[return to
Table of Contents] [continue to Chapter 3]
Chapter 2: Early Canadian Ragtime Personalities and their
Music
There are a number of excellent biographies
of the major American ragtime composers, including biographies about
Scott Joplin (Berlin 1994), James Scott (DeVeaux and Kenney 1992) and
other works on American rags and their composers (Blesh and Janis
1966, for example). The number of Canadian ragtime
composers, however, compared to the number of American ragtime composers, is
much smaller; as a result, there is relatively little in the ragtime
literature on Canadian composers of ragtime music. Set out below (in
alphabetical order, by surname) is
brief mention of some of the more well known Canadian or Canadian
resident ragtime
composers and personalities:
2.1 Ivor (Jack) Ayre
(circa 1894 -
1977) [top]
Jack Ayre, a pianist in Toronto at silent movie theatres,
was chosen to be the pianist for "The
Dumbells," a unit in the Canadian army during World War I
that entertained the troops. Ayre composed the band's theme
song called The Dumbell Rag (see below), which sold over 10,000 pieces of sheet music,
according to
Kallmann and Moogk. The Dumbells performed for troops in
Europe, and after the war, they re-organized and toured (as
civilians) and performed through to the 1930's.
2.2) R. Nathaniel Dett (11 October 1882
~ 2 October 1943) [top]
R. Nathaniel Dett, circa 1923
Source:
NYPL Digital Library |
Recommended reading:
Dominique-Renede Lerma and Vivian Flagg McBrier, The
Collected Piano Works of R. Nathaniel Dett
(Evanston, IL: Summy-Birchard, 1973).
Anne Key Simpson, Follow Me: The
Life and Music of R. Nathaniel Dett (Metuchen, N.J.:
Scarecrow Press, 1993).
Recommending listening:
CD: William Grant Still,
Nathanial Dett: Piano Music (Altarus, 1996).
|
Canada can
claim
R. Nathaniel Dett as one of her citizens, despite his moving
to the United States with his family when he was 11 years old
for the rest of his life.
Although Dett is known primarily for his compositions of classical music and
spirituals, his three earliest known compositions were in the ragtime mode (see
below to download the sheet music for these three pieces):
- After the Cake Walk
(1900): Described as a "March Cake Walk" by the composer, this
piece is in the key of G major with the Trio and final
sections in the key of C major. It is an energetic, lightly
syncopated and rhythmic piece in the ragtime march tradition.
- Cave
of the Winds
(1902): This piece, which is also in the
keys of G and C major, is described by McBrier (Lerma and
McBrier 1973:ix) as a vigourous march using simple
traditional harmony. The title refers to the
"Cave of the Winds" found at Niagara Falls,
the city where Dett was
living at the time he composed this piece.
- Inspiration Waltzes
(1903): In the typical fashion of a romantic, Dett describes
in the introduction to this piece his "inspiration" for it: "I
awoke one night at midnight and heard, as in a dream, the
melodies of this Waltz played over and over, until I again
fell asleep. Next morning I found it was still fresh in my
memory. I created the Introduction and some other parts to
give the whole completeness, but the main themes were truly
'Inspirations' or, to put it more poetically were truly
'dictated' by the Muse."
- My Agnes from Niagara (1909). This work is
listed in bibliographies of Dett's compositions but I have
been unable to locate a copy of it.
Dett, whose mother was
Canadian, was born in Drummondville, Ontario (later incorporated
into Niagara
Falls, Ontario) and showed promise on the piano as a young boy and was
given piano lessons. During the time he composed the three
ragtime-related pieces above, Dett was an organist at a church
in Niagara Falls. He later studied at the Oliver Willis Halstead
Conservatory in Lockport, New York from 1901 to 1903 and then at
Oberlin College (Ohio) from 1903 to 1908, where he was the first
African-American to earn a Bachelor of Music degree with a major
in composition and the piano. He later obtained a Master of
Music degree in 1938 from the Eastman School of Music in
Rochester, New York.
After the publication of his first
three works above, and after attending music school, Dett's
compositions took on a much more classical tone, incorporating
Negro spirituals and other ethnic elements. Dett's music falls
with the sphere of romanticism, with highly lyrical and thematic
moods. In addition to composing, Dett spent most
of his working life teaching at various music faculties in the
United States and touring and performing his music (including
tours to Canada and to Europe).
