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! 

Hylands' web of spies

Well folks, the West Coast Ragtime Festival is coming up, so I've been real busy getting art done, and getting all of my pianist research ready for a prime-time seminar. While I've been in this frenzied state I have spent a lot of time going back and critically thinking over the research I've done on Fred Hylands. In the last week, a few unexpected discoveries came up while on digs for other things. 

Last night I was going though that book that much of Hager's scrapbook was covered in, the one documenting 50 years of the Masonic lodge Hager and Ring were in, and I combed through the membership list again. 

I saw a name that was oddly familiar. The name Sampson Gelder was listed as a member. Now, I don't know if I've ever mentioned this name before here on this blog, but he is most definitely connected with Hylands. But how?

So he was initiated into the Masonic lodge of Hager and Ring in 1903, and 10 years later he was growing closer to Hylands' recently widowed wife Marie. In 1915, Marie married Sam and they moved back to Chicago where she and Fred married 20 years before. So that tripped me out, seeing Sam Gelder listed as part of the same lodge as Hager and Ring. I wonder if it was Hager to introduced Sam to the Hylands', or who knows how all three of them are connected. 

So this got me thinking...from my past research on Hylands, he wasn't really allowed in any major clubs or lodges, due to his oddly toxic presence and personality(or whatever it was). So I'm wondering if he had made lots of friends in these organizations to get information from. Someone like Burt Green would certainly have provided Hylands lots of information about what was going on in the inner crowd of Broadway, and his sketchy assistant James Phelan Cuddy would have similar insight into the publishing business. 

James Phelan Cuddy, date uncertain, possibly the mid-1890's. 

Another thing to note in this idea is that Hylands knew everything about the George W. Johnson murder trial through Rollin Wooster. Hylands had no business whatsoever inserting himself into this matter, but how he did. So essentially Hylands knew where all the bodies were buried, almost quite literally in this case. I'm sure having this level of power over everyone at work didn't bode well for Hylands' already rotten reputation. After all the publishing ordeal, Hylands had moved on to something else, Ring and Hager. 

Considering Hylands' scary good sense of observation and his web of spies, he knew about Hager from the start. Hager was known before he started making records in 1898, as he was known as the youngest professional bandleader in New York. It took until mid 1898 for minor recording companies to finally take him in to make violin records. His arrival in the recording community was plastered all over phonograph trade magazines, particularly The Phonoscope, so clearly it was a big deal. Hylands was being mentioned back to back with Hager in The Phonoscope, so without a doubt he knew about this new hot young thing(Hager) that was making violin record and leading an exceptional band. 

Hager around 1898. 

When Hager had made his way to Zon-O-Phone in 1899-1900, it seems more likely now that Hylands helped Hager and young Ring to find talent to record for them. The only thing that connects Hylands with Hager and Ring in 1899-1900 is the fact that Vess Ossman recorded "The Darkey Volunteer" on a very early blank Zon-O-phone. On this record(which I have not heard yet), would have to have Ring piano accompaniment, and wherever this piece was recorded, Hylands was involved in its approval. Another thing to note here is that Hylands published a piece with Spencer by a guy named Dick Thomas, who was an off-Broadway vaudeville performer, likely picked up by Hylands through Burt Green. Luckily, I happen to own this particular sheet:

This piece was published in 1900, the same year that Thomas recorded for Zon-O-Phone, so I'm thinking that Hylands had something to do with that. Ring and Hager recorded other small time vaudevillians and songwriters on Zono in 1900, and it wouldn't surprise me if Hylands was part of those as well. 

It was also around this time that Ring started working for Columbia as a pianist. In 1900 only do we hear records by Columbia and Zono with strikingly similar accompaniments on the same songs. For example, I've heard a 1900 Columbia record of "say you love me sue" and a 1900 Zono of the same song by Edward Favor, and the accompaniment is almost identical, but they are most certainly not the same pianists playing. 

