Vance Lowry and the classic banjo?

[RitonMousquetaire]

Hello everybody,

While searching for banjo records on a french radio website I stumbled upon this emission broadcasted in 2013, in which you can listen to two banjo records (which I find really enjoyable), played by Vance Lowry around 1926 : http://www.francemusique.fr/emission/le-fabuleux-monde-des-archives...

While listening to the first one (it starts at 11'53, following a few explanations by the person who curated the program) I thought he was playing a 4-string banjo (wether plectrum or tenor I'm not sure - there are some moments where it also sounds a bit like a 5-string, but I don't know the subject well enough to be sure), but the second (which starts around 12'30) seems to be a 5 string banjo played in the classic way (which would maybe explain that title, "l'harpo-banjo", which can be translated as "the harp-banjo" I think).

I'm quite curious about this player; does anybody knows exactly what kind of banjo he's playing in each of these records? Were his arrangements ever published? Do you have more informations about his life and other pieces or records? There are some informations on his life in France in the programme (where he apparently knew the poet Jean Cocteau), and somebody called Tony Thomas posted some interesting informations on this youtube video in which Lowry's playing can also be heard : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKXzR8a-_DE

Just in case he wouldn't be playing classic banjo and that discussion would be irrelevant to the present website, here is an other broadcast from the same website which features several classic banjo records (and this time I'm sure of it :) ) : http://www.francemusique.fr/emission/le-fabuleux-monde-des-archives...

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

what is the source of this photo?

thereallyniceman said:

Looks like 4 strings to me too, and the Banjo is a CE not a Weaver... check the 12th fret MOP.

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

I cannot figure out how to listen or download the pieces.  Can you write me offlist at [e-mail] about this

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

Can you find me  some way to get the details with Vernhettes, as to where this comes from as my mnain gaol in anything is publishing in documented scholarly publication. 

But this is nice insofar as in my earlier research on this I wound up in contact with a relative who knew Lowry as a child and might appreciate his picture and this info.

 marc dalmasso said:

merci henri d 'avoir lancé cette discussion , tu as mis le doigt sur qq chose d 'intéressant ;

and now say Thx to inspector Dalmasso ; i mailed to Dan Vernhettes , a well knowed  French musician who kindly send me this photo ..............

Vance is standing

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

I tend to agree with the Very Nice man about the absence of the fifth string insofar as the Cleb clubbers were the leading African American exponents of 4 string banjos and Lowry is known historically as a tenor banjoist, though I have no doubt that he must have played a five string and probably on could obtain a 5 string under the circumstance.  Besides tenors, the Cleb club mob favored a variety of mandolin descended banjos now extinct.  The sort of banjeurine sized instrument with a slotted headstock  the musician in the forefront is carrying is just such an instrument, in fact one that was manufactured in Harlem briefly as a "Clef Club" instrument.

Many people mistakenly think the Clef Club was Europe's Band.  It was not.  It was a large organization for Black musicians that Europe helped to found though he later broke with it.  It functioned as a combination of a booking agency, union, fraternal organization, and music education organization for Black musicians in NYC and Phliadelphia in the years before the Great War.    

In this era the musicians union did not allow African Americans to join.  Black musicians especially players of mandolin, banjo and guitar were often forced to work as waiters or cleaners in restaurants and clubs or at society dances where they might work when not playing music.  

What the Clef Club did is that it functioned like a hiring hall booking agency for musicians to play in restaurants, night clubs, and at society gatherings and dances.  Its aim was to capture employement from the top level of  American's wealthiest  "society" .  It guaranteed a level of dress and deportment and musical performance that equaled the standards require to perfrm in the homes of the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and such.  At the same time the Clef club demanded dignified treatment of its musicians and in particular that the custom of asking black musicians to work as cleaners, waiters, or dish washers when not playing music at such venues was rejected.  The Clef club demanded a set rate for pay and made sure the musicians were paid.   It also encouraged formal musical education for African American youth.  The proceeds from the big concerts held each year by the club went to hire classically trained European music teachers to provide free lessons for Black New York youth,.

 Europe was formally musically trained and worked with leading African American classical and popular music composers of his day.  In fact, he ascended the music business in NYC in the early 20th century because of his abilities to rearrange scores for musical shows for both singers and orchestras.  He would often be brought in as a fixer/conductor at the beginning of a show and then hand the baton over to others once he hand things going.

