I owe a lot to Egbert Van Alstyne. And I'm certain that before I peel another page from the calendar, I will owe him even more.

This man, born and raised in Marengo, Illinois in another century, crept into my life three years ago and has become an increasingly important part of it. Allow me to begin at the beginning.

When I first began covering the Marengo beat for a local paper in 1991, I learned that the town had produced a reputedly very famous composer. His best-known work, "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree," is still quite a standard today, particularly among barbershop quartets. Some of his other hits were "Memories" and "Pretty Baby," which managed to survive through the big band era.

Initially, none of this really meant anything to me. Okay, some guy from Marengo wrote a couple sappy ballads, then disappeared into obscurity.

Thus, this bit of Marengo trivia remained buried back in a corner of my mind. Three years later, this character began to change my life, melding my interests in history, music and writing into a new horizon.

Early in 1994 I learned that I would be inheriting my grandmother's old upright piano. My grandmother, Rose Chidichimo, was moving to a nursing home. She has since passed away.

I grew up playing that piano. Although I gave up my lessons at age seven, I continued to play through my teenage years. When I moved out at 18, I didn't take it with me, nor did I have a piano in the house since.

To make a very long story short, I rebuilt the piano once it arrived, repairing the soundboard and putting in new strings and adjusting the 2,000 moving parts which make it an instrument. Once finished, I began rediscovering my old love of ragtime music.

This was not really a conscious choice. As long as I can remember I have been fond of the music of the turn of the century. Although I didn't even know what to call the genre, I learned to play bouncy tunes like "Margie" and "Charley, My Boy" before I was ten.

In 1973, the movie "The Sting" was released, complete with a new hit instrumental played by Marvin Hamlisch, "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin. I bought a folio of Joplin's music then to try to make it my own. Easier said than done.

For those not familiar with it, ragtime is a form of music born in the 1890's which blended African and European styles. It is most commonly recognized by a syncopated (meaning off the beat) melody over a march-style bass. Those who have tried to play this style of music can tell you there is little that is easy about playing it.

By the time I was 16, I had a number of these Joplin tunes under my belt, including his best-known work, "Maple Leaf Rag." Through all the years I spent without a piano, I never entirely forgot that piece. So, in June 1994, I set about re-learning those parts I had forgotten, as well as avidly collecting every bit of ragtime in sheet music I could find.

It didn't take me long to exhaust the supply of printed folios available in stores, but one thing I learned from a couple of them was that during ragtime's 20-year heyday, literally thousands of pieces were composed by hundreds of writers. But where could the sheet music be found?

My first and best source became Toad Hall Records and Books in Rockford. The owner, Larry Mason, informed me he had about 20,000 pieces of sheet music for sale in his shop. In a series of trips, I pretty much cleaned him out of all his ragtime piano music. But as I was thumbing through boxes upon boxes of this stuff, I kept running across a lot of music by Egbert Van Alstyne. It started to dawn on me that he was not a "one-hit wonder."

For a while, I kept passing up the Van Alstyne music for the livelier stuff. But my curiosity began to work on me. I decided to take a trip to the McHenry County Historical Society to see what I could learn about him. I was hoping to satisfy my curiosity. Instead, I piqued it.

Nancy Fike was more than happy to show me not only the files, but the display there concerning him. As it turns out, he was born on Washington Street on March 6, 1878, to Charles and Emma Rogers Van Alstyne, both descendents of early settlers in the Marengo area.

In a number of articles in the files, he is credited with having written 700 songs, being a child prodigy, working on the vaudeville circuit and having been married four times. He took his first piano lessons from Carolyn Coon, the classically-trained daughter-in-law of Marengo's founding father, Amos B. Coon. He was named after his grandfather, a grocery merchant who also served as a minister at the Methodist church.

After receiving a conservatory education, Egbert, or "Bert" as he was called, played several concerts on both the piano and organ in Marengo from 1896-1901 at the Marengo Opera House and the Baptist church.