When Ring and Hager formally joined Columbia in 1901, Hylands was still holding steady there, and that meant they'd be getting bossed around and gossiped about by him. Hager may have been the director for the Columbia orchestra and all, but Hylands was still the accompanist. It was in this period of 1901-1903 that Ring and Hager developed compositional styles somewhat similar to and obviously informed by Hylands. In previous posts I highlighted the striking similarities between Hylands' "The Darkey volunteer" and Hager's "Handsome Harry". 

All of this went away when Hylands left Columbia around the middle of 1903, which was good for Ring and Hager, and I'm sure the management was all quite relieved as well. Hylands left recording, but he kept his will to keep friends in various communities he wasn't allowed in. He remained a distant friend of Burt Green's, and after Columbia he was forced to cultivate different friends, this time mostly in the theater and publishing fields. His influence on Ring and Hager remained however, as Ring played accompaniments similar to Hylands as late as the mid-1920's. 

Anyway folks, that's all I got on that matter. Before I close out here, I'd like to highlight what will be in the next post. In the last few days I did some digging on Charles Prince and found a lot more than I  bargained for. I even went to visit his grave upon hearing that he was buried not far from me. It turns out that he was a much more difficult character than anyone had ever made him out to be. The other thing I hope to write about in the next post, is a single record that I won in an auction recently. 

I got the auction list and missed the record several times reading through, and once a friend pointed it out to me, it hit me like a loving slap across the face. It seemed impossible, it seemed like a dream...

It's a Climax record from 1901 with the performer listed as J. Ringleben Jr.'s orchestra.

WHAT? How could this be? 

There's no way.

But yes indeed, it's real, and there's no evidence of it being known to exist before it showed up in the auction. I have not gotten the record in the mail just yet, so I will wait until it comes to write about it in detail. The existence of this record is still confusing me, even all these weeks after learning of it. 

With that...

Hope you enjoyed this! 

Back to 33 and Levels of Preservation

It's been awhile since I've written about Hylands, Spencer and Yeager. With all that I've written about them so far, I still haven't completely exhausted all there is to know about them. It would be good to spend some time speaking of them, as I have been so buried in Ring and Hager material for the last few months. 

So, we all remember them! 

In the last few days, I have spent a lot of time thinking back to the old stories I read about them in The Phonoscope and the brief mentionings of it throughout Jim Walsh's writing. 

I observed something very curious while doing this. 

I hadn't really thought long about how Roger Harding set up a publishing house across the street from Hylands in 1900. The more I spent thinking on it, the whole thing seemed more odd and interesting. 

So just to refresh, in 1899, Hylands and Harding were the main driving forces for the Hylands Spencer and Yeager firm. Harding was essentially the fourth name in the firm. Hylands and Harding collaborated on a few songs they published in 1899, and it seems that they were working together perfectly. But, in early 1900, Harding picked up and left Hylands and the crew to set up his own publishing firm across the street from the Columbia studio. 

Something odd happened. And in this last week, I really started thinking about how odd this was. Hylands and Harding abruptly split up, and considering what came about in the time succeeding this, whatever happened couldn't have been good. But! Harding wasn't the first to jump ship. In mid-1900, it seemed that all the tight knit Columbia studio community started breaking up, all jumping ship one by one. In the few 1900 editions of The Phonoscope that I have flipped through, I noticed that slowly it seemed a lot more the community who wrote for and were mentioned in that publication were starting to split up. One of the pieces I recall  from around mid-1900 stated that Hylands himself was beginning to take jobs elsewhere, and working in vaudeville again(as he had been doing before recording).  That particular statement seems odd to me. 

There's that section!

So the "big sales" thing doesn't seem to fit too well. By mid-1900, the publishing firm thing was starting to wind down, and it was doing so quite fast. It was in that time frame that Roger Harding picked up and left, and when folks were starting to become intrigued with the new fangled Zon-O-Phone. By fall of 1900, the fine Turkish carpet he had so hardly worked for had been torn from under Hylands. Everyone had abandoned him and the publishing firm. 

But why?

For a year, the Hylands Spencer and Yeager thing was booming, and Hylands had made his way up to the top from being the deadbeat rag-time pianist Columbia hired in 1897. Keep in mind that he was a nobody when he started at Columbia in 1897, in 1898 his significance became clear with the popularity of his signature rag-time accompaniments. Something devastating happened, and I have no idea what it was. It caused such important benefactors like Roger Harding and Steve Porter to quickly take their leave before the others. 

