The Scrapbook

In the last post I mentioned the recent news regarding the Hager scrapbook, so it seems fit to do a post solely on this matter. 

After spending several years of knowing about its existence, I had been so anxious to at least one day see what was in it. Never would I have expected to own it. Not only do I have Hager's scrapbook, but I also have what is left of his papers. 
When Jim Walsh contacted Fred Hager in the mid 1940's, he had no idea what he'd be getting himself into. Since the late 1930's, Hager had once again teamed up with Ring to write some music and do some radio work. When the war was over Ring finally decided to retire, and leave the intense side of the music business entirely. Hager didn't want to abandon his life's work just yet, though after the war it seemed dire. Luckily, not long afterward Walsh contacted him, and this sprung Hager back to life, giving him a sense of blossoming hope. With this correspondence with Walsh, Hager became determined to preserve his legacy as well as the other history that he had been part of. Walsh was mostly inquiring of Hager regarding Cal Stewart and of other recording stars he knew(of which he knew them all at some point). 
In the decades prior, Hager kept a scrapbook, with the little spare time he had to do so. He started it around 1900, and kept it pretty consistent until about 1907, from there he hadn't the time to keep it up. Despite not keeping his scrapbook from that point onward, he did keep lots of important papers on himself and of his friends, Cal Stewart and Byron Harlan being two. By the time Walsh was contacting him, Hager had amassed a very complete and vast collection of papers and other ephemera from his fifty years in the business. Hager's writings to Walsh were clearly very passionate and rosy, as you read some of Hager's writing to Walsh, one could easily picture him going on about the past as he looked for things through folders and bound booklets(of which I have a few). You could easily see Hager so fondly going through his scrapbook.  

So what about the scrapbook? Well, I mentioned how Hager was so excited about Walsh and other young collectors like Quentin Riggs being so interested in early recordings that he made, so Hager presented himself to be one of the most generous of the old guys. After a life of aggressive selfishness, Hager wanted to give it all away to those who would appreciate it most(because his family didn't), and for generations to come. With this in mind, he took out many pages from his scrapbook, and gave away dozens of other papers to Walsh and Riggs. So, what's left in the scrapbook is curious. Most of what Hager took out was related to recording, so what's left is everything else regarding his live performances and publishing from 1900 to 1907. 

Hager died in 1958. He moved out of NY to Florida in 1956, and it was at that time that he was forced to rid of a good majority of his papers, but he kept that scrapbook till the day he died. When going through the pages, there are very minor tears at the bottoms of most pages where he grabbed it with his fingers. So he definitely handled the book a lot. He must have gone back and fondly reminisced the past often, wishing that Justin hadn't left the business when he did. 
Remember how Ring didn't attend any of the gatherings hosted by Jim Walsh in the late 40's and 50's? Ring became secluded after 1946, and he refused to write to Walsh(and we know that Walsh wrote to him many times). 

So what exactly was it what Hager was so fond of to leave in the scrapbook?
Well here's an overview...

What the front cover looks like. It's pretty unimpressive. Unlike scrapbooks such as Louis Armstrong's, this one is quite messy and not professionally organized. It was likely better organized when Hager had it, but even then it wasn't anything too special(its literally just a small notebook from the late 1890's). 
The first page:

So...there are dozens of these programs in this scrapbook. Each one does give us a pretty good idea of what his orchestra was playing live, and that what they did play mirrored their Zon-O-phone and Columbia records of this era. 

There's no way I could list out all of these in the scrapbook, but each of them includes interesting selections. This one includes Banta's "Ragged William". At another one of these concerts they played Banta's "Halimar". 
Someone who unexpectedly shows up often in the scrapbook is Bert Morphy. 

(from my collection)
Bert Morphy was known for singing with Sousa's band, and apparently, Hager's as well. No one has any idea where he came from, but he started making records around 1895, and remained a somewhat popular baritone on records until about 1902, then he disappears from there. He didn't disappear from music however. He stopped recording in 1902, but he remained a popular attraction with Sousa and other bands as late as 1913. 
Here's one of his records: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2R0wislt0Q
So he shows up often in the scrapbook. As he was a popular singer but his catch for the musicians was that he was an excellent and renowned cook. 

This is one of about 6 clippings where he is mentioned. 
Before I move on to more about the scrapbook, here's one of my absolute favorite cartoons of the period(from the 78 records wordpress blog)

I have drawn Sousa only this way after seeing this cartoon(because it's brilliant and just the right amount of grotesque). 
So, not surprisingly, there are many portraits of Hager in this scrapbook(which is nice for me). He was very much proud of his looks, so it doesn't come as a surprise that he kept several nice portraits of himself in this book. 
Here are a few:

(those beautiful eyes *faints*) As you could probably guess, I stared at this page an awful lot when I got it.

and here's the least flattering one:

Anyway, you get the point, the man was quite vain. If it wasn't clear before all this, it sure is now. 
Here are a few more great odds and ends from various pages:

There are many pages dedicated to clippings on "Laughing Water". 

