An Atlantic City Love Story, part 2

The newspapers called it love at first sight,
an unlikely romance between a young couple
who came from very different cultures.
He was a poor Italian musician who spoke little English.
She was a wealthy American debutante who knew nothing about music.
Yet he was handsome and radiated an exotic charm,
and she was a elegant beauty dressed in stylish fashion.
So when the magnetic poles of love
pulled them closer together
it was a courtship deemed worthy
of the public's attention.

It was the love story of Italian bandmaster Oreste Vessella's
pursuit of Edna Egan, the daughter of a Cincinnati millionaire.
And it had all the quirky characters
and plot twists of a Broadway operetta.

At least that's how the newspapers reported it.

Cincinnati Enquirer
22 January 1904

This is the continuation of a story that began last weekend
in An Atlantic City Love Story, part 1.
If you have not read it, click the link above
and take a few minutes to catch up.
Take your time.
We'll wait right here.

Duluth MN News-Tribune
31 January 1904

In January 1904 when Oreste and Edna announced their engagement in Cincinnati, newspapers across the country picked up the news. Some papers ran just a few short paragraphs on the couple, while others developed a longer story that nearly filled an entire page. It was a crazy combination of high society events, colorful foreign affairs, misspelled Italian names, and embellished romantic details. But in every report the hook was always Edna's father's money.

They labeled her an "heiress" of $1,000,000 even though she was one of seven children and not even the oldest. Supposedly Mr. Egan, a wealthy Cincinnati manufacturer of woodworking machinery promised to present Oreste and Edna with $100,000 to keep her in the lifestyle she was accustomed to. It was also alleged that Mr. Egan agreed to fund Oreste's future musical endeavors or hire him "employment in some of his big establishments." Not surprisingly much of this was pure fiction.

So just as any practical parents might do, the Egans investigated this talented but foreign man who had captured their daughter's heart. It was not enough that he seemed likeable and demonstrated a clever talent. They needed to meet him back in Cincinnati on their own terms to best judge his merits.

After his first visit and being satisfied that Oreste's intentions toward Edna were sincere, Mrs. Egan asked for documentation and testimonials from his hometown of Alife, Italy. These he provided but of course they were written in Italian. Edna herself then contacted the Italian consulate in Atlantic City and arranged for a translation. The information attested that Oreste came from a good family, was well educated, and had established a successful career as a musician in Italy and now Atlantic City. His only fault was that like many young musicians, he was poor, which the Egans decided was no obstacle to marriage, if it was what their daughter desired. Edna and Oreste set a date.

Yet as we learned in An Atlantic City Love Story, part 1,
maybe in hindsight Mr. and Mrs. Egan later regretted
not making a more thorough investigation.

_ _ _

Edna Egan came from a high society world of wealth and privilege. Her family lived in a palatial  house in Cincinnati on the bluffs overlooking the Ohio River. They took holidays in Europe. Stayed at grand hotels. Traveled first class. Enjoyed the theatre. Played at the amusement parks of the rich. They embodied the model of America's new aristocracy class.

But Oreste Vessella grew up in a world of the old country that was very different. Born into a musical family, he started playing a musical instrument, the clarinet, at a very young age. In his teens he was sent to the Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella in Naples, one of Europe's most celebrated music conservatories, which trained composers like Alessandro Scarlatti, Pergolesi, Cimarosa, Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. By 1900 countless Italian operas were in standard repertoire in theatres around the world, and Italian composers, singers, and musicians were admired and emulated. This rich cultural force created musicians like Oreste who knew their calling practically from birth.

When Oreste emigrated to America in the summer of 1901, he was just one of hundreds of Italian musicians seeking their fortunes on the bandstands of the New World. Americans already knew Italians were a musical people, but the phrase "Italian Bandmaster" which the newspaper chose for the 1904 report on Edna and Oreste's engagement had a special meaning. Americans recognized it because every week it seemed another maestro appeared in their newspaper's amusement section.

Forget all the other American bandleaders,
Oreste Vessella faced tough competition just from his own countrymen
as to who was the most handsome Italian bandmaster of them all.

