Fred Van Eps (December 30, 1878 – November 22, 1960) was an American
banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
ist and banjo maker. The "Van Eps Recording Banjo" was a well-known model until 1930. He was the father of jazz guitarist
George Van Eps
George Abel Van Eps (August 7, 1913 – November 29, 1998) was an American swing and mainstream jazz guitarist.
Biography
George Van Eps was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, United States, into a family of musicians. His three brothers – Fred ...
.
Biography
Van Eps was born in
Somerville, New Jersey, United States, and moved with his family to
Plainfield in 1892. He learned to play the banjo and studied the
phonograph cylinder
Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity (c. 1896–1916), these hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engra ...
recordings of
Vess Ossman
Sylvester Louis "Vess" Ossman (August 21, 1868 – December 7, 1923) was a leading five-string banjoist and popular recording artist of the early 20th century.
Biography
Sylvester Louis Ossman was born in Hudson, New York, and made his firs ...
. In 1897 Van Eps was hired by Thomas Edison's
National Phonograph Company
Thomas A. Edison, Incorporated (originally the National Phonograph Company) was the main holding company for the various manufacturing companies established by the inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Edison. It was a successor to Edison Manufacturi ...
in West Orange to work in studio engagements. Van Eps's cylinder recordings, often remakes of Ossman's tunes, sold well for Edison. Early
ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...
banjo recordings by Van Eps included "A Bunch of Rags" (1900) and "A Ragtime Episode" (1902). He also recorded for a number of other companies, including
Columbia (from 1904) and
Victor
The name Victor or Viktor may refer to:
* Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname
Arts and entertainment
Film
* ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film
* ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...
(from 1910).
The Van Eps Trio recorded steadily from 1912 to 1922. He also led other groups, such as the Van Eps Quartet, the Van Eps Specialty Four, and the Van Eps Banjo Orchestra. In 1914, the latter group was one of the first to record for the American branch of the French
Pathé Frères
Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest film equipme ...
Company. In 1921, Orlando Kellum, inventor of the
Photokinema
''Photo-Kinema'' (some sources say ''Phono-Kinema'') was a sound-on-disc system for motion pictures invented by Orlando Kellum.
1921 introduction
The system was first used for a small number of short films, mostly made in 1921. These films presen ...
sound-on-disc Sound-on-disc is a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or play back sound in sync with a motion picture. Early sound-on-disc systems used a mechanical interlock with the movie projector, while more recent syste ...
sound film system, filmed the Van Eps Trio in ''The Famous Van Eps Trio in a Bit of Jazz''.
With
Henry Burr
Henry Burr (January 15, 1882 – April 6, 1941) was a Canadian singer, radio performer and producer. He was born Harry Haley McClaskey and used Henry Burr as one of his many pseudonyms, in addition to Irving Gillette, Henry Gillette, Alfred Alex ...
, he formed a company that manufactured and sold the Van Eps Recording Banjo, modeled on the one he used in recordings and concerts. The banjo remained on the market until about 1930, when widespread use of electric recording removed the need for the loud volume produced by the Van Eps model.
[
Fred had four musical sons: Fred Jr. (trumpet); George (guitar); Johnny (saxophone); and Bobby (piano). All became prominent in the 1920s and '30s.
By the 1930s the banjo had fallen out of favor in popular music, and ]George Van Eps
George Abel Van Eps (August 7, 1913 – November 29, 1998) was an American swing and mainstream jazz guitarist.
Biography
George Van Eps was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, United States, into a family of musicians. His three brothers – Fred ...
gained fame as a studio guitarist, playing with Benny Goodman
Benjamin David Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing".
From 1936 until the mid-1940s, Goodman led one of the most popular swing big bands in the United States. His co ...
, Ray Noble
Raymond Stanley Noble (17 December 1903 – 2 April 1978) was an English jazz and big band musician, who was a bandleader, composer and arranger, as well as a radio host, television and film comedian and actor; he also performed in the United ...
, and Red Norvo
Red Norvo (born Kenneth Norville; March 31, 1908 – April 6, 1999) was an American musician, one of jazz's early vibraphonists, known as "Mr. Swing". He helped establish the xylophone, marimba, and vibraphone as jazz instruments. His reco ...
. Meanwhile, Fred Sr. was associated with the British banjo composer Frank Lawes
Frank Lawes (1894 – 1970) was an English banjo composer and performer from Acton, London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just ...
and recorded some pieces with him. In the 1950s he attempted a comeback with a number of banjo recordings before his death in Burbank, California, at the age of 81.[
Van Eps also worked in ]vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
and influenced pre-bluegrass musicians like Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers.
References
External links
Fred Van Eps cylinder recordings
from the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive The Cylinder Audio Archive is a free digital collection maintained by the University of California, Santa Barbara Library with streaming and downloadable versions of over 10,000 phonograph cylinders manufactured between 1893 and the mid-1920s. The ...
at the University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...
Library.
Audio of "Rag Pickings" at Library of Congress
Fred Van Eps recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings
The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is a database of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. The DAHR provides some of these original recordings, free of charge, via audio streaming, along with ...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Eps, Fred
1878 births
1960 deaths
Musicians from Plainfield, New Jersey
Musicians from Somerville, New Jersey
20th-century American musicians
American banjoists
Ragtime composers
Pioneer recording artists