In 1912, he published Magnolia:
Suite for Piano, followed by In the Bottoms:
Characteristic Suite for the Piano (1913). In the
introduction to In the Bottoms, Dett describes the piece
as a suite of five numbers "giving pictures of moods or scenes
peculiar to Negro life in the river bottoms of the Southern
sections of North America." One of those five suites is a
moderately syncopated dance entitled Juba, the
sheet music to which is available below. His other major works
include Enchantment: A Romantic Suite on an Original Program
(1922), Cinnamon Grove: A Suite for the Piano (1928),
Tropic Winter: Suite for the Piano (1938) and Eight
Bible Vignettes (1941 ~ 1943).
During the latter part of his life,
Dett struck up a friendship with musician Percy Grainger
(composer, of among other pieces, In Dahomey: Cakewalk
Smasher).
It remains unclear whether the ragtime
music of Scott Joplin influenced Dett or whether Joplin himself
knew of Dett, especially given Joplin's proclivity to be taken
seriously as a composer. Much of the literature is silent on
this point, with there being no mention of R. Nathanial Dett in
either They All Played Ragtime (Blesh and Janish 1966) and
That American
Rag (Jasen and Jones 2000). Edward A. Berlin does mention Dett in Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History (Berlin
1980:107) in the context of musical rhythms found in musical
sources of early ragtime.
Given that Dett was driven in the early
1900's to write three ragtime-related pieces, it is reasonable
to assume that he knew of Scott Joplin during his career, given
the general popularity of ragtime music that spread throughout
the North East at that time. Dett himself, in moving towards
more classical compositions, was perhaps trying to avoid
stereotyped ragtime sounds. In a note to In the Bottoms,
Dett refers to the common rhythmic figure found in
ragtime music as being a "frequent occurrence in the music of the
ante-bellum folk-dances" with "its marked individuality" causing
"it to be much misused for purposes of caricature."
Simpson (1993:11) describes Dett's "shame" when being
exposed to Dvorak's incorporation of Negro and Indian musical
heritages into his music when "the naive young Dett revealed
embarrassment that musically his race was identified only with
the current and frivolous ragtime style." Simpson later
notes, however, that later on, "while a student at Oberlin
College, Dett fortunately developed a broader, more cheerful
perspective of the larger Negro idiom" but even as late as 1918
Simpson notes (1993:12) that Dett commented on the attitude of a majority of the black race in
an interview carried by Musical America:
The Negro people as a whole cannot be looked to as a very
great aid in the work of conserving their folk music. At the
present time they are inclined to regard it as a vestige of the
slavery they are trying to put behind them and to be ashamed of
it. Moreover, the prevailing manner of presenting Negro music to
the public - the "coon" song of vaudeville or the minstrel show
- has not tended to increase appreciation of it, either among
the Negro or white races.
However, it is less certain whether Joplin knew
of Dett and his music. The possibility exists that perhaps he
did not, given the regional differences that "served as barriers
to a shared culture" and that affirmed "the existence of diverse
experiences within the African American community in the United
States" at that time (Curtis 1994:188). Since Dett's classical
compositions came towards the end of Joplin's life, and given
the state of communications in those days, it is entirely
possible that Joplin died, dreaming of his own classical ambitions
with the publication of his opera Treemonisha without
knowing of the classical publications of R. Nathaniel Dett.
A more detailed analysis of Dett's life
and his (classical) music is provided by
Simpson
(1993).
Dett died of a heart attack on October 2, 1943, but his legacy lives on in Canada through
The Nathaniel Dett Chorale, described on their website as "Canada's first
professional choral group dedicated to Afrocentric music of all
styles including classical, spiritual, gospel, jazz, folk and
blues."
Dett clearly deserves to be better
known by listeners. The
CD by pianist Denver Oldham contains excellent renditions of
Dett's music, including the three early ragtime-related pieces.
