00 Cylinders Notes.txt
CYLINDER JAZZ -- EARLY JAZZ AND RAGTIME FROM PHONOGRAPH CYLINDERS
Musical Heritage Society MHS 7138H, 1985
LP rip by Dick Baker, April 2011
SIDE 1
Julius Lenzberg
1. Hungarian Rag (2089) (a)
Anton Lada - Alcide Nunez - Karl Berger
2. Clarinet Squawk (3896) (c)
Felix Bernard - Johnny S. Black
3. Dardanella (3965) (e)
Fiorito - Keidel
4. Meadow Lark (5254) (m)
Jack Little - Dick Finch
5. Where's My Sweetie Hiding? (4941) (h)
Al Bernard - J. Russel Robinson
6. Blue-Eyed Sally (4964) (i)
Jack Yellen - Milton Ager
7. Ain't She Sweet? (5333) (n)
SIDE 2
Fran Frey - Eddie Kilfeather - George Olsen
1. She's a Cornfed Indiana Gal (5185) (k)
Scholf
2. Make That Trombone Laugh (3966) (d)
Joe McCarthy - Fred Fisher
3. Night Time in Little Italy (3286) (b)
Heath - Fletcher - Marr
4. I'm Going to Park Myself in Your Arms (5236) (l)
Ira and George Gershwin
5. That Certain Feeling (5162) (j)
George Gershwin
6. Do It Again (Intro. Drifting Along with the Tide) (4572) (f)
Milton Ager
7. Louisville Lou (4779) (g)
(a): The New York Military Band; ca. July, 1913
(b): Frisco Jazz Band; June 4, 1917
(c): Louisiana Five; September 12, 1919
(d): Harry Raderman's Jazz Orchestra; January 9, 1920
(e): Harry Raderman's Jazz Orchestra; January 13, 1920
(f): Harry Raderman's Jazz Orchestra; April 3, 1922
(g): Paul Victorin's Orchestra; June 11, 1923
(h): The Merry Sparklers; October 24, 1924
(i): Billy Wynne's Greenwich Village Orchestra; January 10, 1925
(j): Tennessee Happy Boys; April 20, 1926
(k): Earl Oliver's Jazz Babies; July 9, 1926
(l): Duke Yellman and His Orchestra; September 16, 1926
(m): Duke Yellman and His Orchestra; October 21, 1926
(n): Clyde Doerr and His Orchestra; March 31, 1927
It is a very far cry from the first experimental cylinder recording of 1877, devised by 30-year-old Thomas Alva Edison of Menlo Park, New Jersey, and the smooth-surfaced, mass-produced, sophisticated artifacts of the 1920s and slightly earlier, which Edison's company named Blue Amberols and marketed on an international scale with considerable success, in the face of competition from conventional lateral-cut discs. This record offers 14 examples of these cylinders, which play for as long as an ordinary 12-inch 78-rpm record, or even a little more in some instances. Although Edison's personal taste did not accept jazz in any shape or form, he was astute enough as the head of a business to realize that that, or what passed for it, was what the public of the last decade of his life demanded--so he gave it to them. Many of the bands recording for Edison were exclusive to his label. Several remain very obscure, but the quality of their music equals the kind being produced by better-known bands on other, major, labels. Other bands, such as Harry Raderman's, recorded freely for many labels, often giving the same repertoire to each.
To begin at the beginning, however, the first piece on the record is typical of its pre-World War I era. Most dance records then were made by military-style bands that could and did also record light classics, popular concert works, selections from operas, musical comedies, and operettas, even sacred music: anything, in fact, that was put in front of them. The individual names are lost to us, which is a pity, for it is obvious that they were first-class musicians. Some had probably undergone training in the great concert bands directed by John Philip Sousa or Patrick Conway. Like those bands, they could give a good account of ragtime when required, as their reading of an arrangement of Julius Lenzberg's "Hungarian Rag" shows.
Not long after America's entry into World War I, what was called the Frisco Jazz Band made its only recordings, all of them for Edison. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band from New Orleans was enormously successful in playing for dancers in Reisenweber's Cafe, New York. The Frisco Jazz Band mayor may not have originated in San Francisco, but their attempts to emulate the Dixielanders' example are by no means worthless, the trombone being outstanding. Could it be that he was also a New Orleanian, who had heard there was big money to be made in New York, and had journeyed there as a result? Rudy Wiedoeft, later to become recognized as the world's greatest technician of the alto saxophone, is apparently the clarinetist--he played both instruments--but his colleagues in the band remain unidentified to this day.
