Walter B. Rogers
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Walter Bowman Rogers (October 14, 1865 – December 24, 1939) was an American
cornet The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B, though there is also a sopr ...
player,
concert band A concert band, also called a wind band, wind ensemble, wind symphony, wind orchestra, symphonic band, the symphonic winds, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of members of the woodwind, brass, and percussion famil ...
and
orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
l conductor and composer, who was responsible for most of the orchestral arrangements on recordings made for the
Victor Talking Machine Company The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer that operated independently from 1901 until 1929, when it was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America and subsequently operated as a subsidia ...
between 1904 and 1916. He left the Victor Company when he accepted an equity partnership with the Paroquette recording company, a venture which ended when the company went into receivership. He accepted arranging, conducting positions with the Paramount and Emerson companies before he was offered an executive-level position by the Brunswick-Balke-Collander Company when the nationally known manufacturer of bowling, saloon, and phonograph cabinetry decided to expand its operations in the talking-machine industry by creating a line of phonograph recordings. Rogers became Brunswick’s director of classical-music releases, a role he held until shortly before the Brunswick phonograph division was acquired by the Warner Brothers film corporation in April 1930.


Biography

Rogers was born in Delphi, Indiana, and learned to play the
violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
and then the cornet as a child. He studied violin with Henry Schradieck at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and paid for his study by playing in bands and orchestras in the
Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
area, where he also met his future Sousa Band colleague and lifelong friend
Herbert L. Clarke Herbert Lincoln Clarke (September 12, 1867 – January 30, 1945) was an American cornetist, feature soloist, bandmaster, and composer. He is considered the most prominent cornetist of his time. Clarke's legacy includes composing a portion of th ...
when the two young men played in the orchestra of English's Opera House. In 1886, he moved to
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to join the
Seventh Regiment Band The 107th Infantry Regiment was a regiment of the New York Army National Guard. The regiment was formed in 1917 and disestablished in 1993. The 107th traces its history to the Seventh Regiment of New York (or 7th New York Militia/7th Regim ...
directed by Carlo Alberto Cappa. Biography by Uncle Dave Lewis at Allmusic.com
Retrieved 1 June 2013
A report at the time described Rogers as "...a cornet soloist of great merit... hoexecutes the most difficult passages with a degree of skill and a nicety of intonation that display a wonderful command of the instrument...". Rogers became Cappa's personal assistant and, after Cappa's death in 1893, took over leadership of the band.Richard I. Schwartz, '' The Cornet Compendium- The History and Development of the Nineteenth-Century Cornet: Well-Known Soloists'', 2001
Retrieved 1 June 2013
He first played in John Philip Sousa's band in 1898, and in 1900 became its assistant conductor. He shared cornet solo duties with Herbert L. Clarke and toured Europe with the Sousa band. When Clarke left in 1902, Rogers became the band's lead cornet player. Rogers also wrote pieces for the cornet; his best-known composition is "A Soldier's Dream", which he first recorded with Sousa's band for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1900. Rogers left Sousa in September 1903 to join the Victor Company (then based in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
before moving across the
Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock (village), New York, Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of N ...
to
Camden, New Jersey Camden is a city in and the county seat of Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Camden is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan area and is located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the 2020 ...
four years later) as first cornet of the firm's studio ensembles, then directed by Arthur Pryor. Pryor formed his own concert band in late 1903, and he found the dual responsibilities of conducting his own group and overseeing ensemble recording at Victor too confining to advance his career as a popular bandmaster; thus, Pryor gave over the chief conductorship at Victor to Rogers in September 1904, while still continuing to make occasional recordings under the name "Pryor's Orchestra" and rapidly becoming Victor's leading concert band director with his own band. Library of Congress: Walter B. Rogers
Retrieved 1 June 2013
Rogers became the conductor of the regular Victor house orchestra, and engaged some extra players with whom he had played while under Cappa and Sousa. He arranged and conducted the studio band for almost all of the Victor company's recordings until 1916, for singers including
Enrico Caruso Enrico Caruso (, , ; 25 February 1873 – 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic first lyrical tenor then dramatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles (74) ...
, Billy Murray, and Al Jolson. Various combinations of musicians, under Rogers' direction, also recorded under different titles, including the Victor Light Opera Company, the Victor Orchestra, the Victor Concert Orchestra (which included extra players mostly taken from the Philadelphia Orchestra, a practice Victor would continue for decades), the Victor Mixed Chorus, and the Victor Military Band (many of whose recordings from 1912 on were conducted by