Shared this in the last post, but it deserves to be shared again. 

Before seeing the scrapbook, I had seen this particular piece. In the near future I hope to do a post on "Handsome Harry", as in the last month and a half or so, I came to discover that this particular term means more than just a popular Hager hit. Stay tuned for that!

The very last page of the scrapbook includes some of Hager's scribbles from who knows when. A particular name is mentioned here that I am interested in. 

So this begs the question, is Ring all over the scrapbook? Well, the answer is yes. As I had suspected, Ring is everywhere in the scrapbook. The thing that is quite striking about what Hager left in the scrapbook is what little there is on anyone other than himself. So of course someone he so admired would be given a full two pages, and from the marks of wear on those two pages, Hager opened to it often. These two pages are this: 

 *rolls eyes*
Gee no surprise there. At this point in time I still stand by my opinions about the two of them, in fact, the evidence keeps piling up. This is no exception to the mound of evidence regarding their relationship. Hager couldn't let go of Ring, though Ring had moved on when he knew it was time to. Hager kept this portrait of Ring to the day he died, something about it must have especially captured Ring's personality and spirit, at least to what Hager thought. 

Anyhow, I'll leave it there for now. There is a lot more to discuss within the scrapbook, but I should split up the information to a few posts, as I'm still currently processing it all, even a month after getting it all. There are bits of Zon-O-phone and Columbia catalogs buried within the pages, which is especially nice. I had never seen an early Zono catalog before seeing the scrapbook, as they are so uncommon. If there is anything in particular you'd like to see or wonder if it's in Hager's papers, do contact me here in the comments, I'd be happy to dig it out. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Victor Herbert, Hager and Justin Ring

In the last few weeks, after doing that last post on the Hager brothers, I have been digging into trying to really create a definitive piano style to use to identify Hager. It seems that I have finally gotten a baseline for what piano style is Hager's, and it actually came to me in a flash. 

I have been searching around for a compositional style that could be connected to and sound a lot like Hager's, based on the orchestra records and piano accompaniments, and amid a moment of idle listening, it hit me, this piece transcribes out that very Zon-O-Phone pianist style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2gulvs5lAE

Victor Herbert! Of course. It made so much sense after thinking it through for a little while. So why does this make sense? Well, think of all those "Victor Herbert's Band" records from around 1900-1903, those were directed by Hager. As noted from that panoramic portrait of Hager's orchestra, it's clear that Hager plucked most of Herbert's musicians for his own studio ensemble. With that in mind, I did a playful mocking cartoon of this:

Of course, Hager's all decked out for Mr. Herbert's Babes in Toyland, showing his unbound respect for Herbert. 

I have no idea how Hager got to know Herbert, and what he had to do to get so many of his musicians to record with him. With that aside, Hager was close friends with Herbert, and now that I've studied a bunch of Herbert's piano music, I would be assured enough to say that they were such close friends that Herbert's style rubbed off on Hager. Now to get into some of the technical aspects of this connection, take a good listen to that version of "Panamericana" in the link above. Much of what I've previously described about Hager's piano playing corresponds very well with that piece. The quick and jumpy octaves in the right hand, the dense chords in the left hand, and more bass heavy inversions of chords in the left hand as well. Do take into consideration the exotique rhythm that the piece takes on, it's similar to the daring, advanced "west Indian" style rhythm that I have heard played on many early Zon-O-Phone's. Much like Hager's musical mindset, Herbert's very complicated orchestral outlook comes through in his piano pieces. There's a lot going on at any given time, and there's just enough space left for unusual rhythms and really rather jagged syncopation. Herbert's "Panamericana" is really what ties Herbert's and Hager's styles together, as every characteristic is there, and it combines an older musical mindset with the modern syncopation idea. 