His mother, as it turns out, has quite a story herself. She outlived Bert's father, who died in Rockford in 1885, when Bert was only seven. She married twice afterward and established herself locally as an artist.

At 65, she "found herself free of obligation to anyone but herself," and pursued a four-year degree in drama and poetry at Chicago Musical College. She traveled across the country, learned to swim and type in her seventies, and later began a career in radio broadcasting.

That did it. I began to figure all this would be wonderful material for a book, so I decided to backtrack a bit and research the family. I was on the brink of a bizarre discovery which has haunted me ever since. The Rockford Public Library has extensive genealogical holdings in their local history section. Surprisingly, I found a Van Alstyne family history on file there. The name is Dutch. Although Bert was not listed in the book, his father was, and I was able to trace his ancestry back to his immigrant ancestor, Jan Martense Van Alstyne, who was living in New Amsterdam by June 1655.

I had already done some extensive research on my own family tree several years prior. One of my great-grandmothers was named Jessey Vroman (or Vrooman -- the name is the same). She is also descended from a Dutch immigrant, Hendrick Meese Vrooman, who came to America in 1664. His farm is now Schenectady, New York. I also found that information at the Rockford library, in the Vrooman Family history on file there.

What I read next in the Van Alstyne history shocked me. "On the 10th of February 1670 and in company with Hendrick Meeusen (Meese) Vrooman, (Jan Martense Van Alstyne) was appointed supervisor of roads." My immigrant ancestor and Bert's shared a job!

I went on to discover that there were about eight intermarriages between the families making us somehow related, however distantly. Now I just had to go forward in my research.

Who Is Egbert Van Alstyne
And Why Should We Remember Him?

In July 1994, I called the Marengo United Methodist Church hoping to find Egbert's baptismal records. The records, I was told, were missing. The secretary knew that because she had just looked through the files for the Japanese, she said.

The what?

Yes, indeed. Just about a month before I started researching Egbert, a Japanese film crew came through, taping a documentary on his life. I managed to procure a copy, which is almost entirely in Japanese, except for responses from Americans in English with Japanese subtitles. I haven't yet had the tape translated, but from what I am able to gather, a Japanese trombonist, Kei Tani, was impressed as a child by a 1933 recording of "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree," by Duke Ellington. He came here searching for the record (a copy of which I now own), the trombonist "Tricky Sam" Nanton, and the story of this great "jazz" composer.

That surprised me. I knew already from my research that Egbert was recognized, more than anything, as a ballad writer. From what I knew about him, he was very "retro" -- his most famous tune, written in 1905, is included in nearly every "Gay Nineties" songbook. Most of his big hits were not brilliant from a musical standpoint, but they always had a "hummable" quality to them. Egbert wrote the music everyman could understand and remember. He struck me as a very average guy: born in the midwest, raised with strong family values, not a genius, behind the times. He loved to hunt and fish and hated jazz. He said so himself in 1922.

But some pieces didn't fit. For all his "hometown, mother and apple pie" image, he was never able to apply his strong family values in his own life. He was known as a womanizer, an alcoholic, a chain-smoker and a hypochondriac. He had a strained relationship with his only son, whom he disowned from his will. He was noted as a child musical prodigy, attended two prestigious music conservatories while in high school, then ran off with a traveling road show to tour the west by the time he was 18. Yet he still had time to peddle organs around Marengo with merchant Tommy Gill, who would carry one into the home of an unsuspecting prospect, let Egbert play it to hear "how good it sounded," and leave it there for the customer to think about.

By 1900 he had several instrumental works published. Even the great John Phillips Sousa was playing one of his marches with the Chicago Marine Band. At the same time, he was playing ragtime with his road company, "A Wise Member," performing their hit show, "A Ragtime Specialty."