Edward T. King Edward T. "Eddie" King was an early twentieth century percussionist, conductor, Artist and Repertoire (A&R) man, and manager for Zon-o-phone, the Victor Talking Machine Company, and Columbia Records. Career Zon-o-phone According to Gracyk, af ...
, who was technically a Victor employee upon the company's acquisition of American
Zonophone Zonophone (early on also rendered as Zon-O-Phone) was a record label founded in 1899 in Camden, New Jersey, by Frank Seaman. The Zonophone name was not that of the company but was applied to records and machines sold by Seaman's Universal Talki ...
in 1906). Their most successful recordings included "The Merry Widow Waltz" (from ''
The Merry Widow ''The Merry Widow'' (german: Die lustige Witwe, links=no ) is an operetta by the Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt t ...
'', performed by the Victor Orchestra, 1907), "
The Glow-Worm "Das Glühwürmchen", known in English as "The Glow-Worm", is a song from Paul Lincke's 1902 operetta ''Lysistrata'', with German lyrics by Heinz Bolten-Backers. In the operetta, it is performed as a trio with three female solo voices singing al ...
" (from
Paul Lincke Carl Emil Paul Lincke (7 November 1866 – 3 September 1946) was a German composer and theater conductor. He is considered the "father" of the Berlin operetta. His well-known compositions include "" ("Berlin Air"), the unofficial anthem of Berlin, ...
's
operetta Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...
''Lysistrata'', performed by the Victor Orchestra, 1908), and " The Yama Yama Man" (from ''The Three Twins'', performed by
Ada Jones Ada Jane Jones (June 1, 1873 – May 2, 1922) was an English-American popular singer who made her first recordings in 1893 on Edison cylinders. She is among the earliest female singers to be recorded. Biography She was born in Lancashire, UK, ...
and the Victor Light Opera Co., 1909).Joel Whitburn, ''Pop Memories 1890-1954'', pp.432-433 On one notable occasion in 1910, when American Quartet member Steve Porter was unavailable for a recording session, Rogers substituted for him in the vocal group. Tim Gracyk, ''American Quartet with Billy Murray'', excerpted from ''Popular American Recording Pioneers: 1895-1925'', 2000
Retrieved 31 May 2013
The resultant recording, of "
Casey Jones John Luther "Casey" Jones (March 14, 1863 – April 30, 1900) was an American railroader who was killed when his passenger train collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi. Jones was a locomotive engineer for the Illinois Ce ...
", became "perhaps the first recording to sell over a million copies in American music history" Gage Averill, ''Four Parts, No Waiting : A Social History of American Barbershop Quartet'', Oxford University Press, 2003, p.73
/ref> although similar claims have been made for other recordings from the 1910s and 1920s including a Victor Red Seal disc by the concert soprano Alma Gluck and a Columbia popular-music recording by bandleader Ben Selvin. Such claims have been dismissed by subsequent recording-history researchers based upon original ledgers of the Victor, Columbia and other recording companies. Rogers also recorded many pieces of
classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
, in many cases the first time these pieces had been recorded. Many of his recordings were made in competition with those of the Columbia Symphony Orchestra led by
Charles A. Prince Charles Adams Prince (1869 – October 10, 1937) was an American conductor, bandleader, pianist and organist known for conducting the Columbia Orchestra and, later, Prince's Band and Orchestra.''Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound'', p. 860. He m ...
, and generally Rogers' recordings were more commercially successful than those of his rival. Rogers left Victor for unknown reasons in the summer of 1916 to become musical director at Paroquette, a short-lived recording company set up by singer Henry Burr and
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 Fred Van Eps. After its collapse, he worked for the Paramount Record Company, the Emerson Phonograph Company, and, from 1919, as General Music Directory of the Brunswick Phonograph Company, where he collaborated with Brunswick's popular-repertoire music director
Gus Haenschen Walter Gustave Haenschen ( - March 27, 1980) was an arranger and composer of music and an orchestra conductor, primarily on old-time radio programs. Early years Haenschen was born in St. Louis to parents who had come from Germany and settled in tha ...
and conducted orchestral operatic accompaniments (for artists including Sigrid Onegin,
Florence Easton Florence Easton (25 October 1882 – 13 August 1955) was a popular English dramatic soprano in the early 20th century. She was one of the most versatile singers of all time. She sang more than 100 parts, covering a wide range of styles and ...
, and Mario Chamlee) as he had done at Victor in addition to most of Brunswick's band records. He retired from recording in 1929. He played in a band in
Huntsville, Ontario Huntsville is a town in Muskoka. It is located north of Toronto and south of North Bay. Of the three big Muskoka towns, it is the largest by population (21,147 per 2021 census) and land area (710.64 km2). Huntsville is located in the ...
led by Herbert Clarke, and taught the cornet and played in theater orchestras in New York until 1932. He died in New York in 1939, at the age of 74.


References


External links


Walter B. Rogers 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:Rogers, Walter B. 1865 births 1939 deaths Pioneer recording artists American cornetists American conductors (music) American male conductors (music) American bandleaders People from Delphi, Indiana Victor Records artists Paramount Records artists Emerson Records artists Brunswick Records artists