sounded so much better, then tried it on some of my one-sided records, and the result was stunning. The recording of "Big Indian Chief" I have by Myers is one that sounded just that way after playing it much slower. 

Myers' actual range had been a debated matter between Ryan Wishner and I recently, and this experiment proves that what we had thought previously was not true. Ryan had assumed that the recording of "Alice Where Art Thou" we slowed down was slowed down too much, but in fact, it is at exactly the right speed. Myers was a low baritone for the most part, though his range was very versatile and could go far into the bass and into the tenor range. The original transfer of "Alice Where Art Thou" is very quick and just sounds as so even without any background information or prior knowledge of the singer or pianist. Just to get the comparison across clearly, here's the original transfer. Now listen to the newer slowed down transfer. One thing I just noticed while listening to the record while writing this is that Hylands hits a very deep single bass note at 1:04, and I didn't notice it before, only because it's one of those notes that reproducer just barely caught, just like a few notes in the whistling chorus of this 1901 Climax record. In fact, I have come to notice that Climax records did that often, only catch the tone of the rattling piano string, not the note in its entirety. Another example is another that we have recently slowed down from the original transfer. 
Here's the original transfer of Collins' "When Mr. Shakespeare Comes to Town" from 1901, now here's the newly slowed down transfer of the same.
Climax records had great sound quality(though they weren't as good as Zon-O-phones from the same era). The final octave that is played in the very last chord of the piano is caught by the diaphragm in exactly the same way as the other Climaxes exhibited here. The very low C is just barely caught, and now that the recording is played slower, this can be heard much better, and about as much it can be, since it's a Climax. 

The final recording to exhibit in furthering the astonishing effects of playing records slower is one of the very few recordings that Fred Bacon made. 

That's him in the early 20's. 
His recordings are highly valued to banjoists all over, since his banjos were among the best made in the 1920's, and they are regarded highly in jazz bands. It helps that his masterful skill transferred from his playing to his making of banjos as well. His playing style was technically better than Ossman's or Ruby Brooks, and it was smoother, as well as sweeter toned. His Victor recording of "West Lawn Polka" is no exception to his mastery, and it's a little funny that the banjoist who arranged it is in this picture here:

But it's not who you might be thinking it is. 
it's the banjoist on the right this time! 

Tommy Glynn. 
Here's the original transfer we all know of Bacon's "West Lawn Polka", now here's my copy slowed down to perfection.
Now that it's slower, the actual tone of the string plucking can be heard, and it brings out the harp-like effect that few banjo recordings from the acoustic era got. It's really how the banjo was intended to sound on these recordings, and it helps that Bacon was an exceptional banjoist, and, in my opinion, the best of these studio stars, and this is only from hearing three recordings of his playing. When three recordings alone get that point across, you know he was a truly gifted musician. The slowed down transfer really exhibits the sweet and dark tone that Bacon got on banjo, and the fact that his playing was the smoothest of the early studio banjoists. 

It must be noted that the pianist on this record is Fred Bachmann, though unfortunately, there's not really anything to distinguish his playing, but he's listed as the pianist in the ledgers, so there's no pianist debate here.

Before I finish the post, I just want to say that if you own a copy of "The battle of Manila" by the Columbia orchestra, I mean the brown wax from 1898, not any later remakes of it, Fred Hylands can be heard toward the beginning yelling in a kind of delirious and slurred way:

ALL'S WELL!

I know it's Hylands because I went back and listened to the two other records where Hylands is assumed to be speaking, and what do ya know! It's the same voice! 
Just to get an idea of it, here are the two recordings I used to support the theory:
Harry Spencer's "Side Show Shouter" from 1898
(Hylands is also on organ)
"The Jolly Coppersmith" by the Columbia orchestra from 1898
(Hylands is heard humming or singing(?) the tune at the trio)
just something to keep in mind, as I hadn't noticed it until I listened to a copy of "The Battle of Manila" this evening, and heard that familiar haunting and railroad brute-sounding voice.

Hope you enjoyed this! 

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! 