This is particularly shocking, especially in light of his religious background. While ragtime had been developing for many years in barrooms and "sporting houses," throughout its heyday it was considered naughty. Not only was it America's first popular music, it was irreverent, at least humorous and often immoral. It was the first musical genre of young people -- teenagers -- the latest product of the industrial revolution. The dances performed to this music were also considered immoral, and ministers were condemning ragtime from pulpits across America. Now, the minister's bright and talented grandson had fallen under its spell.

To make matters worse, Egbert himself remembered years later that the show once went broke in Nogales, New Mexico, and he had to play piano in a "honky-tonk" for three months to earn carfare back home. This also happened in El Reno, Oklahoma, where he stayed with the family of the young Brun Campbell for several months.

During those years, he hooked up with Harry Williams, a young man from Minnesota who became his lyricist. In 1901, with less than $10 between them, they took off for New York to seek their fortunes on Tin Pan Alley -- the music publishing capital of the world at that time. Egbert worked as a song plugger for one publishing house, meaning that he would bring new sheet music to stores, play and sing the tunes and try to sell it to the merchants. It was not an easy or well-paying job.

The boys' ship came in around 1903, when their song "Navajo" was granted a spot in a musical "Nancy Brown." The show was a success and the song became a hit. This tune was published twice, both as a song and a piano instrumental. Williams and Van Alstyne were hired by Remick Music Publishing where they continued writing together until 1911. Except for a brief hiatus in the late 'teens, Egbert remained associated with Remick for most of his remaining life. Williams wound up in California, eventually directing movies, and died in 1922.

From 1903 to 1911, Williams and Van Alstyne cranked out hit after hit, making the "charts" each year. They moved to Chicago in 1907, where Egbert remained most of his life. After the team split up, Egbert collaborated with such great songwriters as Gus Kahn and Earle C. Jones and the legendary ragtime pianist Tony Jackson. However, Egbert failed to achieve the height of popularity he enjoyed during the Williams years, although he achieved sporadic success throughout the twenties.

By the 1940's, Egbert was all but forgotten in the music industry. That is, until he was "discovered" by a Chicago columnist lunching at Henrici's. The restaurant was located across the street from the Woods Building in Chicago, where Egbert still worked in the Remick offices.

After the columnist wrote several pieces about him, the Chicago Tribune took enough interest in Egbert to honor him at the Chicago Music Festival of 1950 with a musical tribute. Nearly 1,000 people attended a luncheon in his honor that day. A huge apple tree was plucked from a Marengo farm and shipped to Soldier Field, where it was "planted" for the festivities. A busload of Marengoans witnessed the moment when Egbert rode in seated in a convertible and plucked an apple from the tree, which was the band's cue to strike up "In The Shade Of The Old Apple Tree," which has now sold about 26 million copies. He died a year later.

Since his death, plenty of myths have developed around him, which the facts are proving wrong. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers states he was born in Chicago in 1882. His birth record, on file at the McHenry County Courthouse, shows he was born in Marengo in 1878. Numerous articles said he wrote up to and exceeding 700 songs. So far, the count is around 400.

A number of sites around McHenry County are said to be the point of inspiration for his song, "Down By The Old Mill Stream." Egbert didn't even write this one. It was written by Tell Taylor. Nor did he write "Pony Boy," which was attributed to him so frequently during his own lifetime that he finally quit arguing about it, according to his surviving daughter-in-law.

Now, he has a reputation in Japan as being a great jazz composer. He hated jazz. He even held a symposium in 1922 denouncing it, saying it wasn't even music.

Most of all, he is largely thought of today (if at all) as being a great ballad writer. Today, with the help of the ragtime community, I am finding that he was much more. He wrote piano rags, marches, waltzes, intermezzos, comic songs and fox trots, even operettas. His classical training and musical ability, combined with his unique capacity for variety made him perhaps the most diversified composer of the time. He left us with a litany of serious music which is not only good, but largely unappreciated.