Topeka KS Daily Capital Herald
10 September 1905

In July 1901 after arriving on the S.S. Normandie from Le Harve, France, Oreste was briefly held in the U. S. Immigration Service's alien detention, where he received 2 breakfasts, 3 dinners, and 2 suppers before he was released. After a visit with his father, Crescenzo Vessella, who lived in New York City's Little Italy neighborhood, Oreste was hired by Ellery's Royal Italian Band as one of 15 clarinetists. This military style concert band was undertaking a national tour and by September had reached Spokane, Washington to perform for the Elks fraternal society convention. The band employed 48 Italian musicians brought over from Italy by its manager and proprietor, Channing Ellery of Brooklyn, NY. As a young man Ellery aspired sing on the opera stage and after graduating from Columbia College in New York traveled to Italy to study music. Unfortunately his voice was not up to the task so instead he changed his ambition into bringing Italian music, specifically Italian instrumentalists back to America. His father was president of a railroad company and evidently this provided Ellery with some venture capital. So in 1897 he invested in an Italian band called the Banda Rosa which had encountered some financial difficulty. Channing turned their tour around and made the Banda Rosa into a celebrated success.

Fluent in Italian and French, including dialects, Ellery traveled with his band as both interpreter and manager. On stage he introduced concert programs and gave lectures on the music. As he was an accomplished pianist, he often performed as accompanist in recitals with his various instrumental soloists. Ellery also had a unique talent as a whistler and would amazed patrons as he both sang and whistled a descant piccolo part while playing the piano.

However Ellery was not the band's leader. He considered himself to be a music producer, or an impresario, and never aspired to be a conductor. Over the next several years until ill health forced him to retire in 1913, Ellery's Band, as it was often called, went through a succession of hundreds of Italian bandsmen directed be a variety of Italian bandmasters.

When Oreste Vessella joined Ellery's Royal Italian Band in 1901
the dashing Signor Guiseppe Creatore was its bandleader.

Boston Globe
03 November 1902

Born in Naples, Italy of a poor family, Guiseppe Creatore showed musical talent at an early age playing on the streets of Naples where he attracted the attention the local band director. Under his mentorship Creatore became a trombone soloist at age 12 with the Neapolitan Marine Band. In the 1890s when the band traveled to America for a concert tour, Creatore stayed on, finding work as a trombonist and then as Ellery's conductor of the Royal Italian Band. Creatore conducted from memory and had a prodigious repertoire which impressed music critics in both small towns and big cities.

From his dreamy poses in these two newspaper photos it is easy to see how Guiseppe Creatore's raven black hair and impressive mustache brush inspired Oreste Vessella's later publicity photos.

Davenport IA Morning Star
28 February 1904

In the summer of 1905 family troubles tarnished Creatore's romantic image when his wife Anna had him arrested in Detroit on a charge of non-support of both herself and their daughter Josephine. The scandal made news in all the papers. After securing bond, Creatore moved temporarily to London while his wife sued for divorce. It was not unlike the embarrassment Mr. and Mrs. Egan, and their daughter Edna suffered in October 1904 after an Italian woman brought a lawsuit against Oreste for breach of promise.

A cartoonist with the Pittsburg Press made artistic fun out of the Creatore affair using little silhouettes to illustrate Guiseppe's conducting antics.

Pittsburg(h) Press
18 August 1905

By 1905 Creatore had already left Ellery's Band to form his own band.
In 1902 Channing Ellery chose Cavaliere Emilo Rivela as his replacement.

Saint Paul MN Globe
15 June 1902

The honorific Cavaliere signified a special title of esteem similar to a knighthood that was bestowed by the King of Italy. For about a year Emilio Rivela led the Ellery band on its never ending tour. For several of his concerts Oreste Vesslla featured as clarinet soloist. But compared to Creatore's histrionic display, Rivela's conducting style was considered less showy and too conservative. Reading between the lines of Ellery's promotional hyperbole, I think the bandsmen thought Rivela was a real pain.