Character Studies--Vess L. Ossman(1868-1923)

"I am the banjo king! Ruby Brooks could get hanged and I wouldn't give a rap!"

is what Vess Ossman thought of his banjo competitor Ruby Brooks. 

Ossman was truly one of the more complicated personalities of the early recording business, with not only a convoluted studio presence, but also a tangled personal life. He made hundreds of records, with thousands of takes before the end of the 'round era in 1898, and worked for every active record company in his day, from 1893 to 1917. His skill on the banjo kept him employed everywhere, both in the studios, and on all the stages and vaudeville houses. 

Vess was a complicated man. He had a personal life that no one at the studios but Fred Hylands  and Frank Banta knew about(as the pianists always heard everyone's stories). He had a very productive relationship with his wife Eunice, who sometimes came in to Columbia to see and hear him make a few of those thousands of records. She and him were madly in love, and clearly by how they acted toward each other, this was certainly true. Those few staff members who were actually invited to his home were sure to remember his family life, and also his home.  He had eight children in all with his wife, but many of them died young or were miscarriages. This fact got some of the staff members curious, and therefore, some rumours were spread. Before he was a recording fiend, he was winning all the banjo competitions, and out getting into odd trouble. In 1890, he disappeared with a 15-year-old girl(who would later be his wife), and returned to the stage scene in mid-1891 with his pregnant wife, who miscarried a month or so later. That was always mysterious to the staff members, especially Frank Banta, as Banta had started working with Ossman not too long after all of this happened. In 1893, he teamed with Frank Banta, who was an up-and-coming young pianist and bandleader, who found Ossman to be a pretty reasonable match with his piano style. Ossman and Banta were an act by 1894, with Banta as his official accompanist. This is where Banta first gets his job at Edison. Ossman was rather tall, unexpectedly so in some ways, as he had very long hands, long slim legs, and a face that was a true mixture of German and Irish. He had all the prettiest aspects of both nationalities, with that very photogenic face of his, he must have loved getting his picture taken. Being Ossman's accompanist was a real pain, as he was always very specific of what the pianist should play, and how they ought to play it, without playing too much. This was easy for Banta, but when Ossman began working with Hylands, there was certainly some conflict. Ossman and Hylands made for an unexpectedly great duo, even if Hylands was always calling for attention behind the star of the performance, no matter who it was at front. Ossman and Hylands' egos must have just fused together perfectly. When Ossman walked into any studio, he was in charge, no matter what the accompanist would say. Ossman owned the room, even if the engineers would have to move things around like they always did, he would still speak out against them often.  He would take the most specific and longest time to get his banjo tuned up, he wanted everything to be perfect always, and it started with him getting tuned up. If a string would break, all hell would break loose. It was bad luck among the singers and accompanists to be in the room with Ossman when he broke a string. It didn't help that it was either very warm or cold in the North Eastern seasons, as well as it being humid. He would explode when he broke a string, or someone wasn't cooperative with him, and it was not a pretty sight to see from a distance. He was rough, and how he would eat up anyone he was yelling at. His temper was terrible, he really let the Irish temper of his out, and all the staff members knew of this very well. Sometimes they would want to laugh, but couldn't, because he would blacken their eyes for sure, and maybe crack some bones if he had the nerve. Ossman hated people who bossed him around, which were very few people not surprisingly. He worked with the Dudley brothers from 1904 to 1907, and that was an interesting experience for both Vess, and also the Dudley's. Ossman had never worked in a group of musicians before, and having to share the profits and fame with two other people was hard for him. He did not like having to share his success with the Dudley's, even if he enjoyed them as people. Ossman working as an accompanist was never a good idea, as he was always the star, just like Fred Hylands' logic. After the Dudley brothers split with Vess in 1907, he took a bit of a dive in popularity, and he decreased. His popularity decreased significant amounts each year after 1908, even though he was still continuing to get engagements everywhere. By 1912, it was really Fred Van Eps who had taken Vess' place in the recording business, which angered Vess greatly, as for years he had built a a hatred for Van Eps, but it was inevitable that Van Eps would eventually take his spot. Van Eps was really in many ways a better banjoist, but the king of them all was Fred Bacon, the man who had been on the scene all along, but hid in the shadows for years from all the nasty competition. Ossman went on tours after 1916, after he formed his own band, and was getting engagements. He was not to be found in New York after 1917, as the record companies dropped him in that year. He was still getting "gigs" out in the mid-west, as that was where he died, and where his son, Vess Jr., died as well. He was on tour when he suffered a heart attack in early December of 1923, he was later brought to St. Louis, where his son was living at the time. Even if "the Banjo King" wasn't the kindest individual, he was still great at what he did, and was called that for a reason. 