VAN ALSTYNE -
THE RAGTIME YEARS

It is difficult to determine from the record exactly when Egbert started writing ragtime, or exactly where he was during his formative years, but we do know what he did. He has stated that he attended Chicago Musical College during his high school years on a scholarship, then attended Cornell College in Iowa, which he claimed to have left in 1896. He was only 18 at the time.

That same year he had his first work, "The Rivals Two-Step," published by Joseph Stern. In 1897, his "Mayflower Waltzes" found their way into print, with no publisher or copyright information on the music. He moved to Omaha in 1897 or 1898 where he taught piano and became affiliated with Anton Hospe Co. He married a Lucile Wilson there in January, 1899, listing his residence as Chicago and stating they would be living "on the road" after the marriage. A newspaper article states he was touring the country with his "Chicago Marine Orchestra" around that time. Hospe published only three of his works between 1899 and 1900, but apparently purchased at least three more pieces which were published later in 1905.

Egbert's first contribution to ragtime was "Hu-la Hu-la Cakewalk," published by A. Hospe in 1899. While mostly using cakewalk syncopations, the second theme of this 3-theme instrumental contains full-blown ragtime syncopation. The great John Phillip Sousa included this number in his programs, recording it in 1901.

Hospe published "Bolo Bolo" march in 1900, which also used cakewalk syncopations. Originally a band piece, it could have contained more intricate interior ragtime rhythms which were lost in the simplified piano arrangement. Hospe republished this work in 1905 under the title "Aunt Jane," which was probably the composer's title, as he had an Aunt Jane in Marengo.

In 1900, Egbert began peddling his works to Chicago publisher Will Rossiter, who continued to publish him through 1902. In the following year he and his lyricist, Harry Williams, moved to Remick, an affiliation Egbert maintained for most of his life.

In 1900 Rossiter published his "Ragtime Chimes," which may have been originally written for band or orchestra. It is among the first piano rags to use a "chimes" technique, later used by Percy Wenrich in 1911 and again by Egbert in 1912.

The first theme of this rag shows up again in 1912 as the first theme in Les Copeland's "Dockstader Rag". Interestingly, this was published by Jerome Remick, where Egbert was employed at the time.

Also in 1900, Rossiter published "Hearts are Trumps," a lightly syncopated march and reportedly used in a show of the same name.

Apparently, Egbert was separated from his orchestra in 1900. Numerous articles from 1901 state he was traveling with a road company, "A Wise Member," as musical director, and his "rag-time specialty" was "becoming a hit everywhere." He is known to have traveled through Kansas City, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, Minnesota and unspecified mining camps in the West. There is reasonable evidence indicating he traveled through Missouri on the M, K & T Railroad, which would have brought him through St. Louis, Sedalia and Joplin, and brought him in contact with the greatest names in midwestern and classic ragtime. At this time, he was probably playing at least some of the pieces he had written for band on the piano.

While he was on this tour, Rossiter published his most influential rag, "Darkies' Spring Song." All but forgotten today, it is one of the most copied rags in history. Using a technique he continued to employ throughout his career, he based the first few bars of the first theme on a classical composition, Mendelssohn's "Spring Song." The rest of the composition is original.

This first theme next appears in print in 1905, only mildly embellished from the original, in the black Chicago pianist Joe Jordan's signature tune, "J. J. J. Rag." It turns up again in St. Louis pianist Charlie Thompson's unpublished "Delmar Rag," which appears on two LPs -- "Golden Reunion in Ragtime," Stereoddities, presented by Bob Darch, and "The Neglected Professor," Euphonic Sound Recordings (1981).