So this all makes sense when taking into consideration Hager's upbringing musically, as he wasn't really from too far west to have a very distinct piano style, and being much younger than the older rag-timers and minstrel performers he knew, his style was really neutral to start with, though maybe having traces of the Indiana-Ohio style, being that he was from rural Pennsylvania. Being as curious and open-minded as he was musically, it would make sense that he become so infatuated with someone like Victor Herbert or John Philip Sousa(in this case thinking more of his comic and operetta works). Hager was also a music student, taught in the New York conservatories with a full scholarship to get him through, so he was basically exposed to everything. What Hager heard was likely twice the diversity of what Hylands or Banta heard throughout the first 20 years of their lives. But like Herbert, Hager had an especial affinity for the more taboo syncopated negro music. That was something he was likely told to stay away from while in music school, as he was studying violin under Antonín Dvorăk, despite obviously studying syncopation, it could have only been looked down upon in that environment. 
To provide another good example of Herbert's and Hager's crossover styles, here's another characteristic dance by Herbert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoJ-w5FcZSE
I'm pretty sure this one was recorded around 1905. But anyway, seriously take a close listen to all the distinct characteristics in the piece. They are quite similar to that early Zon-O-Phone style that I am rather certain of being Hager's. 
Here are a few Zon-O-phone records with that accompaniment style, just to give you a refresher on this:
https://ia800609.us.archive.org/34/items/CollectedWorksOfJohnTerrell/TaintAGoinToWeepNoMore1902_64kb.mp3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi8K8iKZyXM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X59v3OASjVg

This brings me to the next part of this post, Justin Ring. 

On my digging ventures for Ring and the Hager brothers, I noticed how similar Ring and Fred Hager were. Their relationship starts around 1900 or so, as Jim Walsh used to write(the picture above of them was a little vignette in one of his articles). Even with Walsh dropping that early date of them being together, I am still not entirely sure when they got together. Though, it is likely however that they got together around 1899, thinking of the starting of Zon-O-Phone. I would guess that at the beginning of Zon-O-Phone, Hager dragged in the young and fresh Ring, along with his 17 year old brother James. With Ring stuck at Zon-O-Phone, Hager got him to work  as the pianist for his studio orchestra. On records as early as the beginning of 1900, such as this one here:
https://ia800604.us.archive.org/7/items/CollectedWorksOfTheZonophoneOrchestra/DarkiesJubilee1900_64kb.mp3
It's highly likely that Ring is that pianist we're hearing. In 1900 it wouldn't surprise me if that's the case, as this picture was taken only a year or so later:

(I have come to the assumption that this picture is from 1901-1902 because the description states that they're in the Columbia studio, which at that time would have been Climax-Columbia-Zonophone, etc)

There's Ring, the young hot dandy of the orchestra. 
Other than his recording history, I know nothing of Ring. I know he was a composer his entire life and married rather late, but not much more. Overall, it seems Ring followed Hager wherever he went in the recording and publishing business, but that's not a bad thing in this case! Ring started at Zon-O-Phone with Hager, tagged along until the bitter end in 1912, then went to Rex right after, and after the fall of Rex stuck with Hager until Okeh let them go around 1922. 

(that's Justin Ring with the baton! This is the Okeh studio around 1920)
So what about his piano style?
Well, that's where it gets a bit sketchy. Now that I have a pretty good understanding of Hager's style, I need to figure out what any other different pianist sounds like on Zon-O-Phone. Luckily, I know of a few records that contain suspiciously different accompaniment styles than the dense and complicated Hager style. The first one that comes to mind is this Zon-O-Phone from 1903:
https://archive.org/details/MustYou1903DanwQuinn
This has vey different accompaniment from say, the "Bill Bailey" take a bit above. Now this pianist on this particular record is very precise but also loose at the same time, similar to Hager, but much less daring with improvisation. Though I must admit that this pianist is very outstanding as an overall accompanist, much to the likeness of Edward Issler actually, and that's quite a high comparison. Despite the little technical hiccups throughout the record, the pianist has exceptional rhythm, keeping constant the entire record, just like Issler did a decade before. This constance with the accompaniment definitely shows quite a dramatic contrast to the more rowdy and dense style that Hager played on early etched label Zon-O-Phone's. Something that ties these styles together is the preference to play more bass heavy chords in the left hand, which ties together Hager, Ring, and  Victor Herbert's styles. This slight characteristic is all over the place in Hager's written music, and even in Ring's rags as well. 
So let's say this more tame but musically outstanding pianist is Ring. It would most certainly make sense according to the logic, and taking into consideration the things that tie the styles together. I do not know about Ring's musical background, and of course knowing something would be helpful in trying to figure this out. I do know that Ring was the son of a musician, so he had been playing music earlier than Hager most definitely. what that has to do with his piano style, I cannot say. I know Ring didn't attend music school, unlike Hager, who did and studied under great masters form Europe and the U.S., so in this case I would assume Ring to have more natural talent musically. Usually almost perfect to perfect rhythm yields the highest natural ability musically(0ther than perfect pitch, that's what Banta had!). 
So let's listen to Ring's rags, just to get some kind of foundation for this style:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvbqEUoZS-Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Vaj_YEloY
One thing is for sure, there are definitely some quirks in that style. 
Like Hylands' and banta's styles, Ring's was just enough quirky and weird to well be distinguished, and this is purely from the sheet music! In Ring's style there's also a mix of all the styles on records in the brown wax era, which makes sense, considering his age and propensity for music. 
When I listen to a lot of these piano accompaniment, I often switch who I think is who on these records, since I really have no idea which feel goes with which. Though, as I'm writing this I'm starting to get a strong feeling that this pianist is Ring:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBZLwO5P7jM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaTarCSS6gc
I hear very unusual eccentricities in those accompaniments, the kind that are scattered all over his "Sweet Potatoes". I have assumed the slightly more bluesy style on many Zon-O-Phone's, as the one I associate with Hager is much more classical and controlled.  I have heard some early Zon-O-Phone's with pretty strange and whacked accompaniments, full of small mistakes and unusual bits of syncopation, more so than the dense Hager accompaniments. One thing is for sure about these Zon-O-Phone accompaniments, there is definitely more than one pianist scattered on their records, and it seems to really only be two distinct styles throughout, which makes narrowing down who they might be much easier. 
Keep in mind that I do not know which pianist is Hager and which one is Ring, and sometimes I switch the style with the guy, maybe because of something I heard, but what I explained here is overall what I think Hager and Ring were in terms of piano accompaniments on Zon-O-phone's. 

