Looking for information and discussion on C.P, Stinson, Hosea Easton, and Vance Lowry

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

     I am at work on a research project on C.P. Stinson, Hosea Easton, and Vance Lowry, three African American banjoists of the late 19th and early 20th century whose careers and lives interlocked.   Over the years I have posted here  a bit about Stinson's connection with Lowry.  I don't think    I have ever posted about Easton who unluckily bears the same name of a major 19th Century African American theologian and abolitionist,

          Stinson is mentioned in Converse's memoirs and has a series of clippings on his banjo and mandolin performances that I have found from the 1880s until his death in 1911.  Especially by the late 90s he is described in both the general American press and in African American newspapers as an entertainer someone is supposed to know without much explanation.  He was a banjoist, mandolinist, and guitarist,  BMG teacher, who chiefly lived in Allegeny PA, part of the Pittsburgh area, although he apparently lived in Youngstown Ohio for a few years, and participated in several touring African American companies and minstrel troupes that toured nationally and internationally.  By the 20th century he seems to have been involved as a solo vaudeville act on national US circuits.   He appeared to have musical training being described as musical director of at least one of the touring companies and of a number of cultural and religious celebrations among Black people in Ohio and Pennsylvania.  He gained notoriety in 1893 by being hired by a major Pittsburgh music store as a teacher and instructor,  news, especially in Black newspapers of the day,. 

Stinson also claimed at one time in his career he manufactured banjos  This spring a banjo probably manufactured for Stinson to sell to students or at his performances by Buckbee  or a similar manufacturer was found by a banjo enthusiast in Ohio.  It is in the process of being donated to the Smithsonian's African American museum.

                    Easton  was born in Hartford CT around 1850-55.  He became known as a banjo entertainer in the 60s or 70s though I have not found much information about him in the US.  The significant part of Easton's career was in Australia and New Zealand where he resided from 1877 or 76 until his death in 1899 and where he is considered the seminal figure in the banjo world.    You can find almost daily notices of his performances in Australian and New Zealand newspapers throughout these years.  He functioned as a banjo entertainer, actor and comedian, and mandolinist.  He advertised himself as a BMG teacher as well.  He and his collaborators seemed to understand the game of writing Stewart from time to time about how wonderful Stewart banjos were and how the local products could not compare!

              Lowry was born in Kansas in the 1880s.  He  one of the stars of the Clef Club concerts in New York before the First World War.   He, went to England in 1914 where he starred in the Ciro Club ensemble, and moved to France by 1917.   Lowry remained in Paris until 1941 where he became very influential in the development of jazz as a banjoist and saxophonist.  He was billed as "King of the banjo" .   In the 20s  and  30s Lowry collaborated with French poet, librettist, novelist, actor, film director, and painter Jean Cocteau in poetry performances, musical recordings, and film.  He continued as a saxophonist and banjo on his return to the US and died in Kansas in 1948.

               Lowry's story may illustrate links between five string and tenor banjoists.   In 1911 it was announced that Stinson would be launching a major vaudeville act with Lowry who later became known as a tenor banjoist and jazz saxophonist.  Stinson died before the new vaudeville season began.  Lowry was a known banjo entertainer before the tenor banjo became standardized and at least in one photograph appears to have used a five-string banjo even if the recordings of the group pictured suggest he was playing it as a tenor.

                   One mystery in all this is what Stinson claimed was an 1887 Kansas City banjo contest that he won. Converse describes as an 1884 banjo challenge between Stinson and Dan Polk in Kansas City during a vaudeville performance which Converse claims Polk won. Converse puts Polk’s victory squarely in Converse's  approval of the need of  white banjoists to put Stinson in his proper place as an African America. It is not clear whether these are two separate events or one event recalled or inflated differently.   What I consider to be Stinson's accounts are what is said in several press clipping that appear to be generated by interviews with Stinson.  He seemed to rather consciously work at puffery like most banjo entertainers of his time.

