New Findings, exhibitions, and strange sheet music

Yes, it has been ten days since my last post, and this time, I have not been out on another music festival adventure, which usually a long hiatus such as this would indicate. It has been a time of learning new things from those of whom I spoke in my last post, though I will keep them anonymous still. One of the findings included information about the notebook that once belonged to this chap: 

Yes indeed, Len Spencer. 

I have spoken very highly and often of his notebook that is held at the Library of Congress, and still have yet to actually hold the thing in my hands. As far as I have heard of the "sacred" contents of this notebook, it would seem that it really was a piece of ledgers from late-1890's Columbia! It would seem that there are many record numbers listed in there, such as no. 7487, which happens to be his recording of "My Hannah Lady" from 1900 on Columbia. 

So, since that record is listed, that would mean that this notebook's timeframe literally splits right in the middle of his time working with Hylands at Hylands Spencer and Yeager. It was written in at a perfect time for Spencer! Not everything was told to me of course, as there's no way everything could be explained to me at one time, the only way to know that would be to actually sit down and read through it. Though I was told that most of it was written in ink pen with a thin and sharp nib, in that beautiful script that he practically created(to some extent).  

The one that we al recognise from the world-famous "Coke" logo, that is just like this: 

and this: 

Indeed, these works of art were just nicer versions of how the man wrote normally. I have more examples of Spencer's not-as-formal writing, and they aren't in pen either, but those cannot be shared just yet. Even without more examples, you get the point. All of the writing in that notebook looks like the examples just above. Once I hear more of what the contents of the notebook are, I will get to it and figure out more about it. What has been said so far is a good sign, and says that this notebook is not useless by any means. Some friends of mine a while back said that this notebook might be useless to recording information and might have nothing to to with Spencer's popular Columbia's from 1898-1900, but they were very wrong. 

Since yesterday was the 4th of July, I dressed like a familiar face...

That lady Columbia on their boxes! 

That be correct. It actually looked great for once, since it was a last minute decision. I looked like an exhibition piece from them in July of 1898!

 Speaking of exhibition piece, they must have had an immense gathering on July 4 of that year, since that was right in the middle of the period where the exhibitions were happening every night at their first floor hall. It was in the summer of 1898 that these exhibitions were a popular Broadway spectacle, with July through September being the most eventful of the months. Their July 4th exhibition(which was on a Monday night just like this year), must have not only had a feast for everyone, but also had some of the daring and confident young ones of the staff lighting off the fireworks out in the street, at a moment where no street cars were rushing down Broadway. Of course those lighting off the rockets would be the Spencer's, Roger Harding, Russell Hunting(who was still living in the U. S. at the time), Steve Porter, and probably Fred Hylands also among other familiar faces. We have seen how well-decorated their hall was in September 1898: 

but try to think of how extraordinary that room would have looked just fully two months before this picture...

It must have been an absolute zoo there on that night. How much fun it must have been! Master Easton and Vic Emerson probably came to witness it for once, since they never came to the exhibitions for some reason(even if they were the ones who decided to do this). 

The final thing I would like to discuss is a piece of music that I got in the mail last week or so, written by a familiar pianist mentioned often here...

Wow! What a cover! 

It did help that all of the covers on Hylands' music were unique and eye-catching... 

Yep, that's Hylands' 1912 composition, "The Lightning Rag". The first thing that made me slightly sad is the fact that the first thing under Hylands' name was guess what?

"You Don't Stop the World from Going 'Round"

That song was 13 years old by that time! Whew, they could have at least acknowledged that he was a Broadway show performer, or something between 1899 and 1911. Hmm, that was very strange to me, I guess that that tune of his really was popular, as much as they had described in The Phonoscope, as not everything in that magazine is completely true, or at least after Russell Hunting left them in November 1898, and as we know, everything on Hylands Spencer and Yeager came after that. This music was not published by Hylands' second-to-last vanity firm, which is what I was expecting, which might indicate that his "The Rag-Time Boardinghouse" came a little bit later in 1912. There were many interesting little things buried on the sheets once I got it open, but once I looked at the back, I found a little something strange:

What! Really? No foolin! 