(Harding in 1895, from a friend's collection)

(Steve Porter at the recording horns in 1897)

Whatever it was that forced these close friends to all break up so quickly, it kept them apart. Hylands still worked at Columbia, as he had to, but a lot of the crew, like Steve Porter, Gaskin, Quinn, etc, didn't work together much after 1900. For example, the Imperial Minstrels records had stopped by 1901, no longer was the old crew working in big groups like that. Everyone started going off and doing other things, such as working for other companies and heading into recording management(George Schweinfest did the latter for example). Russell Hunting left in 1899, Steve Porter left for the far east in 1902, and Spencer started working for Lambert, Edison, Zono, and more. 

Something went seriously wrong with the publishing firm, and as I said, I have no idea why, and I don't really have any good solid guesses. 

One thing that came to mind however, is that this where Ring and Hager come in. Ring started working at Columbia right as the Hylands Spencer and Yeager thing was falling apart. So of course someone like him would have been so valuable at that point. The 25 year old Ringleben was as willing to work as Banta, had no place to live, was caring for an aged father, and willing to try anything to get decent money. The coming of Ring may also have helped out Hylands put out the fires that were still burning from the collapse of the publishing firm. 

 (most likely Hylands and Ring around 1902)

As Columbia was transitioning into the 20th century, it seemed that it was perfect timing for Ring and Hager to start making their way into the lab. Hager had his ambitions elsewhere, but Ring was working for the then orchestra director Thomas Clark, next Hager, then ultimately Prince. Hylands was taking jobs elsewhere by 1901, though he was still working regularly at Columbia. I suspect tensions were high when one of the old guard at Columbia had to work with Hylands then. Someone like Spencer would have been bitter working with Hylands after 1900, but it did happen, and luckily with the new talent acquisitions at that point, Spencer wouldn't have to work with Hylands as much. 

I believe I have mentioned that based on the sequence of studio pianists, each previous pianist was to mentor the next one, as it required very specific skills to become proficient as a phonograph accompanist. Hylands likely mentored Ring for a short period of time, this time being right after Hylands Spencer and Yeager.

Anyway, I'm starting to talk about something else, so I'll leave it at that.

Who knows what it was that split up the tight knit Columbia community in 1900...The fact that it happened so quickly is tantalizing, and because of this i will continue to look for hints. There's really no way to definitively find out why this happened, but there might be hints. I hope you recall that no one talked about Hylands in interviews. So all of this Hylands Spencer and Yeager nonsense was never well documented in the first place. Folks like Quinn and Porter didn't say a word of it, even though we know for certain they were part of it.

And that is a good transition to my next topic! 

Back to some Ring and Hager research!  One thing that has always fascinated me as a researcher of this very scant area of music history is how the characters involved in the history spoke of and interpreted it. Jim Walsh spoke with the last bunch of the original recording stars, Quinn, Joe Belmont, Byron Harlan, and Hager to name a few. Quinn's writings to Walsh are among the most extensive accounts of the earliest recording business. A long while ago I did a very detailed post where I pulled apart parts of Quinn's letters. As researchers now, we have everything laid out before us, but even with that being true, we have to spend many hours decoding all this information. A lot of things are mixed up and don't exactly go together the ways that the original participants stated. A few posts ago I detailed Hager's accounts of the OkeH field recordings of 1923-1925, and how his accounts are very valuable, but present issues. 

I just got an article on Justin Ring published, and it was a very difficult undertaking. It was this way for many reasons, and I don't even know some of them. I want to write a definitive article on Hager, but there's so much information on Hager, that a single article won't do. I ran into this problem with the Justin Ring project.

(Ring in 1903 and Hager in 1895 or so) 

I spent months getting frustrated about how I could find so little on Ring in that essential period after 1885 and before 1910. This is still proving true unfortunately. So as my mind works, I started asking the questions as to why it would be so difficult to find any information on Ring in general. Hager was easy to find information on, at this point I actually have a pretty good idea of what he was like as a person, and what interviewing him would have been like. With Ring, it has always been a dead end. 

