Comment by marc dalmasso on July 6, 2012 at 17:34

i found  this i 'd never seen before ...

so i link ;  a chance to see our HEROE

Comment by Mike Moss on July 6, 2012 at 17:36

:-D AMAZING! Thanks for posting!!!

Comment by Jody Stecher on July 6, 2012 at 18:18

This is fantastic to see.  His timing and tone are so great and he played with such verve and spirit. It's hard to be sure but it looks as though his little finger of the right hand is making contact with the vellum sometimes.  I wonder what happened to the rest of Dixie. This is the last 20 seconds.  Thanks for this, Marc.

Comment by Trapdoor2 on July 6, 2012 at 19:30

Wow...great clip. I have heard that there were some of these out there...but have never seen one. These are early experiments in sound films (talking pictures). There were a wide variety of people experimenting with getting sound and film together from the 1890's on...Edison did it with his earliest films but could not make it a commercially viable product.

Well done, Marc!

Comment by Trapdoor2 on July 6, 2012 at 19:42

Here's an interesting "Ossman" link. Helen Frances Ossman's passport... This page has photos of her passport (she was Vess Ossman, Jr's wife, daughter-in-law to Vess and Eunice Ossman). Lots of biographical info there. I wonder if there are any g-g-g grandchildren around?

Comment by Richard William Ineson on July 20, 2012 at 8:51

I've watched this through a few times and he doesn't seem to be playing 'Dixie' the fingering is all wrong, despite this, it is good to see Ossman doing anything; nobody has really come close to this collosus of the banjo, in tone and power, or as van Eps put it, "He had a certain rhythmic facility which has never been equalled" 

Comment by marc dalmasso on July 20, 2012 at 14:53

yes , of course , the fingering is all wrong ; i guess it was a sequence for a movie ; may be a musician used to  synchronize the video & audio but not a Bj player  .  For the TBJ , Pathe  ' s videos , the fingering is OK , (my opinion )

Comment by Trapdoor2 on July 20, 2012 at 16:18

Without a frame-by-frame analysis, we don't really know whether he is playing that tune or another. I would be amazed if video and the recording were actually the same tune...because the survival rate of these things is quite low. More likely, someone had the film snippet and simply added an Ossman tune that sort of matched. Or, perhaps it is known that he was actually playing a section of "Dixie Medley" and someone simply added the "Dixie" part of his well-known recording to the film clip.

Comment by thereallyniceman on July 20, 2012 at 18:38

Ian, thereallydoubtingman's two-pennysworth,

When I first saw this video I thought "Wow" that is amazing, but something just didn't seem right to me, so I haven't posted comment about it earlier.

I hate to be a doubting Thomas, but are we sure that it is Vess Ossman? Vess was born 1868 and died in 1923 at the age of 55 years. If the recording was made in 1910 he would have been 42 years old, but to me he looks older than that in the recording.  Also the recording quality is very clean...too clean?

Compare the photo from the Web with the screen capture:

The Real Vess Ossman: 

Screen capture from Video:

Perhaps I am just imagining things,  but are they the same person??

Comment by marc dalmasso on July 20, 2012 at 19:56

for me YES

1 / the person on the movie is a banjo player , and an excellent one ; even if he plays something else that we hear on the playback

2 / i think the capture looks like the photo

3 / we are in 1910 ; he is in competition with F van Eps ; this movie is a good advertising for him ; he wouldn 't have accept somebody else doing the sequence

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