For some interesting sounds, here are a few of Vess' records.

Here is his wonderfully done version of "Whistling Rufus" with Fred Hylands, from December of 1899:https://ia802303.us.archive.org/10/items/VessLOssman/VessLOssman-WhistlingRufus.mp3
Here is his fantastic"Sounds from Africa" from 1898, with Fred Hylands:http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder15464
Here is his "Salome Intermezzo" with Fred Hylands, from 1901:
https://ia802303.us.archive.org/10/items/VessLOssman/VessLOssman-OrientalIntermezzoSalome.mp3
(Listen closely to the piano at around 1:50 in that minor part! SO HOT! Those fifths are really audible!)
This next one is one of many Victors where Ossman announced himself as "The Banjo King", here is his and Fred Hylands' version of Leslie Stuart's "Tell Me Pretty Maiden", from 1901:
http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/100002190/Pre-matrix_B-3049-Tell_me_pretty_maiden

And to close off here is Ossman and Len Spencer's wonderful take of "Hot Time in the Old Town" from late 1897:
https://ia902606.us.archive.org/1/items/LenSpencerVessOssman/LenSpencerVessOssman-AHotTimeintheOldTown.mp3
Ossman was begging for attention behind Spencer always.

I hope you enjoyed this! Getting ready for the West Coast Ragtime festival has really been consuming my time lately! 

More differing observations

I meant to share a few more things in my last post, but I just really wanted to focus on Vess L. Ossman, as I hadn't any time to do a post yesterday. I have had a lot of different early recording artists on my mind lately, so it's been hard to stay on a single one for an entire blog post. The first thing I would like to point out is a record by Ruby Brooks:

That's Brooks cropped from the 42 Edison artists picture from 1900. Now this cylinder is great in many ways, but Brooks was not the best banjo player in the world. Brooks' time was all over the place and he wasn't nearly as smooth on the banjo as Ossman or Fred Bacon. Anyhow, here you go from 1902 with Frank P. Banta's piano accompaniment:

https://ia802609.us.archive.org/30/items/CollectedWorksOfRubyBrooks/StarsAndStripesForeverMarch1902_64kb.mp3

Did you hear it? 

Banta counted them off at the beginning! Oh my god! On an Edison cylinder! How rare. 

I was going through my music on my Ipad during art class yesterday and I came across this one, which I had heard before, but I had never noticed the weird sound between the announcement and the start of the music. It was identical to the sound that can be heard on many Metropolitan orchestra performances on Victors, and that has been identified as Frank P. Banta counting them off. This cylinder is great all around, and the strong bass notes really make the record have a unique sound. 

The next thing I would like to talk about involves my friend Craig's favourite early recording artist:

Burt Shepard. 

I love his records just as much as my friend Craig, minus the fact that he has practically ALL of Shepard's Victors. He was a man of jovial disposition, and loved what he did. He was beloved by all the crowds with his almost dirty parodies of popular songs and comical piano accompaniment. So to start with my spiel on Burt Shepard, here is the first example:

https://ia800308.us.archive.org/23/items/BurtShepard/BurtShepard-Smoke.ogg

I love this record. The piano accompaniment is wonderful, and Shepard really makes it perfect. His monologues are also an interesting mix of comedy and odd dialect. Such as this one here:

http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/100001677/Pre-matrix_A-1703-My_wifes_relations

Stutter-stutter-stutter. Love it. 