So I keep going back and pouring through the primary sources(including Hager's own papers) to see if I could get some second handed hints. While doing this, it occurred to me how much Hager loved talking about his past and the projects he was part of. He probably had thousands of papers very meticulously organized in folders, and records and books too. This becomes very clear while flipping through Walsh's writings from Hager in his articles. When Walsh started writing to him in the 1940's, Hager realized that all his memories and written history would be important, and that's where he started gathering everything, and started to spend a good amount of time writing about the history he drove and witnessed. Soon he became consumed with the joy of reminiscence and digging through his papers and books. 

(a bit from Hager's writing published in the April, 1951 edition of Hobbies)

You can tell Hager loved going through his stuff. When Walsh reminded him of something, he would go and look for it, if he couldn't find it, he'd ask others who would probably have it. Hager had taken most of Cal Stewart's material by the time he was writing to Walsh, so much of the information we have on Stewart was from Hager's own very meticulous descriptions in his letters to Walsh. So, clearly Hager was very involved in and aware of his past. He knew that what he did was important. But what about Ring?

Hager wrote so much and very much enjoyed getting buried in his past, as he had a very carefully organized scrapbook to accompany the thousands of papers he kept regarding himself and others like Cal Stewart. When Walsh was writing to Hager, he mentioned his partner Ring a bunch of times, as even then it was difficult to separate them. 

(Walsh's September 1962 description of the photo below)

(from a friend's collection)

Even Walsh described them as inseparable. It's possible that Walsh wrote to the old Ring, but he didn't get anything back. Walsh unfortunately had the same situation happen with Arthur Collins. He wrote to Collins in 1932, but never got anything back. A few years later Collins' wife Anna wrote back and told Walsh that he received and pondered on his letter, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth it to write back. 

So I'm thinking that a similar situation may have happened with Ring. Now this is where Ring and Hager were opposites. Hager kept everything, and Ring kept nothing. This is the point I was getting to here. This may be why it is so difficult to find anything on Ring. So consider how he lived while working for Hager and Prince. He had no place to live, he wasn't married, and writing arrangements and playing accompaniments wherever he could. With that frugal lifestyle, there was no way he could have kept anything. He was constantly adapting to the times, so of course he had little interest in preserving the past. 

So consider this...

If you were to go and visit Hager for an interview in say, 1953, he would so very much enjoy talking to you about history. He would gladly answer every question, and would tangent on that to tell another story, and another...and...another. He would go and dig things out as you spoke. the amount of information would be invaluable, and there would be so much of it you'd either be there all day and night or you'd have to come back for more. So the point being, that Hager would be the ideal person to interview about this stuff. You'd probably leave with a few things of his too. 

So let's say you made the trip down to mid-eastern Florida in 1960 to visit Justin Ring. You'd get to his place, and one of his daughters would answer the door. You'd be kicked off his property. Ring would quietly be sipping tea listening to the radio or thumbing through Variety, with his glasses tipped down on his nose. It would all be there...everything...all the sounds, people, words, and memories, but they were never to leave his mind. He wouldn't talk about any of it. He preferred to leave it all behind,  and being the sole survivor of his family by then, he had no business thinking about all his dead friends. 

But like the last subject I wrote about in this post, why?

Who knows?

Considering the amount of things he did, and the kind of people he had to work for and with in those 50 years, he probably had good reasons to keep-a-movin. All the way back to Hylands in 1898, he saw everything, and probably escaped death several times while all his friends were dropping dead around him, starting with Frank P. Banta in 1903, and ending with his brother Franz in 1960. 

Ring is a lot like how I'd think Banta would have been if he had lived long. Banta was perfectly content being the quiet and obedient accompanist, and likely spent little time talking about work with those who weren't in the business. He was so buried in work that many other things in life were not important. So interviewing him about recording would he difficult. 

This is why I study the neglected accompanists. They saw everything, and despite their lower reputations in the musical community(excluding issler), they got the last word. And you know what? 