That was unexpected. I didn't look at the advertisements on the back page until several days after I got the music for some reason, but how I was in for a surprise. I had not seem any written music of Etta's before, and was hoping to from the kind descendants of hers, but had not until last week. Of course, it's not a piece of Rag-Time for good comparison to her brother's, which really would be great though. Another thing to notice here is the fact that the publisher at the bottom states "Hylands and Hylands", which is fantastic. That can only be the siblings in this case, since Etta didn't know about being a publisher, and Fred had experience in the business(not the best one could get however).  It's just strange to see the two of them doing anything together, but apparently, it did happen! 

*This music is for you Ali and Anna!*

Hope you enjoyed this! Sorry about posting for so many days, hopefully there won't be as much of a break before my next post. 

A Theater pianist and other New Discoveries

After digging through some information about Burt Green, Ada Jones, and looking back at those 1900 Phonoscope sections, I have found some interesting items. I also looked through much of the issues available online of The New York Clipper, which also allowed for a good bounty of information and interesting advertisements. Of the many things I found about Fred and Etta Hylands, I did not see anything speaking of Hylands' clearly long time and  important engagement as Columbia's house pianist from 1897 to c.1904-05. It's very strange how that whole Columbia thing just passed over everyone's heads, though it's clearly where his trouble started, and its effects haunted him for the rest of his life(If you've ever noticed, Hylands weighed the most while working at Columbia...). I guarantee it, if you look up Fred in any of those theatrical magazines, you won't find anything about him being a studio pianist. It's very bizarre, you'll find Frank Banta being known as a "phonograph pianist", but not Hylands. Take this for example:

 (from Professor Bill's website)
"By the consolidated pianist of Phonograph Fame"
Yep, that's what Banta was known for, even to all the big publishers(including Hylands when he became one!). But, wait a moment, there's this here:

OH! He was on salary! That's right. Durr...
Jeez! Hope you're starting to see why it's very bizarre why you just don't see anything about his commitment to Columbia ANYWHERE. Wow, all the more reason for Jim Walsh to completely avoid writing about Hylands of his perhaps hundreds of fantastic articles. If Walsh was trying to be truly frank with the articles and notes he had, Hylands would have been mentioned hundreds of times. That's only if he mentioned that the pianist accompanied the singer(main subject of the article) was Hylands, and with that, he could have even done one of his specialty biographies on Hylands. That would have saved much of the headache I've had in trying to search around for any scraps of information on Hylands. Even in the November, 1913 issue of The Clipper, where they do a short section on him, there isn't at all any mentioning of the whole Columbia venture:

This little section was a little important, as it provided the information that most people knew him for. As according to every source in that time(other than The Phonoscope) Hylands was known for being a music director, B. F. Keith's prized pianist(of many they had...), one of the best stage accompanists in vaudeville, and that eccentric vanity publisher(like that they mentioned that...). Nothing about his revolutionary publishing firm with Len Spencer and Harry Yeager, his love and adoration at Columbia, or that he was one of the first popular Rag-Time pianists. Now the fact that they didn't mention the Rag-Time part of Hylands is very surprising, as certainly, by 1913, those earliest Rag pianists were beginning to truly get recognition for the fad they helped begin, which, as we well know, was still on by 1913.  Another thing that the section above indicates is that Hylands had been performing in vaudeville since about 1890, which we know is true, but it is indicated that he began as a B. F. Keith pianist, though of course, as expected, they would not dare to mention his lesser contributions that really were obviously the key to his playing style---playing in low-class clubs and saloons. 

Some of the other sections I found included many indications of the openings for the shows that Hylands directed and wrote himself. One of these sections included this:

Heh, imagine him standing on that stage giving a speech to everyone, that's a fantastic thing to picture. Wonder what he said in those speeches...