At the same time he developed  creative approaches to involve both reading and non reading musicians in the sae

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

Dear "Friends:   I am back on the trail of Vance Lowry, for a presentation on Lowry and two other Black Banjoists for the upcoming Banjo Gathering (formerly called the banjo collectors Gathering) scheduled for Bristol  Tenn in early November.

Anyone here who wished to correspond with me directly about Lowry can reach me  at  [e-mail]   or 

in this  thread.  I am doing a brief (half hour) presentation on 3 international performing African American banjoists,  Hosea Easton who achieved him greatest fame in his residence in Australia and New Zealand  from 1877 to his death in 1899,   C.P.  Stinson who was based in Pittsburgh but apparently lived in Youngstown Ohio and Kansas City,   but traveled with black entertainment troupes to Europe several times and possiblity Africa and Australia.       The aim is to pierce the incorrect view that most who look at banjo history in the states have, that even for African American banjo playng the only experience is the "folk" and vernacular playing.   Now people cite the warhorses of Horace Weston and the Bohees, but  I find it interesting to develop information  on other well known players in their time as wlel.       Lowry's connection is with Stinson.  It was announced in the fall of 1911 that Stinson a well known guitar banjoist (the proper name for the banjo playing style) and Lowry who at least from around 1913-4 was a tenor banjo player or some kind of plextrum banjoist, were going to launch a joint vaudeville act in the coming vaudeville  season.   This never came to pass as Stinson an activitist in local politics in Pittsburgh where he lvied at a time when electioneering meant getting as many people drunk as you could to vote for your candidate, came home on election night drunk, out of his mind, and was so mad that his daughter ended up killing him to defend herself and her mother!!!  And they say banjoists are dull people

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

The clef clubbers and musical write ups of the time called the instrument he is holding a banjolin.   You see a number of such instruments in pictures of Clef Clubbers, and there was apparently an African American manufacturer of these instruments in Harlem at one point in the late teens.   

Reese Europe was a formally trained violinist from a family where a sister and brother were classical musicians in Washington DC's Black elite of the day.  When he came to NYC to be a popular entertainer,  he took up the Mandolin as in the society venues that the bands he started out played, it the violin was deemed appropriate for Black musicians playing such music.   He wrote that the mandolin and mandolin banjos were great for arrangement insofar as the principles he learned in his formal training for arranging violin family instruments could be used.

Europe became famnous for leading his dance orchestras for the Castles and Others,   but his real claim to fame in show business in the 1900-1917 period was as an arranger and conductor.   He could take an already composed broadway show or night club show and rewrite the arrangements and teach the band to perform it in an improved way,  Europe was often brought in by the directors of chows to take over musical supervision in the first performances and then get things right and move on,

Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist said:

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

UI have gotten much deeper into the whole issue since my 2015 posts and will try to share the information I put together on this site if it is deemed appropriate.  A few notes.  Reese Europe and the Clef Club parted the ways around 1914.  The Clef Club continued under that name under Dan Kildare, a pianist, who was its vice president under Europe,  while Europe set up an alternate organization called the Tempo club.  Lowry went to England possibly working with Kildare to perform in June 1914 but returned after the Outbreak of the War in September as did Kildare.   Then Lowry hooked up with Joan Sawyer.  Sawyer was a a white ballroom and performance dancer who essentially imitated the Castles, dancing with a variety of partners and after her club in New York modeled after the Caste House failed,  she went on a national US vaudeville tour.  Like the Castles who had  Europe's society orchestra playing at the Castle House,   Sawyer had a similar black orchestra playing in her vaudeville engagements and it include Lowry playing "banjo" and :bass saxophone."   Lowry went to England in 1916 after Sawyer's performing career fizzled amid a scandal involving murder  accusations of Sawyer['s sexual improprieties and those of her then dancing partner later known as Rudolph Valentiino,  yes THE RUDOLPH VALENTINO.  Lowry joined the Ciro Club band on arrival.   When the Ciro Club was shut down by British authorities alledgedly for selling illegal liquor,  in late 1916 early 1917,  Lowry toured with several of the Ciro club bandmates, and Louis Mitchell and the Edwards brothers  Clef clubbers who had come over separately as the Seven Spades  touring England until October 1917  when they began engagements in Paris.  Lowry's  passport application and those of several others in the band show they had intended to tour Russia after France, but events in Russia in October and November 1917 precluded that.  In my research on Lowry  I am now at that Point.  So as much of my previous idea have been refined by my research now in 2018,  I would prefer not to go on with what I know now, but deepen my survey later

[Joel Hooks]

Hi Tony!

