Otto Mesloh : A Musician's Perspective

The graphic at left, from Scientific American (circa 1888), depicts the "registration of a cornet solo by the phonograph." Among all instruments, the cornet was especially well-suited to the early phonograph, as it reproduced with striking brilliance. Cornet solos were particularly popular on records of the 1890s and 1900s, and the Scientific American feature aptly demonstrates interest in the technique of cornet recordings. Otto Mesloh was making cornet records at that time; here's what a musician has to say about Mesloh's contribution:

My father was a band director who started me on cornet when I was five years old. To me and others who were trained in music at an early age, the name of Otto Mesloh is familiar and one that inspires awe. He was in a line of great cornetists beginning with Jules Levy (of Gilmore's Band), Arthur Smith (of Sousa's Band), and Herbert L. Clarke (also of Sousa's Band), who defined the instrument for those who followed. Mesloh's contemporaries and successors include Del Staigers, Harold Stambaugh, Herman Bellstedt, Frank Simon, and Bohumir Kryl. These, before the trumpet became the instrument of choice, were the gods of brass. Don't forget that Louis Armstrong was a cornetist when he joined King Oliver in Chicago. 

Before reading Karl Mesloh's account of Otto's life, most of what I knew about him was anecdotal at best. I learned it from players, band directors, or program notes. We didn't have the records to listen to, so what we knew of Mesloh was his legendary style: his feat of triple-tonguing and his unique phrasing, which was noted in my edition of the Arban Method Book. Listen to the Lambert performance of "Wearing of the Green" and you'll hear the pyrotechnics that were a precursor to the type of fireworks that Clarke and Staigers were fond of two decades after this recording. You can be certain they studied Mesloh's methods.

The instrument Otto is holding in the picture is, without question, a Conn Wonder. I always called it a German silver, as did my father and his confreres, because it was silver and it was old. I believe it to be a Wonder from the 1888-1890 variety. The instrument is not a European variety because the bell is on the left of the pistons rather than the right and it is not a keyed instrument rather than a piston valved instrument. Otto was in that group of musicians, including Jules Levy and others, who popularized piston instruments after the Civil War. Almost everything before the Civil War was a European, keyed instrument. The keys assisted facility but were notoriously out of tune all the time, and the mechanisms were prone to jam. The pistons trued pitch and made possible the things Otto and Staigers and Clarke did. C.G.Conn, of Elkhart, Indiana and Worcester, Massachusetts, made one of the best instruments of the age and almost everybody used them.

The instrument in the photograph on the recollections page is undoubtedly a 1918 Victor New Wonder Conn. The tuning slide (vertical) at the rear of the instrument was reengineered for the 1918 model to be less obtrusive than it had been in the 1914 model. This instrument was silver plated and what you see is tarnish and serious corrosion. It has almost been reduced to the base brass, thus the green. If you look to the lower right of the picture, there is an original, I believe, Conn mute which was sold with the instrument. The mute may be worth more today than the instrument. The New Wonder was a new breed of cornet which lengthened the instrument and eventually led to the development of the fine breed of Conn trumpets—all of which were waiting for Harry James to be born. The instrument looks to be in its original case and, if perhaps worn, appears sound.

Dr. Clarence Johnson, musician, teacher, and collector, of Dallas, Texas, contributed this to Archeophone Records.