Select Compositions of R. Nathaniel Dett
2.3) Willie Eckstein
(6
December 1988 ~ 23 September 1963) [top]
Willie Eckstein, also known as Billie Eckstein, was
born to European immigrants in Pointe St. Charles, a predominantly
Irish, working-class district of Montreal, one of 14 children (Gilmore
1988:25). According to Hutton (1985), Eckstein began playing at age
3, and at age12, he won a scholarship to study music at McGill
University. He also studied in Europe, and after returning from Europe
was "headhunted" while playing at the Canadian National Exhibition in
Toronto, Ontario, and went on a very successful North American tour.
On tour, he was billed as "The Boy Paderewski" since he was only 4
ft., 9 in. tall and wore a Fauntleroy suit to give the impression he
was younger than he was:
 |
Left: Photo of Willie Eckstein
in his "costume" (taken from the sheet music cover to
Floating Along.
|
According to Hutton (1985), Eckstein was earning $15,000 per year
while on tour (a lot in those days) but when he grew too old, the
novelty of the "act" wore off and he returned home to Montreal. In
Montreal, he was the resident pianist at the
Strand's Theatre, where he was billed as "The World's Foremost Motion
Picture Interpreter" (Gilmore
1988: 17). Apparently, fans would come
to the movie theatre primarily to listen to him, not necessarily to
watch the movies. One of his protégés was Harry Thomas, discussed
below and he also played with Vera Guilaroff, also discussed
below.
Eckstein, along with Harry Thomas, composed
the Delirious Rag and the Perpetual Rag, the sheet music
for which I have been unable to track down.
Eckstein was the first person to record Joplin's
Maple Leaf Rag
as a piano solo (1923). According to Hutton (1985), Eckstein was
admired by Teddy Roosevelt and Eubie Blake
described Eckstein as "one of the best I ever heard."
After "talking" moving pictures arrived,
Eckstein retired from the movie theatre and played piano at the
Chateau Ste. Rose in Montreal for 20 years as "Mr. Fingers"
(Hutton 1985). Eckstein continued to play piano until age 73, but was
forced to retire when he broke
his arm. In May 1963 at an evening tribute in his honour, Eckstein collapsed
into a coma after the ceremony, never to recover (he died several
months later).
Selected Compositions of Willie Eckstein
 |
Eckstein, Willie. Beautiful Thoughts. 1916.
Source:
WilliamEckstein.com
|
|
|
Eckstein, Willie and Harry
Thomas. Delirious Rag: One Step. 1917.
Source:
WilliamEckstein.com
|
|
|
Eckstein, Willie. Down in
the Meadows where the Daisies Grow (words by
A.C. Guerin). Montreal: Delmar Music Co., 1910.
Source:
National Library
of Québec
|
 |
Willie Eckstein.
In Sunny Summertime (words
by T.H. Yull). Montreal, QC: The International Music Co., 1911.
[view sheet
music]
Source:
Toronto Reference Library [top]
|
 |
Willie Eckstein. All Erin Is
Calling Mavourneen (words
by Katherin Ward). New York, NY: G. Ricordi, 1916.
[view sheet
music]
Source:
University of South Carolina Sheet Music Collection
[top]
|
 |
Willie Eckstein and Harry Thomas.
Good-bye Soldier Boy (words
by Walter Bruce). Montreal, QC: Delmar Co., 1917.
[view sheet
music]
Source:
Toronto Reference Library [top]
|
 |
Willie Eckstein and Gene Buck.
Good-Bye, Sunshine Hello Moon! New York,
NY: T.B. Harms & Francis, Day & Hunter, 1919.
[view sheet
music]
Source:
Toronto Reference Library [top]
|
|
|
Eckstein, Willie and Harry
Thomas. Perpetual Rag. 1917.
Source:
WilliamEckstein.com
|
|
|
Willie Eckstein and Sam Howard.
S'Nice. Montreal, QC: Sam Howard Music Pub. Co., 1923.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Toronto Reference Library [top]
|
|
|
Eckstein, Willie. Royal Highlanders March & 2 Step. 1910.
Source:
WilliamEckstein.com
|
|
|
Willie Eckstein. Some Rag: A
Real Live One. Montreal, PQ: Delmar Music, 1910.