If one looks at that photo of Lowry holding the banjo and zooms in on his right hand one can see that he has "textbook" classic banjo RH position.  The thumb extends in advance of the rest of the fingers which are bent at the knuckles forming a fairly flat right hand position. It is possible that he is holding a plectrum but the position of his hand is more in line with classic banjo.

Based on this discussion the jury is still deliberating on what make his banjo is but I think it is a Weaver banjo (but what do I know about British banjos).  Alfred Weaver was THE builder for professional banjoists in England (and some in the US- I know the owner and have played a Weaver banjo that was owned and used by the minstrel G.W. "Pony" Moore).  Weaver built all kinds of banjos and they were mostly built to order.  So if Lowry wanted a plectrum Weaver would have built him one.  Clifford Essex also offered plectrum banjos.

I think it is safe to assume that Lowry did play 5 string in guitar/finger style.

As to the other banjo in the photo, it is also likely a Weaver banjo as explained earlier in this discussion.  If the neck pictured earlier was not enough, here is a photo of Weaver in his workshop... notice what is on the bench?

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

Thanks  Joek:

I trust your judgment.  With a much greater picture of his life--I have a timeline for Lowry that is quite think from around 1914 to 1917 and am incrementally working forward,  if I can refind the provenance of the picture--that might be linked to the particularl group he was playing and the variety of engagements he had.  He was surely playing tenor banjo with a pick all the recordings  I have heard so far of him with the Ciro Club band and most pictures I have of him from France show him with a tenor.

I think that is quite possible.  Lowry became known as a tenor banjoist,  and as a saxophonist and juggler!!!--in the 1920s and 1930s,  but he was in show business from an early age, before the tenor banjo became standardized as an instrument. 

He is mentioned in 1911 as about to work up a joint act with Stinson by two of the top Black entertainment writers of the time in the New York Age and the Indianapolis Freeman (which functioned as a national newspaper for Black entertainers) with the idea that the readers particularly folks in show business knew who both were. 

While Stinson may have played stroke style,  he seems to have predominantly played guitar banjo and touted his musical education,  Stinson is often referred to as Prof. Stinson, even though he had quite humble origins, including several stretches in prison and was musical director of a variety of  African American touring companies in the US and beyond and over Black religious and cultural celebrations in Ohio and Pennsylvania where he operated.

It is also quite possible that the Weaver Style banjolin may have circulated back and forth so that makers of similar instruments NYC may be copying British models.  The circulated across the Atlantic of just the few black banjoists I have followed who collaborated with Lowry is pretty amazing for the times.  Lowry came and went to the UK in 1914 and then returned in 1916 not to return until 1941.  Whenever venues would close or bands he participated in would break up in either London or Paris, there were always other former associated of Europe's Clef Club more lately come across the pond to complete a new band.

.

I started on following him on and off, as his name came up being linked to Stinson as part of a possible link between tenor banjoists and five string banjoists. 

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

One further issue with Lowry  I was not aware of in my posts in 2015 and previously is that by the early 1920s Lowry in particular had become a collaborator of film maker, artist, poet, and surrealist visionary Jean Cocteau and other Paris artists and intellectuals.  Lowry played on several recordings issued under Cocteau's name and appears in a film that Cocteau made in the 20s as well.

[Joel Hooks]

My opinion on the recordings (which you can hear by following the link to a podcast in the original post) is that the first piece is a duet with a "fingerstyle banjo" and a plectrum banjo.  With headphones I can hear two distinct voices.  The second piece is pure fingerstyle banjo complete with rasps or drum slides, the old drumming on the head trick (difficult to do with a plectrum) and chord tremolo at the end (finger waggle tremolo has a very different timbre from plectrum playing).

I can't rule out the possibility that he is finger picking on four strings (like Frank Lawes did) but that is unlikely.  The fifth string makes position jumps seamless and efficient.  His playing is very lively and polished.  I don't see why he would handicap himself by removing the 5th string.

The "metallic" sound of the 4th string could be due to him over playing it causing it to buzz.  He is picking the heck out of those strings with a very strong attack.  The strings will often not only buzz against the frets but the fourth can buzz against the 5th string on a fortissimo bass solo.

[Joel Hooks]

Many American banjoists took up the tenor and plectrum.  Even die-hard 5 string devotes like George Lansing would play and teach tenor when that is what it took to pay the bills.

Yes that peghead style shows up on banjolins from both sides of the pond.