Ring got the last word. 

He may not have spoke it, but he got it all-right. 

The accompanists we hear on these records were not famous in their day as accompanists, and they weren't famous in general. We always hear about these big names like Ben Harney, Eddie Foy, Anna Held, even Mike Bernard, and they were so highly regarded in their day, but, with the exception of Bernard, they aren't the ones whose voices and legacies were immortalized. It's the ultimate payback, the most neglected and overworked performers in the early studios got the last word back then, and even now. I'm talking about the accompanists of course. Issler, Banta, Hylands, Ring and the rest got the last word, the last driving notes, after the main performers finish. The accompanists and studio workers are the ones we can get to know better than even the main performers, as we hear them on everything, not on just some things. 

So, anyway, this has been a hell of a case study! Before I close out I'd like to share a pair of records that I believe are arrangements by Justin Ring. Based on the composition style compared to his accompaniments, these arrangements line up to that style. I am also thinking that after Ring and Hager split up from 1906 to 1912 or so, Ring worked for Prince at Columbia. 

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000138962/3405-Sliding_Jim

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000139001/3444-Dixie_queen_march

So there ya go folks! 

Hope you enjoyed this!

The studio pianist speaks and more new transfers

In the last week, I got a few interesting items in the mail. I had some issues with Ebay a few months ago, so I spent a bit of a hiatus away from Ebay. The sheet music market proved quite fertile in my time away, as I kept hearing of wonderful pieces of sheet music and records for sale. Nothing soul shaking for me luckily. Nothing like a pristine copy of "The Darkey Volunteer" or "Handsome Harry". 

So, I finally have gotten back into getting things on Ebay, and this last few weeks' items are very interesting. For a little while now, there have been a few postcards from the 1900's featuring song lyrics floating around on Ebay. recently, it was brought to my attention that a few of these cards had a particular publisher's name at the bottom. 

A few of these cards were published by Helf and Hager!

(well yes of course I chose that one)

I had no idea that these were made! Imagine my surprise upon seeing this. So, with this new found knowledge, I am wondering which songs of theirs were used for these cards. Recently I went digging through copyright records to see what oddities could be found, and should keep the eyes peeled for. There were lots of interesting pieces present, including some unexpected names!

To go on a bit of a tangent for a moment, my theory of Hager always having an arranger is closer to being proven. Just from all the digging through copyright records, there seems to have been an arranger for at least 90% of his pieces I have seen so far. I still have more things to dig through to definitively prove this, but it's looking good so far. While on this recent dig, Herbert Clarke made a few appearances as Hager's arranger! That got me curious about Hager's connection with Victor. Thanks to bits of Hager's own scrapbook(I do not own it), he saved a few clippings regarding his special trips to Victor in Spring of 1903. So we know he stuck around at Victor until at least the late fall of 1903, but how connected did he really become with Victor? Maybe when he became a publisher all the record companies jumped at him. His already high status must have been heightened when he became Mr. Helf's secretary. 

Anyway, i hope to snag some more of those Helf and Hager cards. Now that I know they exist, I'll be looking through most piles of old postcards at antique stores until I find another. 

So what's the highlight of the recent finds? Well, it's definitely an OkeH record! Now that I have been studying bits of Hager's personal collection, I have been anxiously searching around for OkeH and Rex records. There's actually a lot of material I find interesting and fit for my collection on OkeH, especially now that I own the physical evidence of Hager's involvement in the field recording projects of 1923 to 1925. So what is this record I got? It's a record I have heard about for awhile actually. Before all the deeper digging into OkeH and such, I saw this record listed and wondered what it would sound like. Well here ya go:

Seems simple enough. 

I had no idea what to expect from this. The performer listed is what is most attractive here, as it is something that is uncommon, though it paints Ring out to be the star. Well, considering my ever growing love for Justin Ring, this record seemed a perfect addition to my collection. 

But holy crap! When I played this thing I just about passed out! I couldn't believe my ears. That voice...the voice at the beginning. It can't be...but it must be! 