Ha! I have heard conflicting opinions about this show of Fred's. This one is, as seen, a much more positive and kind word to Hylands' fantastic talent with the parody. Two notable names in the above section other than Fred's, there are also the names of J. Grant Gibson, and Marie Hylands. J Grant Gibson was a long-time friend of Fred's from after being thrown out of Columbia and joining the White Rats Union in 1905. Hylands created a friendship with Gibson much like the one he had with Burt Green and Len Spencer back in 1898-1900. It was with Gibson that he began his second-to-last publishing firm, and wrote this piece here: 

(from my collection)

Without Len Spencer, that signature decorative footer was no more...

Yes indeed, both Hylands and Gibson were on this sheet music, and it's no coincidence that Hylands chose to write and publish with Gibson over everyone else he knew at that time. The other sections that I found this evening include these here: 

"A cyclone hit", gotta love 1900's slang.

Something odd about these two sections is that they were both featured in the same edition of The Clipper in 1905. That must have brought on the competition factor between the two of them, not that it wasn't already present. These siblings were certainly in the same business at the same time, and this is clearly indicated by these two advertisements here. The other section I found is this one:

Well, at least the cause of death is indicated, but it's pretty obvious that it was that what killed him. Though, of course, it can be very certainly assume that it was more than just diabetes that killed him. He certainly was some sweet piano man, I can tell you that! Pardon my very morbid pun. Anyhow, these sections were very interesting, and I stumbled upon them when I was just looking for all of those sections about Ben Harney in The Clipper from 1897 to 1900, but like a heap of the wonderful resources out there that we know exist, they are not yet on the Internet, for good researchers and nerds to freak out about.

(Harney at left and John Biller at right)
 Many of those sections included reviews of Harney's acts with his wife Jesse, and even some compared to Mike Bernard's playing where he imitated Harney. Of course, also I bet if someone was to digitize those for everyone to have a chance to see them , we probably would see reviews of shows at Huber's Museum by Ada Jones with piano accompaniment by Burt Green. Burt Green would probably be listed in many of them. And this would even be so in the 1900 issues speaking of the events going on at B. F. Keith's theater, that way, we'd see Hylands listed a whole lot more(as indicated by the section just above). This is also indicated by this section in The Phonoscope from May 1900:

Yep. That's the one. 
That must have been the time that he got the job there the second time. By that I mean that he had been there for at least one season before 1900, as said in one of the other sections here. The Phonoscope  indicated in their July, 1898 issue though that he was also pianist at Tony Pastor's theater(probably in late-1896 or early-1897, though no exact date was given) but, Keith's was also indicated in that same section. 

Something just came to mind, Edison's talent scouts didn't really get the best of the best when they went out to grab their staff members. Their dynamic was a little different from Columbia's. Edison's scouts hired performers who were somewhat amateur on the stage, and they took them in so they could become big stars. Columbia's dynamic was to stay with the handful of regulars they got, but only hire the best of vaudeville and dramatic performance. Think about it, Arthur Collins pretty much failed as an operetta and minstrel performer before Edison took him in to have him be an announcer for them in 1897. In 1898, Collins became one of the newest big stars of the recording business, one finally to combat Len Spencer's overwhelming monopoly in the area of the "Coon Song". Spencer fleetingly learned of this competition, and probably laughed at how much of a miserable failure Collins had been as a minstrel man, compared to his own extraordinary skills as a salesman and minstrel man. Collins proved him wrong, and Spencer's popularity began to significantly drop by 1906(the same year that he lost the sight in his right eye!). This Edison dynamic can also apply to Frank P. Banta, Byron G. Harlan, Harry MacDonough, and even Edward Meeker. Harlan wasn't really a failure exactly, but he was a very darn good amateur, as many of the early management staff there put it. Most of these Edison artists were under-appreciated before they got hired on to their staff, even someone like Frank P. Banta had the same sort of hard luck in the business, though I think that being Sylvester Ossman's pianist got him some much-deserved status in vaudeville, much earlier on than going off to Chicago to begin his phenomenal orchestra. Banta was no musical director with cute charisma(like Hylands) though. 