[view
sheet music]
|
|
|
Willie Eckstein (lyrics). Music by
Armand Meerte. Trail O'Dreams. Montréal,
QC: W. Eckstein, 1921.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
University of Toronto Music Library [top]
|
|
|
Willie Eckstein. Valse de Luxe. Montreal, PQ: Delmar Music, 1910.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
University of Toronto Music Library [top]
|
|
|
Willie Eckstein, Harry Thomas and Walter
Bruce. You Are My All in All (song). Montreal, QC: Delmar
Co., 1917.
[view sheet
music]
Source:
University of Toronto Music Library [top]
|
|
|
Willie Eckstein. Won't You Meet
Me at Murray's Fox-Trot (song). Montreal, PQ: Murray's Lunch Ltd., 1929.
[view sheet
music]
Source:
Toronto Reference Library [top]
|
Additional compositions by Willie Eckstein
I am currently trying to obtain copies of the
following pieces composed by Eckstein:
- Willie Eckstein. Beautiful Thoughts: A Reverie. Montreal, QC: Cowan & Eckstein Pub. Co., 1916.
- Willie Eckstein. Down in the Meadows
Where the Daisies
Grow (words by A.C. Guerin). Montreal, QC: Delmar Music Co., 1910.
- Willie Eckstein. Sunshine Trail
(song). Montreal,
QC: William Eckstein, 1920.
2.4) Vera Guilaroff
(26 October 1902 ~ 213 October 1976) [top]
 |
Recommended reading: John Gilmore,
"Chapter 1: Pre-History to 1925" in Swinging in Paradise: The
Story of Jazz in Montreal (Montreal, QC: Vehicule Press, 1988) 17-41.
Recommending listening:
Vera Guilaroff, Maple Leaf Rag (Lachine, QC:
Compo Company Limited, 1926) -
.MP3 (from
Library and Archives Canada).
|
Vera Guilaroff, although born in England,
immigrated to Montreal with her family as a young child, where she
studied piano. As a teenager, she played at the Regent Theatre in
Montreal, substituting for Harry Thomas when he could not play and
eventually replacing him when Thomas moved to Halifax.
She later toured the United States with
a band, returned to Montreal and worked with Eckstein on radio and in
nightclubs. She also toured Europe and the Bahmas and performed on TV
and composed several songs, some of which are listed
below (not rags).
More details of her life are set out in the
entry for her in the online
Encyclopedia of Music
in Canada.
Her recording of Scott Joplin's
Maple Leaf Rag is
amazing and shows lots of improvisation; the breakneck speed at
which she plays it is breathtaking and must have been speeded up as
part of the recording process.
A partial listing of compositions by Guilaroff
include the following pieces:
- (with William Harold Moon) Do You Want Any Love Today (song). Toronto, ON: North American Music Ltd.,
1946.
- If Only You Knew (song). Montreal,
QC: Woods Music Co., 1921.
- Lonesome Rose
(words by Sam Howard and Willie Eckstein). Montreal, QC: Sam Howard,
1923.
2.5) May Irwin (1862
~ 1938) [top]
May Irwin was born in
Whitby,
Ontario, but gained her fame on the New York stage as a
vaudevillian comedienne and singer of "coon" songs that apparently
were regarded as comical during that era but what can now only be
regarded as offensive. One of her more famous songs was apparently
May Irwin's Bully Song, not shown here due to its
content and artwork. A number of her songs can be found through the
Sheet Music Consortium. An example of one of her comic songs is
May Irwin's Frog Song, set out below.
 |
Charles E. Trevathan. May
Irwin's Frog Song (Boston, MA: White-Smith,
1896).
|
She is also famous as being one of the first
persons ever filmed in a movie kiss in the movie
The Kiss.
She was known to have spent time at a summer home
in Canada near the Thousand Islands on the St. Lawrence and become a
wealthy women as a result of her performances and investments. She
died in New York City on October 22, 1938.
Her Wikipedia entry is
here.
2.6) Jéan-Baptiste LaFrenière
(23
June 1874 ~ 4 January 1912) [top]
 |
Recommended reading:
Plante, Clément, ed. 1994 Jéan-Baptiste Lafrenière
(1874-1912): Rags & Two Steps. Montreal, QC: Fondation
ragtime du Québec.