                  While I welcome responses in this group, I invite you to write me directly on these issues at [e-mail]

 

banjovially,

 

Tony Thomas

West Palm Beach, Florida

[Trapdoor2]

I'll intersperse my responses (in boldface) within your remarks, Jody.

Jody Stecher said:

The first 8 measures of Extacy are surrounded by diagonal parallel lines resembling leaning quote marks. These do not seem to be caesura marks.  Does anyone know the purpose of these marks?

The diagonal parallel lines are an old form of "repeat". My memory sez that the earlier printed forms had curly tails top and bottom of the vertical repeat bars, making them like brackets (plus the two dots). I think those are simply MS versions of the same thing.

Questions for Marc:

In the first half of the second measure Stent indicates a pull (snap) to the open D string from fret 5. In your notation the high G and the D that follows are gotten with separate strokes. Is this deliberate or a case of "whoops"?

Whoops!

In the tab, in measure 4, why fret 7 on string 2 for F#? rather than the more obvious fret 4 on string 1? Fret 7 gets the left hand closer to the G chord that follows at frets 9, 8 and 7. But since the F# is followed by an open 5th string there is plenty of time to scoot up the fingerboard to get the G chord. I tried it both ways and have no preference. I'm just curious about why you made that choice.

I'm lazy. If I'm headed to the 7th fret and can pick up a note there, I'm going to do it as early as I can, esp. after a 5th string note. My melodic style history also sends me looking for alternate strings as much as possible. I admit, I'm weird. I can and have played "single string", but I think my engineering spidey sense (a form of laziness) prefers working within blocks of frets rather than up and down a single string.

One more question. The  second half of measures 1 and 4 of the Trio are musically the same. In measure 1 your tab prescribes fret 4 on string 2 for E flat. In measure 4 it indicates fret 1 on string 1 for the same note in the same phrase. I would be likely to finger it just like that when reading the staff notation for my own intuitive "reasons".  By using the 4th fret the first measure provides a symmetry to the fingering in the measure 2, where there are no other viable options.  That's why I would do this. In the 4th measure there is no reason to not use the adjacent fret (fret 1) for E flat.

Why did *you* decide to finger it that way?

That's a "whoops!" I caught the odd fingering choice in the second instance and forgot to go back and correct it in the first measure of the TRIO. The attachment should have the corrections. Thank you for actually looking at it and asking questions!

EXTACY_H_EASTON-Tab.pdf

[Jody Stecher]

 I think the fingering choice in the first measure of the Trio does not need correcting. I like it.

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

the suggestion that Samson Easton,  Hosea the banjoist's father, had something to do with Weston learning the banjo would challenge the idea that Horace Weston did not read, or perhaps read well.  Samson was a general music and dance teacher and favored standard notation. Easton in Australia more or less advertised his links with Weston and as has been noted here. 

In Australia and New Zealand,  Hosea Easton was known as a musically advanced performer, not only on the banjo but several other instruments.  Among his effects mentioned in the probate after his death was a violin.   My research which needs to be deeper suggests that Easton the banjoist often served like a music director and arranger for African American minstrel companies that toured the United States.  He certainly was renown for his musical direction in the Georgia Minstrels he toured the US with and went to Australia and New Zealand with.   

This remained an issue with African American performers into the 20th Century.  Louis Armstrong learned the trumpet and cornett initially in a New Orleans reform school where he learned from standard notation.  Before he was good enough to become a working horn man, he belonged to several ragtime singing groups that plugged and performed whatever was the latest ragtime vocal hits from sheet music.  He took his instrument seriously and when he got to Chicago in the early he took formal trumpet lessons with a German teacher who was a symphony orchestra player.  In the initial gigs he had with Oliver, he was required to be a soloist in the bands performance of classical pieces like the Poet and Peasant in a classical setting.  It is interesting how much of this kind of music was considered part of the menu at places of African American popular entertainment.   Musicians who worked with him on studio dates in the 30s, 40s, and 50s remarked about how could work out problems with sheet music.  Yet he maintained a public act that he did not read music.