One thing that I've always found rather funny about Hager and Ring is that they seemed inseparable to the end. Even after they went their own ways after the studios in the mid-1920's, they still lived rather close afterward, eventually both moving to places in close proximity in Florida for retirement. Though Hager died before Ring, they were exactly the same age when they died, 87. 




Since I've exhausted this topic so much, I promise that I will speak of my recent sheet music acquisitions and my meeting with John Levin in the next post. I promise I'll stay away from pianist analysis in the next post! Before I close out, here's an outstanding Arthur Pryor piece played by Gilmore's band in 1902. This is a recent addition to the Santa Barbara website, and how it's great:
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder17130
Whats's especially great about this piece is that Pryor's stylistic extraction is exactly the style that this piece is imitating. Pryor's regional style was of Missouri-Arkansas, which is one of the most dense and authentic styles out there. This piece has a lot of trombone action going on(well durr...of course it does), and some really nice syncopation, executed very well by the peerless Gilmore band. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

A Quest

I really do apologise for not writing blog posts frequently...

Using Facebook has consumed much of my time, as it tends to do...
While out on hiatus, I went out to the UC Santa Barbara recorded sound archive, which was an eyeopener! if you know anyone in association with the archive, I would highly recommend going there to dig through cylinders and 78's, and everything else they've got stored there. I really should share a few pictures from the tour! Thanks to knowing people there, I got a full tour of the place, which was endlessly interesting...
It began with a Bell and Tainter machine...

 What a nice picture of that seal!

The inside bits, with a date indicating c.1893 as the date on this scarce machine.
What an amazing way to start!
I got to see the Zon-O-Phone project in process as we began our tour, with a guy taking those high quality pictures of the labels that can be seen on the LOC  website, such as the one below!

This guy was taking those fancy pictures of Zon-O-Phone records right before our eyes! He was taking a picture of a few Zon-O-Phone orchestra records as I recall. For those of you wondering about the Zon-O-Phone project, it's going strong, and making progress every day. 
We then were taken to where the good stuff was---the cylinders! 

Oh yes, that's what it looked like. It's heaven for sure.
Where do we start? it was hard to make decisions of what I wanted to see, since pretty much half the records I've listened to for the past 6 years have been from this very place. The kind young man giving us the tour was really into the Pathe cylinders, so he showed us where most of those are kept, and he was also really into the newly transferred Mexican and Cuban cylinders they recently acquired. 

There are some of those Pathe Concert cylinders. Most of them have the original boxes and record slips, which is really nice.

The guy who was supposed to give us the tour was out of town, so one of his skilled young assistants did the tour, that's why there wasn't as much Columbia digging as there usually would be(that would have kept me there all day...). We soon got to some Columbia's! Of course we did. That's the good stuff.

Since i had for years hear Myers sing "The Bell Buoy", I asked to go see it and hold it. 

What a life-changing little thing! I had never seen or held a North American before. It felt less fragile than the usual brown waxes we usually see and hold. It felt sturdy and ready to be played. A feeling that doesn't usually come when holding brown wax. 

That beautiful, but empty channel rim.

Couldn't believe I was holding that in my hands. It's in beautiful shape for its age, but it looks just as great as it sounds.

You can hear it here: https://archive.org/details/BellBuoyMyersNorthAmerican

Absolutely beautiful, especially after holding it. 

The cylinder was also much darker than I thought North American's were. They could easily be mistaken for Columbia records from c.1902, if you didn't notice the channel rim. 