Trebor Tichenor recounts the origin of these themes in the introduction to the Dover folio, "Ragtime Rediscoveries":

Cincinnati-born Joe Jordan enjoyed a long and profitable career as both composer and arranger. His earliest musical period was spent with Tom Turpin and the Rosebud Bar group of musicians in St. Louis. Unlike most pianists who remained there until after the 1904 World's Fair, Jordan left in 1903 for Chicago, where he wrote and directed the music for the Pekin Theatre, a successful black theater operation ... His "J. J. J. Rag" of 1905, also known as "Three J Rag," involves two other St. Louis pianists. The first strain is identical to the first one of "Delmar Rag," by ragtime virtuoso Charley Thompson. During the early 1960's, when both Jordan and Thompson were recruited for Bob Darch's Reunion in Ragtime recording project, they set the record straight by crediting the theme to still another legendary St. Louis ragtimer, Conroy Casey, whom Charley also remembered as one of Scott Joplin's favorite pianists.

Apparently, Conroy Casey was playing his own version of "Darkies' Spring Song," which both Jordan and Thompson heard, as they both deviated from Van Alstyne's score in the same manner.

The theme shows up again in several of Euday Bowman's works: the first strains of the unpublished Sixth Street Rag (1914) and Petticoat Lane (1915).

The second theme as well shows up in other works, most notably in James Scott's namesake, "Great Scott Rag" of 1909. This theme uses a "call and response" form, for which Scott was particularly noted.

"Darkies' Spring Song" apparently received good distribution from Rossiter and was recorded on Victor Records by Arthur Pryor's Band, so it is impossible to tell whether these other musicians may have heard the tune from Van Alstyne himself or learned it from the sheet music or the record.

Rossiter published two more of Egbert's rags in 1902: "Easy Picken's" and "Pious Peter." "Ginger Snaps" shows up from Rossiter in 1904. In 1910 a Will Tyres simplified arrangement of "Odds and Ends" appeared in a Feist folio, along with "Darkies' Spring Song" and "Ragtime Chimes," indicating that Feist bought the old Rossiter catalog. That places the composition of "Odds and Ends" in 1900-1902, although it may not have been published then.

All of Van Alstyne's early rags had a folk feel, yet most contained some sort of musical surprise -- an unexpected modulation or chord change.

While some were certainly better than others, "Ragtime Chimes" and "Ginger Snaps" emerge as among the most interesting. All of these works seem inspired by two sources: the folk rags of the time and marches. He also had a number of waltzes and marches published during this time, probably written during his orchestra days.

By 1903, Egbert was exclusively writing songs for Remick with lyricist Harry Williams, whom he had met a number of years before, touring together as early as 1901. Except for an instrumental version of "Navajo," the boys' song success of 1903, and the few above mentioned releases by the older publishing houses, Egbert wrote no more rags until 1909; "Honey Rag." This rag has some of the folk feel of his earlier works, tempered with some of the sophistication he had gleaned from years of cranking out one tune after another (including many hits, like "In The Shade Of The Old Apple Tree.")

From 1903 to 1912, Egbert and Harry had penned about 300 songs together, including 3 operettas. Only a handful of these were actually ragtime songs. But in 1906, the success of their cowboy rag-song, "Cheyenne," started an avalanche of cowboy and western songs in Tin Pan Alley.

Capitalizing on that and the earlier success of "Navajo" the boys have a number of similar tunes to their credit, varying little in music or content.

However, many of their songs did influence other composers, as they always tried to stay on the cutting edge of the public fancy. In 1912 they wrote a tune called "I Like It Better Every Day." It was apparently not a big hit. But Egbert wrote a riff in the chorus which showed up later in Irving Berlin's "I Want To Go Back To Michigan" (1914) and "I Love A Piano" (1915).

1912 was both a wonderful and terrible year for Egbert. Harry broke up the team, off to pursue an acting career. Egbert's career took a turn for the worse, never again achieving the success he had with Harry. However, the QRS piano roll company had just acquired the technology to mass-produce hand-played rolls. Of course, the managers at QRS looked at local talent to record these rolls.