Recommending listening:
CD: Mimi Blais,
Made in Quebéc: Music of Jéan-Baptiste Lafrenière
(Montreal, QC: Orange Music, 2002)
|
Jéan-Baptiste Lafrenière, described as
the national Strauss of Canada, was born in 1874 in
Maskinongé, Quebec. According to
Plante (1994) Lafrenière
spent most of his youth in Montreal and Louiseville where he
studied piano, organ, violin, cornet, and music theory at the
College St-Joseph de Berthier (1887-1892).
Gilmore (1988:25)
suggests that Lafrenière was the first person known to have
performed ragtime in Montreal.
Lafrenière was a relatively prolific
composer of a number of rags, marches, waltzes and other piano
instrumentals.
According to Plante (1994), Lafrenière
contracted tuberculosis in 1911 and was forced to subsist on the
slender income earned from his music publications and he died
January 4, 1912, at age 37 leaving behind a widow (Victoria
Danis) and two young children. He is buried in the Côte-des-Neiges
cemetery in Montreal.
Mimi Blais has recorded a
CD of Lafrenière songs.
To view all 44 compositions by Lafrenière, see the
separate essay on this website called "Ragtime
in Quebec" (this also also includes a listing of over 140
ragtime-era compositions by composers other than Lafrenière that
were published in Quebec, with 106 of these having the sheet music
available for free).
2.7) Joseph F. Lamb
(6 December 1887 ~ 3
September 1960) [top]
Although Joseph Lamb was born in New Jersey, it is possible
for Canada to claim him as one of her very important residents
based on his connections here on two separate occasions:
- As a young man, Lamb was sent to school in Kitchener, Ontario, (then
known as Berlin, Ontario, prior to World War I). While in Canada, it appears
that he wrote a number of ragtime songs and waltzes. According
to Morriss (1959), in 1907, Lamb walked
into the offices of H.H. Sparks in Toronto and sold Celestine Waltzes for $5,
since according to Lamb, "[h]e
generally sold his compositions for anything between $25 and $50 because
he wanted to see them in print" Most of these early pieces by Lamb
are rare and hard to locate; for a listing of these pieces,
see the separate page on this website entitled "Joseph Lamb: Ragtime's
Quiet Sensation."
- As part of the overall "ragtime revival" in North America,
and due to the efforts of Blesh and Janis (1966) to track down
and interview Lamb, Joseph Lamb was brought to Toronto by
Ragtime Bob Darch and others for a tribute in October 1959 at
Club 76 where Lamb was prevailed upon to play several of his
rags, one of his very few public performances.
For more on Joseph Lamb, see the separate page on this
website entitled "Joseph Lamb: Ragtime's
Quiet Sensation."
2.8) Geoffrey O'Hara
(2 February 1882 ~
31 January 1966) [top]
The article from The Virtual Gramophone:
Canadian Historical Sound Recordings entitled "Geoffrey
O'Hara, Composer, Singer and Lecturer (1882-1967)"
accurately describes three major aspects of O'Hara's professional
life: composer, singer and lecturer. Born in
Chatham, Ontario,
nine years after Fred S. Stone (see below on
Stone), O'Hara played piano as a child and wrote
ragtime compositions in his early twenties, sometimes using the name "Geofrrey
de Vere". A list of some of his ragtime-related compositions are
below, including his compositions available online
and his compositions available in print (these
lists are of course partial since he apparently wrote over 500
songs). According to the
entry for him in the online
Encyclopedia of Music
in Canada he joined Lew Dockstader's
Minstrels and went on to sing light opera as a baritone at
Daly's Theater in New York. Later O'Hara travelled the Lyceum
and Chautauqua vaudeville circuits as a singer, lecturer, and
community song leader. Apparently, he wrote two of his hit songs
- "Give a Man a Horse He Can
Ride" (1917) (below) and "K-K-K-Katy" (1918)
(below) - while he was
visiting in
Kingston, Ontario.
Selected Geoffrey O'Hara Compositions from the
Ragtime Era
 |
Geoffrey
O'Hara. Aw Sammie!