Later I also spotted a few Len Spencer cylinders...(knowing the Columbia block for him helps...)

You can hear this here:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder15435

This one looks how it sounds for sure.

I also requested to hold that infamous cylinder "Will O' The Wisp" by Myers, just to see if it's worth getting transferred...

and how it is!

It's in gorgeous condition, and fully worth getting transferred! Hopefully the tale of Hylands playing this piece till he dropped is fully demonstrated with this cylinder. I had assumed it would he the same shade of brown as "Little Yaller Coon" by Spencer, but it's comparable to the North American's shade, which was unexpected. There were also some newly acquired editions of Hobbies written by Jim Walsh, but they were poorly patched together and not in good shape in the first place(they were rather brittle and yellowing). Those were interesting, since I had never seen these famous articles in their entirety, nor had I held any of them in my hands. That was some thing there it was...

That was all nice, with record catalogs we dug through, saw some piano rolls, piles of disc records, record encyclopedias, and miscellaneous stuff related to records stacked in shelves and we saw the boss' office! Mr. Seubert's office was especially nice, with some of the most interesting books about records and recording, and a few machines on shelves and scattered catalogs. 

Enough of that...since it's certain I will be visiting again very soon...

Now for the main reason of this post, referring to the title listed above.

This "mission" is something I've been piecing together for a while now, and it's beginning to take form now. In just over a year from now, I will be trekking to the Eastern U. S. to tour the North East to write a book. This book will be a journal of my travels in historical documentation, which will include tracking down and visiting all of the studio locations, recording artists' homes, publishing firms, theaters, and anything else related of interest. On this quest, I will go all of these places and write a day-to-day journal of thoughts and connections, as well as documentation of where and if things are still in place. 

Among these places that I will visit will include the following:

1155 Broadway(Columbia), 33 W. 27th street, most of E. 14th street(where all the theaters were and where musicians lived), where Frank P. Banta lived, stroll down 28th street(Tin Pan Alley), Columbia's headquarters in Washington DC, Sousa's house in DC, The site of the Berliner studio in DC, the street corner where Gaisberg indicated he discovered George Graham, where the Spencer Business college was in DC, find where John Yorke AtLee lived in DC, find all the famous theaters where the big early Broadway shows premiered, visit the Edison recording studio address in NYC(on 5th avenue), visit the very house that Russell Hunting and Charlie Carson lived and were arrested in(!), find where Vess Ossman lived,  Spencer's Lyceum, visit all the places where Hylands lived in New York, go to where this picture was taken:

(and maybe even get a few rag-time friends to pose similarly here if this place is still there somewhere...)

Of course, I intend to do some of this journey with my good friends on the East coast, like Charlie, who almost every day walks by some of these historic places. I will go inside all of these places(the ones that are left...) and dig around for any remnants of the history that happened there. I'd be especially curious about what might be hidden in the house Russell Hunting was arrested in. That could be very interesting and fruitful all the same, since he had to have hid things in that house somewhere... This also goes for the places where Hylands lived, since he was very unorganized it seems, he may have left some stuff occasionally while moving. The boardinghouse he lived in around 1910 would also be curious, since that was a house full of actors. Finding all of these places where the recording stars lived will be a chore...since I know where only a few of them lived at a certain point while they were recording. Certainly I will visit the fabled Dyker Heights where Spencer and Porter lived so highly around 1899 and 1900. I'll find all the musicians too, Issler, Schweinfest, Tuson, Dana, Hager, Geib(he played tuba for Edison early on), Banta, Chris. Booth, Arthur Pryor, Albert Benzler, Gaisberg, etc. The recording stars homes will remain a priority, because as soon as I get to the east coast, I ought to track down as many addresses as I can and notify them that I will be doing all of this "snooping" around if you will, for historical research. Luckily their addresses(some of them) are scattered around in recording magazines and theatrical papers. After getting the home addresses, I will start with the recording studios, and luckily, this will mean passing by Columbia at 27th and Broadway many times ,which is perfect for writing often about the amount of historic things that occurred there in such a short period of time. Many entries will refer to the Columbia studio, as well as the Edison studio(in NYC), and it helps that both of these places are on the way to other places of interest. I will also make many commutes that the recording stars once made, such as Gaskin, Spener(wherever he lived from 1897-1900...), Porter, Banta, Hylands(of course), Roger Harding, Issler(to where the U.S. Company was, and to Columbia), Schweinfest, Tuson, and the rest of the studio musicians we can track down. Of course, this quest wouldn't be complete without visiting the graves of everyone! 