Listen here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/16PBlrdd2SkLrXMKldYx7grzDWTuCznG-/view?usp=sharing

The pianist speaks! Yes indeed folks, that is the voice of Justin Ring. 

(Ring in 1903 courtesy of Jason Sanders)

Now this record other than Ring's(quite pleasing I might add) voice at the beginning, isn't too special. Most of it is a celeste solo, which is pleasant, but not outstanding. But of course because this is my collection we're talking about, this record is invaluable. It holds the loud and clear words of Justin Ringleben, a significant rag-time pianist and composer, and important background figure on thousands of recordings. 

So how could this be used in relation to other records? 

The first thing that came to mind was that 1902-ish piano solo on Columbia. You know, that one I highlighted in a post a little while back? 

So after a few more months of studying Zon-O-Phone's and Columbias back and forth, I think I may have unlocked the mystery. When I did the post on this record awhile back I really was thinking the pianist was Hylands. But after more close examination of Hylands' whereabouts and Ring's invariable presence at Columbia, this is seeming more of a confusing mess. The most important thing to note about the 1902 record(0ther than the piano playing) is that announcer. In the post about this Columbia piano solo, I broke down the announcement, word by word, with the dialect dissected. 

Here's the record to refresh the mind of it:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder14515

That announcer really stands out. It's not someone recognizable to a collector of Columbia's of this period. It's not Harry Spencer, Joe Belmont, Tom Clark, or Quinn. Now that I have a very clear example of Ring's voice, I have been doing comparisons like mad to try and figure it out. I am really not sure what to say, as the announcer is almost definitely the performer. This has been itching at me or the last few days, as these two records should technically have the same voice at the beginning, but I am really not sure at all. This has been a great source of conflict, now that the perfect example of Ring's voice is in my hands. 

Anyway, if any of you have input about the comparison between the 1902 and the 1922 records, please comment! I'd love to read your input. 

After that OkeH came in the mail, I went searching for more example of Justin Ring's playing on that label. There's a fair amount of it that was issued luckily. The more I dig for them, the more I seem to find. It seems that later in his days in the studios, he became a better accompanist. He evolved, and that's a good thing. His odd sense of time became smoother as times changed. One particular record captured my heart. It's been awhile since I fell in love with a record in such a way, but this one did it. It seemed so generic, but it was heavenly. (I'm learning this is a pattern with the OkeH records I am going after).

https://archive.org/details/78_la-la_nathan-glantz-justin-ring_gbia0004086a/La+La+-+Nathan+Glantz+-+Justin+Ring.flac

Luckily they really had some of the best recording technology there, so the piano comes through astonishingly well. Ring's old sentimental style comes through on this one. Compare with this 1900 Zono:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By7WuiOUrg7YcDBSVEhGRDBFdnZYYmVhdXVXR3IxMVZ0aWNZ/view?usp=sharing

His sweet playing remained the same, which is nice for me studying his accompaniment style. What's interesting is that his rhythmic playing was still just a little bit out of whack in the early 1920's. Not nearly as eccentric as his early records for the Zon-O-Phone, but the soul is still there. 

Anyway, before I close, I'd like to share another new transfer. This one is another Spencer and Hylands! Yes I have been face deep in Ring and Hager studies, but I still return to the classic Rag-Time pair of Spencer and Hylands when Ring's eccentricities prove too much for me. 

This particular record is an early one for Spencer and Hylands, 1897 in fact. These early ones are the most essential for pinpointing when Hylands began working for Columbia. 

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder16698

The piano sound is that signature terrible tone of 1897-1898 Columbias. There are some interesting bits the accompanist plays here, including bass heavy inversions of chords in the left hand at the vamps. Naturally, I would assume that in itself to be a Hylands characteristic, and logically it would be, as I have heard him play that often. In my last post I highlighted a 1902-ish take of "the Laughing song" by Johnson, and how the vamps are lumbering, as they were on previous takes by Johnson, and this is similarly present on this 1897 Columbia. 