(words by H. Sanborn). New York, NY: Leo Feist, 1918.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
The E.
Azalia Hackley Collecttion, Detroit Public Library
|
 |
Geoffrey O'Hara (under the name
Geoffrey De Vere). Colored Fireworks: March and Two Step.
Toronto, ON: Canadian-American Music Co., 1904.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Photocopy from the
Toronto Reference Library [top]
|
|
Geoffrey
O'Hara. Give a Man a
Horse He Can Ride. New York, NY: Huntzinger & Dilworth,
1917.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music website [top]
|
|
Geoffrey O'Hara. I Love You
For Yourself Alone (lyrics by Geo. A.
Norton). New York, NY: New York Music Publishing
House, 1906.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Maine Music
Box [top]
|
|
Geoffrey O'Hara.
K-K-K-Katy (The
Stammering Song). New York: NY: Leo Feist, 1918.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music website [top]
|
 |
Geoffrey O'Hara. The Perfect Melody. Toronto,
ON: Chappell & Co., 1917.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music website [top]
|
 |
Geoffrey O'Hara. The Wreck of the "Julie Plante"
(words by William Henry Drummond). Boston, MA: Oliver Ditson,
1920.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
The Maine Music Box [top]
|
|
Geoffrey O'Hara. Your Eyes Have
Told Me (words by Frederick G. Bowles). New York,
NY: G. Ricordi, 1913.
[view sheet music]
Source:
Toronto Reference Library [top]
|
Additional pieces by O'Hara that I am trying to
obtain include:
- Geoffrey O'Hara. The Perfect Melody.
Toronto, ON: Chappell & Co., 1917.
- Geoffrey O'Hara (under the name Geoffrey De Vere).
The Virginia
March. Toronto, ON: Nordheimer Piano & Music Co., 1904.
2.9) Fred S. Stone (1873 ~
1912) [top]
Fred S. Stone was a relatively prolific composer
of ragtime music. I have been playing his Silks and Rags Waltz
(1901) (below) for a number of years now
without realizing that Stone was born in
Chatham, Ontario (nine years before Geoffrey O'Hara, discussed
above). The fact of his Canadian birth is not
well known since the (relatively few) references to him in the
ragtime literature is as an "African-American" composer.
Blesh and Janis
(1966:104-05) provide some basic
information on Fred S. Stone regarding his early rags and his
involvement in Detroit as a bandleader:
The remarkable Stone inherited the musical
leadership of Detroit from the equally remarkable "Old Man" Theo
Finney. The latter had started a music business in the Michigan
city during the Civil War, and from that beginning had built up
a formidable musical dynasty. Finney's - and then Stone's -
orchestras monopolized the Detroit Entertainment and social
world to the almost complete exclusion of white performers.
Blesh and Janis (1966:104-05) also describe
Stone's efforts in unionizing musicians in Detroit:
. . . Fred S. Stone and his stalwart
colleagues . . . unionized the Detroit musicians and built the
fine headquarters and club that are still in use. It was the
white players who had to petition for admission to the union,
apparently the only local in the country where this was the
case.
Jasen and Jones (2000:320) give 1912 as the date
that Stone died; however, Blesh and Janis (1966:105) state that
"Fred S. Stone died in the middle 1930's."
Editorial note: The Ragtime Ephemeralist
has
an article on Fred S. Stone and Harry Guy by Nancy Bostick and
Arthur LaBrew that I am trying to obtain. Once I do, I will update
more information on Fred. S. Stone.
Select Compositions by Fred S. Stone (in
chronological order)
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. The Indian: Two
Step. Central Music Publishing, 1895.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. La Albacete:
Spanish Waltzes. Detroit, MI: Detroit Music Co.,
1896.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. Mackinac March:
Two Step. Detroit, MI: Detroit Music Co., 1896.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. The Cardinal
March. New York, NY: Marquette Pub. Co.,
1898.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Library of Congress Sheet Music Collection (Music,
Theatre and Dance) [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. Ma Rag Time Baby:
Two-Step. Detroit, MI: Whitney Warner Pub. Co.,
1898.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. A Lady of
Quality: Waltzes. Detroit, MI: Whitney Warner
Pub. Co., 1898.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. The Bos'n Rag:
Cake Walk. Detroit, MI: Whitney Warner Pub. Co.,
1899.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. Elseeta: March
and Two Step. Detroit, MI: Whitney Warner Pub.