Van Alstyne was among the first, being located in Remick's Chicago office. Having lost his lyricist, he once again had time to devote to instrumental writing. His rag "Jamaica Jinjer" was the first hand-played Van Alstyne roll to be issued, bearing the serial number 100036. This rag is quite different from his earlier works, showing his final development as an instrumental composer. A chromatically ascending melody against the descending bass line in the A theme and the use of the chimes effect in the interlude between trio repeats make this rag unique among others of the genre. It was one of pianist Wally Rose's favorites, and he recorded it twice.

He also recorded an instrumental version of the song "The Hold Up Rag" (QRS Autograph 100038), which is not a rag at all, but employs "riffs," which he rarely used.

He followed up in 1914 with the hot one-step, "Tangomania," written in a minor key, which was also unusual for him. Then, in 1914 or 15, he recorded an unpublished and uncopyrighted rag, "That Sneaky, Creepy Tune." He followed this shortly with another, "Cheese And Crackers."

Both are unusual because they almost completely lack the "oom-pah" march bass figure, yet never deviate from a true ragtime feel. "Sneaky Creepy" starts in a major key but drops into the relative minor in the second theme. The trio is also unique because it falls mostly in the lower register. He slows the tempo abruptly going into the last trio repeat -- a technique common to bands and popularized by Arthur Pryor.

The feel and voicing of "Cheese and Crackers" is very similar to "Sneaky Creepy," however, here Van Alstyne opens the A theme with an idea used in 1910 by George Botsford in "Lovey-Dovey" and Harry Von Tilzer's song, "I Love It."

"Cheese and Crackers" was apparently recorded in the same session as "Come On Along," published in 1915 and recorded about November of that year, with the two rolls having consecutive serial numbers. Several things about this piece are quite interesting and creative. The principal key is G, yet he beings in the dominant seventh, a pattern usually reserved for the second theme of a work. The second theme drops into the relative minor, resolving back into the major. He occasionally carries a tenor line in the bass, which is most noticeable in the third theme. It is one of his best rags, which apparently enjoyed little success.

The A theme of "Come On Along" is nearly identical to Joe Lamb's "Cleopatra Rag" of 1915. It is hard to imagine who would have heard the other's tune first. It is also hard to imagine two melodies as similar without one being copied from the other. There could be another source for this melody. (Piano roll expert Rob Deland places the probable recording date of this tune as Nov. 1915. He also estimates the recording date of "Sneaky Creepy" as Dec. 1912, which does not follow suit with the serial numbers of other Van Alstyne recordings of the period.)

His final ragtime instrumental was "Oh, My!" One Step, also of 1915. This is a nice little tune, but does not match the artistry of the last four mentioned works.

During those three years, Van Alstyne also recorded a number of his waltzes, intermezzos and novelettes. There are a number of things we can learn from these rolls about his style -- they do not appear to be embellished by editors, containing no tremolos or "mandolin melodies." In fact, a few mistakes have gone uncorrected.

Van Alstyne had a very plain and clean playing style, using little embellishment. He rarely used trills, tremolos or other pianistic devices. He tended to add a fifth to octaves in the bass line and often employed rolled or even straight tenths, indicating he had large enough hands to span this interval with ease. The added fifth was common in the midwest and later in eastern stride styles. In his rags, he never varied the tempo except to slow down the last repeat of the last theme. He never used rubato in any rags. However, in his more classical works, he judiciously used variations in tempo to add drama to certain passages. He also tended to "clip" dotted eighth rhythms, executing them more as grace notes, which he also used frequently.

THE "PRETTY BABY" STORY

Although Van Alstyne stopped writing instrumental rags after 1915, some of his greatest contributions were yet to come. Among his good ragtime songs of the late teens were "Sailin' Away On The Henry Clay," "You're In Style When You're Wearing a Smile," and "My Chocolate Soldier Sammy Boy." But by far the biggest hit he contributed to, and for which he has been the most disparaged, is "Pretty Baby," which gives equal composer credit to Tony Jackson, and lyrics to Gus Kahn.