Here's that 1902-ish Columbia from the last post:

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000135596/211-The_whistling_coon

Similar accompaniment style overall. And I am CERTAIN that the pianist is Hylands on that 1902-ish "Whistling Coon". Despite all that I have been learning about Ring and Hager's involvement at Columbia around that time, Hylands was still there occasionally. Of course when that happened he thundered in and pushed aside Ring and Hager with a domineering heave, as they were slowly taking his place. 

Anyway, that 1897Spencer and Hylands is fascinating, even though there isn't a piano solo at the very end. 

Hope you enjoyed this! 

The Columbia Triangle and a first session

So, I returned from ARSC on Sunday, and there's an awful lot to report on. On the hour and a half flight back from Portland, I wrote eight pages of notes for future reference. Amid these pages, I highlighted a single conversation that I had with Tim Brooks. We spoke a good amount about the logistics of the 1900 to 1904 period at Columbia and Zon-O-Phone, and a few things came to light in this conversation. 

In reference to the last few posts, I recently uncovered from a Jim Walsh article that Hager himself stated that he was the musical director(or a director of some kind) at Columbia from 1900 to 1903. This proves that Hager worked at Columbia for certain, and also proves the cross pollination that happened between Columbia and Zon-O-Phone during this period. 

So what does this mean? Well, luckily I was able to discuss this with Tim Brooks, leading into the discussion with Hylands' role in the Columbia studio around 1900. 

So, Mr. Brooks observed that at Columbia during their early disc making days, oftentimes they would have different recording rooms for the disc takes and a different room for the cylinders. This would have been particularly so during the Climax period(1901-1902). So, this actually makes so much sense! Even if this wasn't necessarily so all the time, it would make sense that they would have different folks managing  the disc than the cylinder market at Columbia. So with the disc stuff at Columbia, this is where Hager fits in. Thanks to the large group portrait of Hager's orchestra, we know for sure that he worked at Columbia sometime in 1900 to 1903. 

So, again this begs the question, what does this mean?

Let's say Hager was the musical director at Columbia in this period, that would mean that his piano accompaniments are somewhere on Columbia in 1900 to 1903. Since this is probably so, this means there's a triangle here. 

The three being Hylands, Hager and Ring. This unusual trio would make up the Columbia piano accompaniments of this period. Well, that's great and all, but it makes the listening portion complicated. Despite the complication, I have noticed there's more than one pianist on Columbia in this period, and one of them was definitely a pianist on Zon-O-Phone in this period. So here's the issue, just as I explained in the previous few posts, I have gone back and listened to many dozens of Zono and Columbia records from this period back to back, and still the same triangle of pianists remains between the 2 companies. Nothing has changed about that, though I am still unsure of which pianist is hager. I know which one is Ring, and which is Hylands, but the Hager style is difficult to pin down. 

I still am leaning toward the idea that the smoother and looser style is Hager's, the one that sounds more directly related to Hylands'. A little while ago I wrote a detailed comparison between Hylands' and Hager's regional styles, and in the end it seems their styles of extraction aren't actually too different from one another. 

Hylands and Hager. 

The last time I compared their composition styles I used Hager's "Handsome Harry" and Hylands' "Darkey Volunteer". The first lines of both pieces are nearly identical. Hager clearly was listening to Hylands' accompaniments, whether it be in person or on the records he was studying. 

Just to refresh the memory of this, here are the two pieces played under the direction of the composers:

https://archive.org/details/DarkeyVolunteerColumbiaorchFredHylands1898

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkKOHd0P6vM

Now we know they were in the Columbia studio together for at least 2 years, most likely trading off as the pianist on discs and cylinders. I'm starting to think that Hager was the pianist who played the piccolo like flourishes at the very end of many Columbia records(as well as Zon-O-Phone's). This sort of signature ending was typical of bandleaders of the era, a good example being Arthur Pryor. So here are two good examples that illustrate that flourish at the end, one is a Columbia and the other a Zon-O-Phone:

https://ia800209.us.archive.org/16/items/ArthurCollins_part1/ArthurCollins-EveryDarkyHadaRaglanOnCoonSong.mp3

(this is the Columbia)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By7WuiOUrg7YR2xSRW40WnpZc2ZHVzlOMWR4MmF6SmNpMDBR/view?usp=sharing

(here is the Zon-O-Phone)

That same style is exactly the same as one of the three I've heard on Columbias from the same time, the Zono listed above is astonishingly similar to the Columbia. The rolled chord with the flourish, the likeness is mirrored. Unlike the Ring style, this particular one is more steady and constant, not swung and aggressive like Ring's. 