Co., 1900.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone.
Silk and Rags: Waltzes. Detroit, MI: Whitney
Warner Pub. Co., 1901.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. Sue: March and
Two-Step. Detroit, MI: Whitney Warner Pub. Co.,
1902.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. Belle of the
Philippines: March-Two Step. Detroit, MI:
Whitney Warner Pub. Co., 1903.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. Belinda: March
Two Step. New York, NY: Jerome H. Remick, 1905.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone.
Melody at Twilight. New York, NY: Jerome Remick & Co., 1906.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection [top]
|
|
 |
Fred S. Stone. Stone's Barn
Dance. New York, NY: Jerome H. Remick, 1908.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Detroit Public Library, E. Azalia Hackley Collection [top]
|
2.10) Harry Thomas
(24 March 1890 ~ 11
July 1941) [top]
Image source:
Library and Archives Canada |
Recommended reading:
John Gilmore, "Chapter 1: Pre-History to 1925" in Swinging in Paradise: The
Story of Jazz in Montreal (Montreal, QC: Vehicule Press, 1988) 17-41.
Recommending listening:
Harry Thomas, A Classical Spasm (Camden, NJ: Victor,
1917)
-
.MP3 (from
Library and Archives Canada). Other Harry Thomas
recordings (not ragtime) are available
here.
|
Harry Thomas was borm Reginald Thomas Broughton in Bristol
England but immigrated to Montreal, Canada, when he was 19
years old (Gilmore 1989: 280). Apparently, Thomas had no
formal musical training and was self-taught but "studied"
under Willie Eckstein and would play at the Strand Theatre in
Eckstein's absence:
The two men, though dissimilar in temperament and musical
training, shared a fondness for two pleasures - liquor and
improvisation. Both pianists could spontaneously weave
snippets of melody from popular songs and classical
masterpieces into an engaging and often humourous musical
commentary on the events silently unfolding on the theatre
screen (Gilmore 1988: 17).
In the fall of 1916, Harry Thomas went to Chicago to record
piano rolls for Q.R.S. Company and then on to New York to record
Delirious Rag and
Perpetual Rag for Metro-Art and Universal (Gilmore 1988:
17). Later that year, returned to New York to record for
Victor Talking Machine a 78 rpm with Delirious Rag on one side and
A
Classical Spasm on the other side, also manufactured in Montreal by
the Berliner Gramophone Company (see above for
his recording of A Classical Spasm). These recordings,
according to Gilmore (1989:281) made Thomas the first musician
resident in Canada to record ragtime.
At around this time, Thomas became the pianist at the Regent
Theatre in Montreal, with
Vera Guilaroff as his substitute starting when she was as young as age 12.
After 3 years pf this, Thomas moved to Halifax and Guilaroff
took over his piano duties at the Regent Theatre. While in Halifax,
Hutton (1985) suggests that Thomas was somewhat of a celebrity,
driving a very noticeable 1923 Graham-Paige
roadster "that seemed to be half a block long, with gaudy upholstery
and a dinky little rumble seat"
In the 1920s, with the arrival of talking
motion pictures, Thomas found himself without work and returned to Montreal,
but his career did not
survive:
Before long, Harry Thomas was
playing only in the third-rate Montreal clubs - and often only for
free booze and the occasional tip. On July 11, 1941, only 51 years
old, he dided broke in a Montreal hospital from an infection induced
by alcoholism. There were only four people at his funeral: his
landlady, a musician from his former trio, the husband of another
pianist - and the ever-faithful Willie Eckstein. (Hutton 1985)
According to Hutton (1985), Thomas died in
poverty om 1941 and was buried in a Montreal cemetry,
Cote des Neige Cemetry, but the wooden stake marking his grave was
later removed for non-payment of fees. Eckstein was one of the few
mourners at his funeral.
Selected Harry Thomas Compositions
I am also looking for the following composition by
Harry Thomas:
- Harry Thomas. I Live My Life for You (song). Montreal, QC: International Music, 1911.