I already visited and cleaned up Vess Ossman's grave, so one down... a whole lot more to go. I got to go find everyone on the east coast(if they didn't end up anywhere else). Luckily, Victor Emerson didn't end up there, he ended up not too far from me actually, in the valley of California..(what a coincidence). Unfortunately, one of my favourites to visit, Fred Hager, is in Florida, and there's no way I'm going to Florida just for that. 

As much as I love you Hager, you're in an awfully inconvenient place for me to visit so soon. Sometime along the line when I'm in Florida I will go pay a visit to him with a huge bundle of blood red roses tied in old silk with a bow, and a lot of kind sweet words to say for him. 

Also, when I go an do the grave visiting, I will have bundles of specific flowers to place on them. For Banta of course, will be a bunch of pretty violets. For Hylands, a few pink carnations, sunflowers, yellow roses and a single blood red rose. For the rest of these performers, I will have to make a key to what certain flowers represent, and make sure to match what I feel about them and what they were like. Of course, there will be mixed messages in many of these bundles, like Hylands' I just listed. The pink carnations are more disdainful, sunflowers haughty and flamboyant, yellow roses for infidelity, and the red for passion and devotion. This will go on and on as I piece together the bundles for everyone...

Anyhow, that's all I got for now. I pretty much explained this quest fully. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Recording Muzzles and Razors in the air--early stories from Fred Gaisberg

Yes indeed, Fred Gaisberg, the teenager dropped into the wild and woolly recording business in its earliest days. 

Many of us have had the opportunity to read from his diaries of trekking through Europe and Asia with Sinkler Darby, and have thoroughly enjoyed his vivid and witty descriptions of Madrid and the French countryside. Before all of that across the pond, he had a well-established life and recording career in the U.S. Someone in my immediate record collecting community has yet to buy a copy of Gaisberg's memoir written in the 1930's. Any time an original copy of his original book comes up somewhere, it is always sold for an extreme amount of money, an amount that no record collector in reality could afford to pay on a single item. Some of the information in his book(that is quoted everywhere), reminds us that the book is certainly worth the 2,000 or more of any currency it's worth. The amount of fantastic stories and anecdotes that Gaisberg told in his books are certainly worth the money paid. 

When speaking with Charlie Judkins last weekend, it seems that he finally got a hold of one of the books about Gaisberg(The one called A Voice in Time). It's not the infamously rare and valuable one, but it's the one that was about his life and travels in America, to Europe, and Asia. Of course, the "good stuff" to the two of us was certainly the tales he told from 1890's Washington. According to all sources(including him) he began working at the Columbia Phonograph company in 1889, which would have made him their first official studio pianist. Also, keep in mind that he was 16 when they hired him. He had no idea what he was getting himself into, and this is clear by the way that he described the very beginning. The thing that really got us hooked was of course his tales of Len Spencer from the very beginning. Amid his early days working there, it didn't take long for him to run into all of the limited amount of talent Columbia employed at the time. One of the first figures he met with was of course "the handsome Len Spencer"(hmm?Okay...) as he once stated. This story reveals a whole lot about Spencer, what we have often expected from him, and what turned out to be true. 

Gaisberg did not specify the office of Columbia, but he stated that he was at Pennsylvania Avenue(obviously Columbia's old headquarters), so it's hard to not know what he meant by that. He stated that the first time he met Spencer, Spencer was signing autographs for a group of "admiring darkies"(black kids) for a few cents each. Wow. Didn't really expect Spencer to have a black fan base. The image of him doing that really is kind of heart-warming, yet a little unexpected so early on in his recording. This is the sort of thing that we'd expect from Spencer in the exhibition days of Columbia in the late-90's. The fact that he was doing this so early on says a lot not only about him, but early Columbia. This was when Columbia had very slim management, and when those passing by the studio would gather outside the steps and essentially get a free concert. So with this, it seems groups of black kids built admiration for Spencer's singing, convinced he was black until they saw him. That really is somewhat surprising, since we wouldn't normally expect such offensive and stereotypical songs as Spencer's repertoire to be at all appreciated by the black community. Well, apparently we were wrong. This is one of those occasions that could very well change our viewpoint of what blacks thought of their own culture and society in the U.S. Makes me wonder what the black people who came to exhibitions thought of meeting with Spencer. Like any time encountering him, it must have been interesting, and slightly shocking. Again, our understanding of Spencer's relationship with black people has officially been changed with this new information. 

With all of this, we also have learned that Spencer not only had a black fan base, but also embodied many of the black stereotypes he spoke of so often on records. Other than just enough looking the part with his mess of curly brown hair and gaudy gold chains, he was a dedicated gambler. 