At best, most modern writers say Van Alstyne was "given composer credit," or Jackson "shared" the credit to make the piece commercial. Blesh and Janis in their 1950 tome "They All Played Ragtime," said this:

"When Tony Jackson finally decided to sell a song for publication it scored an instant hit. To secure publication Tony shared composer credit with Egbert Van Alstyne when Remick published Pretty Baby in 1916. The song was given revised lyrics by Gus Kahn to fit the baby characterization by Fannie Brice, who introduced it with smash success in the Shubert Passing Show of that year. ... "

Others were not so fair, as they caught revisionist fever -- it has become more popular to think Jackson, virtually unknown to the Chicago publishing scene, was taken advantage of by the big boys in the music industry.

In the liner notes of his album "Pretty Baby" (Mardi Gras Records, 1978), David Thomas Roberts wrote:

"Jackson is undeniably a tragic figure in several respects. He left no recordings. Equally unfortunate is the fact that most of his compositions were either sold, stolen or lost. Even the publication of Pretty Baby, his best known tune, was marked by the compromise of his lyrics for the commercial interests of 'co-author' Gus Kahn ..."

Van Alstyne's name is only mentioned in the play list. In "The Ragtimer" of October, 1968, columnist Roger Hankins weaves a tale of exploitation:

"It is interesting to see how his (Jackson's) 'Pretty Baby' was exploited when he finally consented to publish that tune early in 1916. "First of all he had to share credits with an established composer, Egbert Van Alstyne. This was considered good business since Jackson was unknown to the general public and Van Alstyne's name could insure a certain favorable response. The net effect of all this is that Van Alstyne is generally credited with composing 'Pretty Baby.' ..."

Hankins continues, implying that Van Alstyne made no musical contribution to Pretty Baby or the subsequent collaboration with Jackson in "I've Been Fiddle-ing" in 1917. He mentions that in Copeland's "Dockstader Rag," mentioned above, that the trio resembles Jackson's "Naked Dance" from his Storyville years, also noting the similarity of the A theme to Van Alstyne's "Ragtime Chimes."

He concludes: "Since Tony Jackson agreed to share composer credits with van Alstyne on some of his works, it is reassuring to know that on one occasion at least the two of them actually did collaborate on a composition, albeit the result was arranged by Les Copeland. Tony Jackson deserved a better fate."

Dick Zimmerman uncovered most of the facts for his article in the Jan., 1991 issue of the Rag Times. Essentially, the article presents the story as told in a taped interview by Chicago pianist Glover Compton, a close friend of Jackson, with some inaccuracies. Compton tells us while Jackson was playing piano in a Chicago saloon he sold the tune outright for $250 (a lot of money then) to Flo Ziegfeld (actually, it had to be one of the Shubert's or a Shubert agent -- Ziegfeld never featured the tune). Ziegfeld gave the tune to lyricist Gus Kahn for rewriting, to be featured by Fannie Brice (again, Brice didn't introduce the song -- it was introduced by Dolly Hackett). Compton then played the song as written by Jackson, which contains not only different lyrics, but different music in the verse.

Zimmerman assumed correctly that Van Alstyne contributed the music to the new verse. More recently, I discovered that Jerome Remick paid an annual fee to the Shuberts for the rights to publish all of their show tunes.

Also, a dance arrangement of a Van Alstyne tune of 1915, "I Love To Tango With My Tea," showed up in a Star Dance Folio, in which the verse is identical to that of the published "Pretty Baby."

Here is the most likely scenario: The Shuberts buy the tune from Jackson in Chicago, but can't use the slangy lyrics of the original. Nor are they crazy about the half-spoken-soliloquy-with-piano-accompaniment verse. They are in a hurry because rehearsals have already begun. So they take it down the street (or take Jackson down the street -- chances are he hadn't written out the music) to Remick's Chicago office, where the manager sends them down the hall to Egbert and Gus' office. Gus cleans up the lyrics, and Egbert recycles the "Tango-Tea" verse because it fits the chorus and there is no time to write new music. All got credit on the sheet music, with Jackson getting first credit as composer, and nobody knew until the song was featured if it would be a hit or not.