Well, this is still a work in progress, as it will continue to be until I see some actual ledgers for Columbia or Zon-O-Phone. 

Maybe Hager's scrapbooks and personal papers could hold answers...

Something is happening right now regarding these papers by the way...

Anyway, moving on! While at ARSC last week, I discussed a very important discovery regarding Banta's recording career. Believe it or not, I may have found Banta's very first recording date. Awhile back I wrote a bit on a newspaper article dated to 1893 regarding the new field of recording, which just happened to contain a perfect bit on Banta. So, in the original article from 1893, it stated that Banta had been working in the business for just about a year by then. And so now we have some hard evidence to prove that! 

July 30th, 1892. 

That is the date where Banta's name first shows up in any ledgers. So what were these ledgers exactly? Well, they were payment ledgers, not exactly the solid ledgers with titles and logistics, but it's the closest thing to it. This payment book wasn't necessarily from North American either, it was from the much smaller New York Phonograph company that didn't last to the patent battles of 1895. In these ledgers, it's fascinating to note that the pianists were paid equally and sometimes even more than the performers! Now that's satisfying, knowing the accompanists were paid well(at least in the earliest early days). Ever more unsurprising was who Banta was accompanying at his first session, Dan W. Quinn. Of course! Quinn was so very fond of Banta, so it makes sense that this connection goes back to the very beginning of both their recording careers. I would bet money that Quinn was the reason Banta got into the business in some kind of way. Quinn was a popular vaudeville performer in this period, so he probably came across the young hot Banta somewhere on the vaudeville circuit. 

So maybe it would be helpful to seek out some records of this company, or just that year more generally. If it's possible, it's likely that we could pick out a 22-23 year old Banta on some of Quinn's and Ossman's earliest records. A good start to this search would be looking for some of the earliest records by Quinn and Ossman that survive. The earliest Quinn record I have heard is from 1893, and here it is: 

https://ia800902.us.archive.org/24/items/DanWQuinn/DanWQuinn-OhMrsOflahertyWhatDidYouMeanBeThat_64kb.mp3

So i have no idea what the company of this record is, and it's not indicated at the beginning, so who knows, it could be one of those early Quinn-Banta records. I'll have to spend some more time digging for early Quinn records, it's entirely possible to dig up a few of these record he made with Banta, and if they aren't Columbia's it's more likely to be Banta than Gaisberg(or Schweinfest, whoever they had there). Just on this one record though, I caught the clustered chords that mirror the right hand. That's a signature Banta characteristic, heard on hundreds of Edison's and Victors nearly a decade later. So the likelihood of Banta's presence on Quinn's earliest records is VERY likely. 

This is what a single page of ledgers can unfold. 

See how great it is to have ledgers?

I still have a lot to write about from the conversations I had at ARSC, but in this post here I stuck with the things I could easily write on without several hours of searching for. Soon I hope to dig into the Boston Symphony archives to see if I can trace Hager's relationship with the BSO director and musicians in 1911-1912. That search may be opening a can of worms, but if anything becomes of it the opening will be worth it. This is only one more thing that will likely become a project in the near future! I also have been told where to find Victor Herbert's scrapbooks, and searching for those may also open up and sort out a lot of the confusion I have been coming to regarding his mixed relationship with recording companies. So anyway, I'll get to these things in the future after I can spend more time searching around for them. 

I cannot thank the ARSC members enough, who encouraged me to go and helped pay for my trip this year! Had a great time this year and was honored to meet and converse with so many great recording minds. I plan on attending next year's conference, hopefully you will all get to hear my piano playing at the next conference.  

For those of you who get them, look out for my article on Eddie King in The Syncopated Times coming out this month! Much of the writing I did here was pulled together for this piece. 

Hope you enjoyed this!