He had the most queer speech. I just don't know how to identify it. I know that he's from the mid-west, but where exactly, he never disclosed. His dialect sounds similar to Byron G. Harlan's thick slurred speech from his Kansas origin of birth. This next one really reveals his crooked speech and all else:

http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/200002948/B-1652-The_robin

Oh yes, he was a hick alright. Just listen closely. 

I just found this record as I was writing this, so now I really know how he spoke. Hmm. I can't really think of much to say about this record, it's pretty extraordinary. He really executes it perfectly. You can just see the crooked words by how he says them. They cannot exactly be written in the dialect, but you can hear it. Other than Shepard being a female impersonator in the 1870's and 1880's, his recording years were really great as well, as that's the only way we get to hear him. We never will be able to see him in his full female attire, which is really a shame. He must have made a great lady. As he can get that way sometimes:

http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/100002633/Pre-matrix_B-3490-Other_things_too_numerous_to_mention

This is an example of his parody skills:

http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/100002639/Pre-matrix_B-3496-My_old_Dutch

Hmm, that piano is not normal to the usual style, or balance. That gets me slightly suspicious. He was a good pianist I have been told. I have also been told this about Dan W. Quinn, but that doesn't really mean that Quinn can be heard playing piano on lots of his records, even though I never can doubt what records exist to-day from this time period. There's plenty of records from the earliest days that aren't supposed to exist, but they still do. Records like this include Russell Hunting's only surviving smut cylinders, and the one record that S. H. Dudley's wife made in 1900. It's surprising really, "all" of Russell Hunting's smut cylinder were destroyed in 1896 and 1897, except for a few. Thanks to Walter Miller(the manager of Edison's company)for some reason, for keeping them in his private collection. Why did he do this? We all really want to know, but we probably never will. Hunting probably didn't find out that any of his smut cylinders survived until years after he left the recording business, or he kept some to himself and never told anyone about them, and now they're hidden somewhere waiting to be discovered. It's hard to know. I still don't understand how a copy the record S. H. Dudley's wife made still exists. There's so many things that would object its existence, but it's managed to beat the overwhelming odds. The record's existence in the first place was under Dudley's command, so whatever it was to make him delete the record from the catalog permanently, it was sudden and all from his odd impulses. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 

Vess Ossman and his "plunky" rivals

It was Sylvester Ossman's birthday yesterday, and I celebrated by playing many of his best records while I worked, and so on. 

Well, let's start on Ossman shall we. Well, where do I start with that tornado. Ossman's banjo skills began in 1880, when he was twelve, after years of violin training, he first heard the infectious plunks of the banjo. He immediately wanted to take up the rugged instrument. It was primarilly used in minstrel shows when he found his passion in the instrument, but he wanted to do something more with it, than blackening up and dressing in hideous costumes. So by the mid-80's, he was traveling up and down New York state on the trains, learning to play the banjo and play random melodies he already knew and was hearing around him. In 1885, he got his first engagement for the instrument and began to win the many popular banjo competitions of the area. By 1890, he had earned his place as top banjoist in the entire country, with bragging rights. He had frustrated some of his long-time enemies by this time, such as Ruby Brooks and Harry Denton, seen below:

Sorry the picture isn't very good, it was already very faded. But that's Ruby Brooks standing, and Harry Denton is seated. Brooks, that's who Ossman absolutely HATED in the 1890's. He absolutely despised Ruby Brooks, becasue he was the one who he competed against in the banjo competitions of the late 80's and early 1890's. Brooks was also a recording star in exactly the same time and even at the same record companies. That was a problem that the recording management didn't realize. Ossman(having a terribly big ego) fought with all the banjo players that came on the scene and dared to do what he did on the stage. Even though he is pictured here with another banjo great here in c.1896:

Ossman probably worked with Glynn for a short time, as that's how it always went with him. Ossman by 1895 had his hands on Frank P. Banta. He was his official accompanist on the stage and on the tours. He loved Banta with all he could, even though he treated him as a secondary character. As he kept on making hundreds of records and dragging Banta around with him all over the place, his time being loyal to Banta was shook by a new name in the "Rag" scene in 1897. Just a little thing, Ossman recorded the first record to mention "Rag" on it in the musical context, it was his "Rag Time Medley" on a Berliner disc, recorded in August of 1897. He was an early one playing "Rags", as early as 1896 in fact, just like Mike Bernard or Ben Harney, it was just with banjo rather than piano. In late-1897 he came in to Columbia's studio just like usual, and there sat a different pianist than George Schweinfest. Who was it he found? Ah yes, Fred Hylands. He did not know him personally, but had heard mutters around of him. Upon first playing with him, Vess probably came up the stairs to the piano chair, and gate Hylands a hearty handshake. Something he probably wouldn't do to very many pianists. He was struck by Hylands' skill and rhythm in "Rag Time". By 1898, Ossman was coming into Columbia twice as more often than Berliner or Edison, because he and Hylands had the same musical mindset, as can be heard on this one by Ossman and Hylands from 1899 this is a later take of his own "A Bunch of Rags" it is the first selection on this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxErKt40ZQ4

Announced by Ossman. You can hear the ringing of the piano just after Ossman finishes. Very good collaborating, as Ossman could be a hard one to make decisions with when records were being made. He was particular about everything, and had to tune exactly between every take. Ossman was soon overtaken by the several other banjoists coming into the recording business by 1906, Fred Van Eps was taking his spot, Olly Oakley(who was considered the British Vess Ossman), and Fred Bacon. Fred Bacon is my absolute favourite Banjoist recorded in this time. 

That's Fred Bacon. 

Why is he my favourite? Well, hear him here and take a listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZZhHXFC4Uo

Yes indeed. Bacon was an amazing banjoist who probably avoided all of those banjo competitions, because he probably would have won over Ossman, as his skills were very quick and smoothe. More so than Ossman's natural ability. Bacon was younger than Ossman, but he had the skills of no other. He only made a handful of records and only three of them were issued, so there's not much different things to listen to when you hear him, but what he left is amazing and still surprises me every time I hear it. He had perfected the banjo better than Ossman ever tried to. When I first heard him, I though I was listening to later Fred Van Eps, but come to find out that is was Fred Bacon, John Reed-Torres and I were blown away. I wish he made at least three more records that were issued. That would make for a little more variety. 

Back to Ossman. His popularity just went downhill from 1906 onward, all the way to 1917 when he was kicked out of the Eight Victor artists, as he can be seen here in 1917:

(from denvernightingale.com)

There he is with a great smile on his face...or just an interesting look. That's Vess Ossman alright. 

Yep. That's about right. 

He didn't live too much longer after he stopped recording in 1917. He moved out to Ohio to lead his own early Jazz/ Ragtime band where apparently arrangements he made for the band still exist somehow(thanks Craig Ventresco!). His son tried to carry on the tradition of the banjo fame, but he just couldn't keep up to it, not like Banta's brilliant son. After he died in 1923, be left a wife and four children(out of eight total!), the few who worked with him recalled him in varying ways. One of the most valuable accounts of Ossman is George N. Dudley's from the 40's. You can read the whole account Here.

Enjoy! 

Dudley was a very old man when he died, and he only worked with Ossman for four years of his 88 years of life, but how he recalled them... Four years dealing with Vess L. Ossman was enough to keep permanent memories. If only Banta or Hylands had lived longer to tell those tales. 

To close off, here are two Ossman Rag-Time rarities from 1903 and 1899:

https://ia800304.us.archive.org/17/items/FredVanEpsVessL.OssmanKingsOfTheRagtimeBanjo/03PeacefulHenry.ogg

https://ia802303.us.archive.org/10/items/VessLOssman/VessLOssman-WhistlingRufus.mp3

Well, Vess, we loved you well. I hope your many descendants admire your skill just as it should be. If only your pianists outlived you. 

I hope you enjoyed this!