Of course, now that I know this, it seems I think now that Spencer dragged Hylands into gambling all their profits and such during the publishing firm. Yes, it seems likely that Hylands already had a taste for gambling, but after Spencer came along, that seemed to have inevitably been boosted. 
We know of Spencer as a rough-and-tumble sort of figure, more so than any of the early recording stars, with that scar on his face at whatnot. Contrary to what I have written previously on this matter regarding Spencer, it seems Gaisberg told the story of his scar differently. 

It's a little different than I had previously been told, but it's actually better the way Gaisberg told it. 
Here's how he spoke about Spencer, including the razor fight, and everything else:

Perhaps because of his unsavory reputation, my particular pet and hero of mine was the handsome Len Spencer. His father, the originator of the florid Spencerian handwriting, was the chief bugbear of thousands of schoolboys, myself included. The son had many and varied gifts. As a popular baritone, I accompanied him at concerts and for record-making. I first saw him seated at a small table in Pennsylvania Avenue, surrounded by admiring darkies, writing out visiting cards at six for a dime. His beautiful, ornate Spencerian writing, ending up with two doves, looked like engraving. Later I was always to remember his handsome face disfigured by a scar, the result of a razor-slash in an up-river gambling brawl. He was said to have been an adroit poker-player. His records of "Anchored", "Sailing", "The Palms", and "Nancy Lee" were important items of our repertoire. 

Well, there ya have it, Spencer in a nutshell. It's really surprising how much admiration he had for him, despite his certainly wild nature. Also, the way that he words his relationship with Spencer in the studio is also particularly interesting, "my particular pet and hero", especially since he's referring to recording for Columbia so early on. If we had a description of Spencer's relation with Issler or Hylands from a little later, I have the feeling that we'd hear something dramatically different. Issler would think of Spencer like an assistant and engineer, much like how Gaisberg was to Berliner. Hylands would have thought of Spencer like a sidekick to his rough-and-tumble antics(though Spencer was what stabilized their friendship). 
Without a doubt, Gaisberg understood how to best describe Spencer's beautiful script.

It certainly was like an engraving. 

Before all of that was written in the book, Gaisberg told his story of being with Sousa as a child:
I also sung in Sousa's choir, which was organised for Sunday evening concerts, and I attended rehearsals in his then modest home in the Navy Yard in south Washington. He patted me on the head and made quite a pet of me... I can still see the small room that one entered direct from the street, and a very old "tin-panny" square piano from which he conducted rehearsals. In hot weather the front door used to be left open and a circle of negro children would surround the entrance, silently enjoying the music we made. 
...
On Saturday afternoons in the spring and summer, the Marine Band formerly gave concerts on the lawn in the grounds of the White House... I was one of those music-mad youngsters who hovered by his podium and never missed a concert. On windy days his music used to become unmanageable, and he would turn round and beckon to me. It was then my pride to stand beside him to turn over and hold down the music. 

How great is that? Imagine little Gaisberg tagging along behind Sousa and the Marine Band. Everything about that is heartwarming and comical. It's funny that Gaisberg was accompanist to Quinn, who was also a choir boy until about age 12. Quinn probably told him that early on, and caused some surprise to Gaisberg. Imagining Sousa bitching at ten-year-old Gaisberg about his music not co-operating  at a concert is fantastic to the highest degree. It doesn't get much better than that, in terms of stories relating to early recording stars. 
His first time hearing of and meeting Berliner is also fantastic:

It was Billy Golden who asked me one day... If I would go with him to see a funny German who had started experimenting with a flat-disc talking machine records and wanted to make some trials. I was only too eager to see him at work. 
We found Emile Berliner in his small laboratory on New York avenue and received a warm welcome from the inventor. Billy was right, Berliner certainly did make me smile. Dressed in a monkish frock he paced up and down the small studio buzzing on a diaphragm[nice pun there Fred].
"Hello! Hello!" he recited in guttural, broken English. "Tvinkle, tvinkle, little star, how I vonder vot you are."

Hmm. How unexpected of Billy Golden. Normally, we wouldn't expect such a thing from him, but certainly he was well aware of everything that was going on in the early business. Being at Columbia meant for that in the first place, since they were the ones who invented the dubbing/pantographing process. Even for a hick, Golden knew his way around in the business. 
Here's how Gaisberg described his first session with Berliner(on the day that he and Golden called):

Berliner placed a muzzle over Golden's mouth and connected this up by a rubber hose to a diaphragm. I was at the piano, the sounding-board of which was also boxed up and connected to the diaphragm by a hose resembling an elephant's trunk. Berliner said "Are you ready?" and upon our answering "Yes", he began to crank like a barrel-organ, and said "Go." 
The song finished, Berliner stopped cranking. He took from the machine a bright zinc disc and plunged it into an acid bath for a few minutes. Then, taking it out of the acid, he washed and cleaned the disc. Placing it on the reproducing machine, also operated by hand like a coffee-grinder, he played back the the resulting record from the etched groove. 
To our astonished ears cam Billy Golden's voice. Berliner proudly explained to us just how this method was superior to the phonograph. He said that in his process the recording stylus was vibrated laterally on a flat surface, thus always encountering an even resistance, and this accounted for a more natural tone. 
Acquainted as I was with the unnatural reproduction of the old cylinder-playing phonographs, I was spell-bound by the beautiful round tone of the flat gramophone disc. Before I departed that day I exacted a promise from Berliner that he would let me work for him when his machine was ready for development. 