(Since this article was written, the author has learned from Gus Kahn's son, Donald, that the songwriting duo visited Chicago jazz clubs regularly. It was on one of these visits that they heard Tony Jackson and his "Pretty Baby."

"They heard it in kind of a loose, jazz form -- not the way you hear it today," Donald Kahn said. Van Alstyne is the one who bought the tune from Jackson. Remick researcher Nan Bostick, Charles N. Daniels' grand-neice, said Jerome Remick encouraged his staff to search for new music, so Donald Kahn's story makes the most sense. The author is expecting more information in the near future.)

The Final Chapter

Although he has been overlooked by most researchers, in the early days of ragtime, Van Alstyne had as many or more rags and cakewalks published or sold by 1902 as Scott Joplin, Charlie Hunter, Kerry Mills, Arthur Pryor or Tom Turpin. Only Van Alstyne and Pryor were touring the country featuring ragtime during this critical, formative period. While many of his early works are not brilliant, he can truly be called one of the pioneers of ragtime.

For an unknown black lounge pianist like Tony Jackson to have his name associated with Van Alstyne's was no shame, either then or in retrospect.

Sadly, Van Alstyne's daughter-in-law, Alice, recently told me that before Van Alstyne died in June, 1951 he learned that modern music historians were discounting his contribution to "Pretty Baby," and that some claimed he stole the tune. Nor did any researchers knock on his door to ask about his early ragtime experiences.

He died knowing that his contributions to music history -- more than 400 published works, 17 rags, 56 instrumentals and numerous ragtime songs -- were intentionally overlooked, denied and slandered. It is time to set the record straight.

The Last Word on Pretty Baby

Reprinted from the July, 1997 issue of The Rag Times.

In an article about Egbert Van Alstyne's contribution to ragtime in the May issue of the Rag Times, I surmised from the information I had at hand that one of the Shubert brothers must have bought the original "Pretty Baby" tune from Tony Jackson, then submitted it to Remick for publication.

Since then, I have contacted lyricist Gus Kahn's son, Donald, who clarified the issue for me. Neither the Shuberts nor Flo Zeigfeld (as reported by Glover Compton) bought the tune from Jackson. According to Donald Kahn, Gus and Egbert used to frequent the black night clubs in Chicago. They were apparently the ones who heard and bought the tune from Jackson. There is also a possibility that the original title of this tune was "Jelly Roll Rag," which I cannot substantiate at this time, although the original lyrics as recalled by Glover Compton ("You can talk about your jelly rolls but none of them compare with my baby, my pretty baby ...") could lend themselves to this title.

Remick Music Co. researcher Nan Bostick, the great-neice of composer and Remick manager Charles N. Daniels, affirmed the likelihood of Donald Kahn's story. In Daniels' correspondence, he frequently mentioned scouting for local talent and tunes wherever he traveled. This was a practice that was encouraged by owner Jerome Remick, she said, and staffers and affiliates around the country were asked to do the same.

Certainly a high-ranking Remick staffer like Van Alstyne would have had a certain amount of discretion in purchasing tunes from the Chicago area. Additional information has also turned up regarding the first performance of this tune, which pre-dates its 1916 copyright registration. In the second edition of American Musical Theater (Gerald Bordman, Oxford Univeristy Press), the author reports the song was interpolated in the Winter Garden Show "A World of Pleasure," a Shubert production with a score by Sig Romberg which opened on October 14, 1915. It was the only interpolation which outlived the show, he said. However, the author does not cite the source of his information, so its accuracy cannot be checked.

And, so, the research continues ...

© Tracy Doyle, 1997