2.11) Charles E. Wellinger
(b Ottawa ca
1888, d England ca 1943) [top]
 |
Recommended reading:
Arpin, John. "Charles Wellinger" (April 1967)
6
The Ragtimer 10.
|
There is very little information about Charles Wellinger
other than a brief paragraph about him in
the entry for "ragtime" in the online
Encyclopedia of Music
in Canada. From that entry we
learn that he was born in Ottawa, Canada, in 1888 and died in
England in 1943. We know from the music he composed, both
his music available online (below) and
his music available in print (below),
that a number of his earlier pieces for piano and voice were
published with H.H. Sparks in Toronto circa 1905~1907 and that
a number of other pieces were self-published by him in
Hamilton, Ontario, circa 1913~1920 with another piece, Intermission Rag, published in Chicago, Illinois, in 1919.
The entry in the
Encyclopedia of Music
in Canada suggests
that he worked with I.W. Lomas at the opera house
in Hamilton and probably
with Lomas' Royal Connaught Winter Garden Dance Orchestra. He
wrote and published several songs, waltzes, and rags. The Encyclopedia
also suggests that his piece, That
Captivating Rag (1914), is his most popular piece.
Selected Compositions by Charles Wellinger
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Charles Wellinger. Come with Me
for a Roller Skate: The Roller Skating Song Craze. Toronto, ON: H.H. Sparks, 1907.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Library and Archives Canada [top]
|
|
 |
Charles Wellinger. Hamilton Centennial: March
& Two Step. Hamilton, ON: C. Wellinger, 1913.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Toronto Reference Library [top]
|
 |
Intermission Rag.
Charles Wellinger. Chicago, IL: Roger Graham,
1916.
[view sheet music]
Source: Photocopy obtained from
the
Howard B. Waltz Music Library (Universty of
Colorado) [top]
|
|
 |
Charles Wellinger. Molly Ann O'Shea
(song). Toronto, ON: H.H. Sparks, 1905.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Toronto Reference Library Microfiche [top]
|
|
|
Charles Wellinger. Rosebud Waltz. Hamilton, ON: C. Wellinger, 1920.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Toronto Reference Library Microfiche [top]
|
|
 |
Charles Wellinger.
Twilight Dreams: Reverie
(arr. by Jos. F. Lamb). Toronto : H.H. Sparks, 1908.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Personal copy [top]
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Charles Wellinger. Waltz Me Kid. Ottawa, ON: C.W. Vinson, 1910.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Library and Archives Canada [top]
|
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Charles Wellinger. When You Dream,
Dream, Dream: Waltz Song Hit. Toronto, ON: H.H. Sparks,
1906.
[view
sheet music]
Source:
Library and Archives Canada [top]
|
Additional compositions by Charles Wellinger:
I am looking to obtain copies of the following
additional compositions by Wellinger; when I do, I will digitize
them and add them to the table above.
- Dance of the Rosebuds: A Floral Tribute. Toronto, ON: H.H.
Sparks, 1905.
- Flower Fancies: A Dainty. Toronto,
ON: Harry H. Sparks, 1906.
- Playtime: Scherzo for Piano. Toronto, ON: Whaley,
Royce, 1907.
- The Song You Sang at Twilight. Toronto, ON: H.H. Sparks, 1907.
- Never Forgotten: Waltzes. Toronto,
ON: Harry H. Sparks, 1910.
- Sweetheart Waltz. Boston,
MA: International Music,
1911 (page 1 of this piece is available
here
from an advertisement)
- (with E.B. Eddy ) Caressante: Waltzes. Ottawa,
ON: The Northern Music Co., 1912.
- Night of the Ball: Waltz. Hamilton, ON: C. Wellinger, 1913.
- That Captivating Rag. Hamilton, ON: C. Wellinger,
1914.
- Ireland and You: Song. Hamilton, ON:
C. Wellinger, 1915.
- Clover Club. Hamilton,
ON: Stanley Mills, 1918.
In the next chapter, I discuss Canadian
ragtime publishers and record producers.
[return
to Table of Contents] [continue to Chapter 3] [top]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.