And a few months later, he received a card from Berliner asking him to come along to his lab once again, to officially make some records. Well, it seems we know why early Berliner records sounded to great now. This strange and horrific sounding method of using muzzles and all of these tubes was the ticket to the signature Berliner sound, which as we know, was clear and full in the beginning. This is why we get fantastic records like Quinn's 1895 Berliner of "The Streets of Cairo". Now that we know all of that, we can all picture this strange method being done with those earliest Berliners. Another with this, not with piano though, is one of George Graham's first records, his "Street Fakir" from 1896. That muzzle was right there, and this is why it sounds like the speaker and piano were right in front of the diaphragm. 

Also! Here's his description of getting Graham to record for Berliner:

Then there was George Graham... a member of and Indian Medicine Troupe doing one-night stands in the spring and summer and in winter selling quack medicines at the street corners. His tall, lanky figure, draped in a threadbare Prince Albert coat and adorned with a flowing tie, his wide-brimmed Stetson hat and his ready stream of wit combined to extract the dimes and nickels from his simple audience in exchange for a bottle of coloured water. 
I discovered him one day on the corner of Seventh and Pennsylvania Avenue selling a liver cure to a crowd of spell-bound negroes. He was assisted by John O'Terrell, who strummed the banjo and sang songs to draw the crowd. I brought this pair to Emile Berliner. Always a student of humanity, he was delighted... George recorded...his famous talk on "Liver Cure" in which he cited the instance of a sick man taking one bottle of his liver cure, and when he died the liver was so strong that they had to take it out kill it with a club.

Yep, that was this guy:

The image that Gaisberg pieces together with Graham is really very vivid, and puts us right there at where he found him. Of course, this is ever more tangible by seeing the two picture we have of him. It's all fitting together. 

His description of Charlie Tainter is also one of the best articulated of his character descriptions in this early portion. Here's a picture before the description:

That's him in the late-1870's. 

Charles Sumner Tainter was a scientist as well as mechanical genius. I can see him now working at a watch-makers lathe with a glass to his eye; he had a touch as delicate as a woman's. I never knew anyone who lived so abstemiously...
Tainter was an Englishman an a confirmed tea-drinker. Indeed, he taught me how to brew and enjoy it. The perfume of that special China blend of his haunts me still. Between the cups he would mount the diaphragm and adjust the angle of the cutting stylus. In his clear Yorkshire voice he would test them with:
"Caesar, Caesar, can you hear what I say---this, which; s-ss-sss."
The stress was alway laid on the sibilants, these being the most difficult sounds to record. In playing back the test, at the slightest indication of the "s" sound, he would smile with joy and treat himself to another cup. 

Certainly one of the best characters who Gaisberg truly admired, more than most of us would think, since Tainter hadn't much to do with Gaisberg early on. 

Before I finish, here's his full description of AtLee, who turned out to be his very first project while employed at Columbia in 1889:

[AtLee's]pompous announcements which introduced each performance in tones that made the listener visualise a giant. In reality he was a mere shrimp of a man, about five feet in his socks, that little government clerk with a, deep powerful voice.Of this and his fine flowing moustache he was mighty proud. After his office hours, from nine to four, as a wage-slave of the U. S. Government, he would return to his modest home where I would join him. In the parlour stood an old upright piano and a row of three phonographs lent to him by the Columbia Phonograph Company. Together we would turn out, in threes, countless records of performances of "Whistling Coon", "The Mocking bird" and "The Laughing song". I can still hear that reverberating announcement:

"THE MOCKINGBIRD" BY JOHN YORKE ATLEE, ARTISTIC WHISTLER, ACCOMPANIED BY PROFESSOR GIASBERG.

I was then only sixteen, some professor...

AtLee has pretty much seemed exactly the same in other descriptions of him out there, not much is different from what we've already heard, but of course, Gaisberg's diction is priceless. It seems as though working for AtLee was horrid for him, though it must have secretly been a joy. 

There were more stories, but that will make this post just as unmanageable as Sousa's music blowing in the wind, so I'll stop here. 

Hope you enjoyed this!