I hope you enjoyed this! 

More on Columbia Rag-Time vs. Edison Rag-Time

Since the UCSB website is working again, I will continue my post from yesterday evening. I meant to showcase these two records by the Peerless Orchestra yesterday:
here's "Ma Tiger Lily" by the Peerless Orchestra, 1900

It was also intended that I use their version of "Whistling Rufus" from 1899(with an introduction by Arthur Collins)

These are both very tasteful selections of Rag-Time chosen by Frank Banta. The renditions(there's two takes on the page!) of "Whistling Rufus" are especially fantastic, because of the very syncopated melodies paired with the straight march melodies of the song. That was something that the Columbia orchestra didn't do too often, as much as Banta did with the Edison orchestra. Also what I meant to share yesterday were a few more of Banta's and Collins' brown wax cylinders. 
This first one is one that Len Spencer also recorded with Fred Hylands around the same time(if not in the same month or so!)and on the list of Columbia cylinders from my last post, you can actually see it listed. 
Here's "All I Wants Is My Chickens", from late-1898(by Collins with Banta)
It's just about as good as Rag-Time on cylinders could get from pre-1900, and Banta's playing can be very well dissected on this one, more than usual. You can actually hear him hit a fifth on the last chord(which was something that was characteristic to his playing!), and you can actually hear all of those bass notes, more so than many brown wax Edison cylinders. 
I would like to hear Spencer and Hylands' version of the song though, that would certainly make for a fascinating comparison. If anyone has the brown wax Columbia of "All I Wants Is My Chickens" by Len Spencer, comment on this post!(the catalog number is 7446). 

This next Collins and Banta selection is a fantastically hot Rag number entitled "Lam Lam Lam", recorded in 1901*just a nerdy Rag-Time note, this song was written by  Benjamin Jerome, the composer of the "A Bunch of Rags" medley in 1898, and it's not Ossman's!*. 
Banta really plays his tail off on this one! Not every note is clearest, but you can certainly hear how he's playing everything! This is just about how hot Banta could get on Edison's piano, and all his musical traits are present. I have heard this record countless times, and am still hearing things I didn't hear before. Just as I'm writing this, I just noticed this audible deep note at about 2:05-06. Banta hits the deeper note of the octave first, then the higher note, almost like Hylands did on hundreds of Columbia records. There's so much to hear on this cylinder, and it takes a few listens to really get the gist of what Banta plays. 

Meanwhile, at Columbia--- Collins began working there in 1901, starting with working with 