Similarly constituted, but without using a violin, the Louisiana Five was a very popular, if short-lived, band that reaped the rewards of being a genuine New Orleans-based group in New York in the heady months following the Armistice of November 11, 1918. The leader was drummer Anton Lada, an adequate if not outstanding performer, but the principal voice was that of clarinetist Alcide Nunez, himself an ex-member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band during their sojourn in Chicago in 1916. Gifted with extraordinary technical facility, he produced a clean, sweetly singing tone on his instrument, and contrived to play the dual roles of cornet (stating the essentials of the written melody) and clarinet (improvising around the melody) with considerable success. It is a fact, however, that when on its last recording in December 1919, the Louisiana Five became a sextet with the addition of a cornetist, its music was thereby greatly enhanced.
By the time the Louisiana Five had disbanded, a dominant figure in the shape of trombonist Harry Raderman had come on the New York dance music scene. He achieved fame initially for his bucolic guffawing on Joseph C. Smith's incredibly tasteless record of W. C. Handy's lovely number "Yellow Dog Blues"; and while the three tracks by his own band show that, when inclined, Harry Raderman was a good trombonist in the Dixieland idiom, he seemed to feel it necessary to repeat his first success ad nauseam. Nevertheless, there is quite a strong jazz element in all these numbers. "Dardanella" is an attractive pseudo-oriental melody that swept the world early in 1920. Harry Raderman recorded it for Gennett and Lyric as well as for Edison, necessarily more briefly in view of the shorter playing time allowable on these labels; and it says something for him and his associates that there are noticeable differences among these versions.
By the time Paul Victorin, whoever he may have been, and his orchestra recorded "Louisville Lou" in 1923, laughing trombones and other attributes of the so-called Jazz Age were as unacceptable to the public and as out of date in style as they are now. Instead, the vogue was for blues, or what was thought of as such, and this track is a praiseworthy attempt at portraying the idiom through a popular song. Nothing is known of the identities of the members of the Victorin orchestra, which only made six sides in all, but this example suggests they knew what jazz meant.
Over a year later, the Merry Sparklers--another unidentified band--were busy recording fox trots aplenty for Edison. Here again is a commercial dance band that suggests its members had some idea of how to play in the jazz idiom: and if the veil of mystery were ever to be lifted from them, it would not be surprising to find some quite well-known names in the personnel list. There is at least one such in the ranks of Billy Wynne's Greenwich Village Orchestra: that of Red Nichols, who sat in with many recording and regular bands at the time the Wynne band made "Blue-Eyed Sally," the music of which was written by another ex-Original Dixieland man, pianist J. Russel Robinson.
The Tennessee Happy Boys and Earl Oliver's Jazz Babies were musically related, in that trumpeter Earl Oliver and sundry colleagues from banjoist Harry Reser's band were present in both. Oliver, unlike his surname-sake from New Orleans, never had much recognition from the jazz fraternity, but as this was written, in 1982, attempts were being made to rectify that. For Earl Oliver was an excellent musician with easily recognizable traits in his playing, and he usually contributed interesting solos to all records with which he was involved. He knew how to drive a band along, to make it swing in the best sense; but to the best of my knowledge, he vanished from the music world, and possibly the world at large, sometime around 1930, for he seems to have recorded nothing since.
Despite the obvious indications to the contrary, Thomas Edison felt that there was a large market for well-made cylinders right up to the time when he closed the recording side of his business ten days before Wall street laid its famous egg in October 1929. Many customers who lived long distances from large towns and major cities stayed faithful to Edison as he did to them, buying cylinders that were beautifully made to be played on superbly manufactured phonographs as they, the customers, had always played their home entertainment. The coming of radio nearly killed records in America; then came electric recording. Thomas Edison, the genius of electricity and all it could then achieve, was late in applying it to records. His wares had lost much of their appeal by the time they went over to the new system in 1927, soon after the last-recorded track on this record; and latter-day Edison Blue Amberols and their sister products, the quarter-inch-thick Diamond Discs, are extremely rare. Two years after closing his record division, Edison died, at the age of 84. His passing underlined the end of an era: the Jazz Age, some called it. Here are 14 priceless mementoes of that age, thanks to Thomas Alva Edison.
--Brian Rust
The numbers in parentheses after each title are the original Edison Blue Amberol Cylinder catalog numbers.
Edison Blue Amberol Cylinders loaned by Roy Mickleburgh, John R. T. Davies
Transcriptions by John R. T. Davies
Recorded in New York
Produced by Gef Lucena
Cover Art: Cylinders (courtesy Dover Publications)
Jacket Design: Jayne Travis
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 84-743429
Produced by Saydisc Records
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