PS Re the 'smoking gun', the answer isn't the wire brush. Whisk brooms were used in the days of ragtime to beat out rhythm: there are first-hand accounts of this.

I just came across this description of the use of sandpaper to simulate a train sound, and it goes on to mention the use of wires and a thin sheet of metal to produce an effective train sound also. The quote is from Rick Altman’s book about the history of silent film accompaniment. The Carl Fischer collection he is quoting, in the quote I’ve included below, is from the 1910’s and is referring to a trap drum cue. This seems to describe the “wire brush” type method as a good substitute for the sandpaper method. Notice the use of several wires in each hand.

Excellent find, 510!

I've been looking into this myself. In the links to vintage catalogues that David provided are pictures showing such effects:

http://www.vintagedrumguide.com/my_collection_dodge_catalog.html

(Page 32)

and...

http://www.vintagedrumguide.com/my_collection_yerkes_flyer.htm

(second and third down on left-hand side).

Your info gives the necessary background, though. Many thanks!

The drummers in New York were ahead of the game when it came to using wire brushes. Bearing in mind the strong theatre tradition of the city, it's possible they got the idea of using fly-swatters from such effects. Having said that, there's some evidence to suggest that the evolution happened as it did in Chicago (the drummers there were using whisk-brooms with suitcases before they used wire brushes - an idea brought up from the South).

Great work!

Actually, that Yerkes 'Practical demonstration' photo reminds me of something I read recently in Eddie Condon's We Called it Music. In the 20s, his band got a job playing in a Mexican movie-theatre. None of the group (all youngsters at the time) had any clue how to accompany a film, so they just played their normal dixieland-jazz repertoire:

We were supposed to watch the news-reel and play appropriate accompaniment; we seldom did. One night in the middle of Clarinet Marmalade I looked up and saw a French general placing a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Just then Dave Tough went into an explosion on the drums. Things like that confused the Mexicans. Later that year we discovered that a south-side kid was sitting through two shows every night and three on Saturday to hear Tough on drums. His name was Gene Krupa.

Altmans book is really interesting. He demonstrates the links from silent movie accompaniment back to Vaudeville, especially the Trap Set drummers. The way I get it, “Traps” were the name these Vaudeville drummers and theatre/show people used to describe the various rhythmic and sound effect gizmos that they used to accompany the stage performers before the silent moving pictures took hold. Hence the name “Trap Set” stuck.

Also it happens Altman points out that the movie trap drummers got the bad reputation of over playing all the sound effects, and the music/movie media started to really slam drummers for a while and eventually this resulted in the industry offering theatre organs with traps and effects helping to put drummers out of the movie accompaniment business.

510, thanks for the additional info. I'll get my library to sort out an inter-library loan sometime as it sounds like a good read.

Interesting about the theatre organs. I remember somewhere seeing a demonstration of an old one on TV and it had loads of built-in stuff like you describe. Reading Eddie Condon's account, it's small wonder people got p*ssed off with drummers!

Yeah, 'traps' referred to the 'trappings' of a drummer - their accessories. It's my understanding that with time it came to mean a drummer who played both snare and bass drum simultaneously; the implication being that they also had a number of percussion effects which they could use. Even in the late 1920s there were still some ensembles that had two drummers! (one for bass and one for snare). Not that common by then, but even though...

They were probably 'broom brigaders'. See highlighted words in this passage:

Link

(click on panel to read full page)

Sounds as though they were just using the brooms in place of rifles for standard military-style drills.

Thank you Gerry!

I saw the drum in the foreground and started wondering if there were any musical possibilities. Man, back then they must have thought it was inappropriate for women to use those fake rifles that the boys/men were using in many of those school type brigades.

This photo appears in Thomas Brothers' Louis Armstrong's New Orleans and the resolution is far better. Barbarin is holding a pair of sticks by their buts. The tips, presumably, are resting on his leg which extends out to his left (his white spats are clearly visible). What I thought was a drum-tip on the head turns out to be a tension rod's head. The photo is circa 1922 and the source, catalogue no etc is given.

Might seem an odd way to hold sticks but a photo of Baby Dodds a few pages on shows pretty much the same.

Also, with this photo:

http://www.utc.edu/Faculty/William-Lee/bandresearch.html

'Small school (normal school?) orchestra with winds and percussion, 1910s.'

Note the 's' on the end of 1910. It signifies that the photo is from the second decade of the twentieth century and not necessarily from 1910. Unfortunately, it proves nothing as brushes were used from at least 1917 onwards (and most likely a few years before this) in New York.

Apologies if all this is a little pedantic, I'm just following up loose ends.

Gerry - Thanks for following up on this and no apologies necessary!!! You know I appreciate your work on this!!!

Actually, in an earlier post in this thread I had addressed the Barbarin photo issue you raise in this post, and I’m glad you agree, because I had my doubts whether they were brushes or not.

My post about the school classroom photo clearly mentioned 1910s from the get go, and I only raised this photo as an issue to show that the use in schools was present at the same time as Jazz and every other genre of musical effort. This was to assert the idea that brushes could have been commonly used at that time (and likely before), and may have been popularly used to quiet the sound of drums in classrooms.

Remember that when Baby Dodds spoke about receiving his first pair from King Oliver he indicated that he still beat to heavy. He said “But I still beat heavy even with the brushes. I didn’t like the brushes and couldn’t get anything out of them. But I realized that I should learn to be lighter with the sticks. I worked on this and began getting very technical with the drumsticks. That’s why I can beat so light now with sticks.” I feel that he is indicating that maybe Oliver was suggesting he was hitting to hard (to loud??).

Our fellow forum member Harrabey’s story from his father could indicate that those who couldn’t play tended to be quieted by the use of brushes somewhere along the line.

Harrabey’s quote:

Here's some oral history that is based on an opinion from my father who was a jazz drummer with U.S. Army bands from 1918 to 1924, including The West Point Band and a life member of A.F.M. Locals 802 and 655 for a half century.......whenever I played brushes, I would hear him say: " brushes were originally used by guys who couldn't play well with sticks!" With the excellent brush work of many of today's drummers, the opinion he expressed fifty years ago to me no longer rings true, however, the origin of the opinion may be correct.

As we know now, brushes are used for a quieter style of playing. I am asserting that their popular use in the beginning could have encompassed a wide variety of playing situations where the emphasis was on “Be quite”. All that brush use could have helped to create that commercial demand that prompted Ludwig to offer them by 1923?

Hope this ties up my own loose ends some!

:)