Yes, that guy. Aside from working with Natus, Collins made some fantastic Rag-Time records with Fred Hylands, in 1901 and 1902. 
It's when you can hear records like this one:
Collins singing Cole and Johnson's "My Castle on the Nile" in 1902
That's pretty wild for Hylands, but not the most he'd been before that. He did show off his style on this cylinder by playing lots of broken walking octaves. It's somewhat amazing really, the way Hylands plays on this one is nothing less of genius. 
Hylands must have been showing off on the last one, like he usually did, but a little more so that usual on that one. In 1901-1903, Collins and Hylands did turn out some excellent Rag-Time records. There are one's like this from 1901. 
Like this one,
and of course, this one.
There's not a way to choose which one if better than the others, as they're all perfect examples of genuine Rag-Time. Yes, I know, you get a white singer, and a white pianist, but you do get "Chicago Professor" playing Rag-Time freely as he would, with not much changed from his "very 1896" Rag style(if you know what I mean...). As I mentioned in my last post, I mentioned that Hylands also was at Leeds in 1903. In bringing Leeds back to the picture, you get records like this one, from 1903. Now this is a weird one. It's Collins with the "Leeds Orchestra", which could have composed of many known or unknown musicians. One thing is for sure, Hylands was their pianist. There is not a doubt that Hylands would have been dragged in to Leeds rather than Banta, only because Banta was leading the Metropolitan orchestra still in '03, and was still Edison's regular pianist. Having him work for Leeds would have been far too much work than he already bore. This Leeds record has a fantastic piano part, and for some odd reason, it's pretty much the loudest instrument in the whole ensemble(other than the flutes). That's one thing that also indicates Hylands on the piano, also because the tempo for the song and the sense of rhythm are far too good to be anyone like Banta or Albert Benzler(it couldn't be Benzler anyway, but he's an option because he was Banta's sub at Edison in 1903.)  Columbia's house orchestra in this time was also a great source for Rag-time, as they turned out tunes like "Dixie Girl"(which you can hear here.)"Peaceful Henry", "Virginia Skedaddle", "HoneySuckle and the Bee"(you can hear it on a Climax record here!) and many more great Hylands arrangements. 
Hylands led the orchestra every time they made recordings, no matter who it was who did the arrangement, as he's loud, pushy with tempo, demanding of attention. That could certainly he said with the record of "HoneySuckle and the Bee", as for some reason, they go into a little bit of a tango time section at the end, that had to be of the devising of Fred Hylands(because it's not in the written music!).
Now I meant to share this cylinder yesterday, and it's that cylinder with this piece on it:

Yep, that's it. I wish I owned a copy of the original sheet music, but I don't ,and I haven't any friends who might have it. Anyhow, enough explaining, here's Hylands' almost mess of arrangement of his own, self-published, "Darkey Volunteer(s)" recorded in mid-1898(excuse the home recording just after the music ends...). 
There's so many weird things that went into the making of this piece of music, and the creation of this recording. 

One: Hylands hadn't had the means to publish the tune until 6 months after he wrote it.
Two: He didn't have anyone who wanted to publish it, so in order to solve that problem, he had  to do it all himself, EVERYTHING. 
Three: He found that after he recorded this with Ossman in about July of 1898, he dedicated it to Ossman, as seen above^^
 Four: He hand-wrote all the arrangement parts for all the members of the orchestra, and they must have just LOVED(sarcastically), having to read those...
It's a hell of an arrangement, and there's  so much going on at the same time that it's hard to keep up with the amount of sounds that are going. But that's the beauty of Hylands and his music, it was all exquisitely tangled up in his mind, until he found a way to make it somewhat less perplexing to the musicians who had to read it. It's still very hard and strange music to read, and to listen to. That's Hylands for ya. 

I'm not really sure it you'd consider "The Darker Volunteer" a Rag-Time piece, but it must have been considered that in its day, and perhaps by the composer himself, who hadn't a title(or a written score) of it until about a month after he had the idea sprouting. Banta was a little less scattered. 

Banta was one who had his idea, and then got to writing it down the night after it came to mind, not letting it linger and somehow recollecting the melodies, after a multitude of harsh drinks. Banta had more music written out, and more arrangements full and ready for the musicians to read. They didn't always fall together so well with the Metropolitan orchestra, such as on this mess here. Yes, that record is pretty much the definition of the music falling apart, but it's still interesting, because if you're listening close enough, you can hear Banta count them off at the beginning, like he did so often.  The problem with Banta leading an orchestra is that he was rushy, and pushed the rhythm sometimes, so that can be uncomfortable to some of the other band members. But minus the tangled up ones like "The Sleighing Party", there are also fantastic Rag/Cakewalk arrangements by Banta, such as his great and very "tight" arrangement of Kerry Mills' lesser known Cake-Walk "Impecunious Davis" recorded in 1901. That is an outstanding early recording of Rag-Time, enough said, Banta did well on that one. 

Well, there's so many more great examples, but I would need to save them for other posts, as I've exhausted much of the material I know of off-the-top-of-my- head, more will come soon! 

I hope you enjoyed this!