In September 1903 in an interview for the Walla Walla, WA newspaper Ellery talked about his decision to change Rivela for Signor Manfredi Chiaffarelli. "The only defect in the organization then," said Mr. Ellery, "was the lack of magnetic personality in the leader, who was a man possessing great technical ability but little musical soul. He was all fuss and fury and rather despised the softer emotions. Signor Chiaffarrelli, our present director, on the contrary possesses even greater technical schooling than his predecessor, united to a sincere and profound sentiment which helps him translate the meanings of the different composers whose works he interprets in a manner not alone to excite the nerves but also to deeply touch the hearts of the listeners – in short, Chiaffarelli is not simply a man of talent, he is a genius which means that he understands and expresses music under direct inspiration."

These were the words of a consummate showman. Clearly Channing Ellery's true talent was in promoting and selling the romantic notions of crusty musical artists.

Davenport IA Daily Times
26 June 1905

Like the other bandmasters' photos Signor Chiaffarelli is shown in a Italian military style uniform. This fashion imitated several American bandleaders, notably John Philip Sousa, who conducted dressed in ornate military coats decorated with embroidery, braid, and medals. It was also a mark of a military officer and Chiaffarelli cultivated the look of a general as he commanded his bandsmen to play. This domineering attitude did not go unnoticed by a cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times, who in February 1906 sketched Chiaffarelli's imperious direction of his musicians for the paper's theatre and music section.

Los Angeles Times
04 February 1906

In August 1904 Channing Ellery brought on another bandleader, Francesco Ferullo, who previously played principal oboe with the Royal Italian Band when Creatore was leader and Oreste Vessela was a clarinetist. Like Creator and Rivela, Chiaffarelli left to form his own "Royal" Italian Band which makes it difficult using newspaper listings to sort out which band was Ellery's and which belonged to his former bandmasters.

Davenport IA Daily Times
09 August 1904

Partly imitating Guiseppe Creatore,
Signor Ferullo also exhibited a balletic manner on the podium
that a Milwaukee cartoons saw fit to lampoon.

San Antonio TX Light
01 April 1906

Los Angeles Times
09 December 1906

In August 1904, the Los Angeles Times described Francesco Ferullo as "picturesque where Chiaffarelli was rough, uncouth, of Titanic style. He possesses infinitely more grace than the other conductor, has the physical abandon of Creatore without the latter's absurdity, and with his lightness and delicacy has brought audiences to their feet in wild applause."

This Italian penchant for dramatic gesture and exuberant posturing on the podium was a surprise to American audiences, and American musicians too, who were used to reserved, almost discrete body language from a conductor. The Italians' exaggerated movements added choreography to a music concert and gave audiences something to watch. An Italian bandmaster's unexpected hop, sudden stab of the baton, and passionate facial expressions became a fascinating novelty to the American public which  greatly influenced how band and orchestral conductors would behave in the 20th century.

_ _ _

In August 1912 a caricaturist from Witchita, KS
captured some of the fervor in Francesco Ferullo's conducting.
Just like his predecessors, after a few seasons Ferullo left Ellery
to start his own band of Italian musicians.

Witchita KS Beacon
16 August 1912

The Italian bandsmen were highly trained musicians. Many if not most, attained their education after several years at an Italian music conservatory, leaving proficient in harmony and composition, as well as skilled on several instruments. As military service was required in Italy, musicians usually fulfilled this obligation in a military band. The Italian bands were much larger than American standards for concert bands, which rarely had more than a piccolo, an E-flat clarinet, and a few stand of B-flat clarinets. Italian bands included not only an E-flat clarinet, and usually 12 B-flats, and two bass clarinets. The rest of the woodwind section had a piccolo/flute with three double-reeds – oboe, and two bassoons, which were rare to find in American bands. In 1900 the saxophone, an brass reed instrument developed in France, was not yet a common instrument in America. The Italian bands used a saxophone quartet – soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone. Reviewers noticed how this full woodwind tone color enabled the band to sound like an symphony orchestra.

In America the principal brass instrument in this era was the piston valve cornet, or sometimes the earlier rotary valve cornet. But Italian bands did not use cornets, Instead they featured piston trumpets which have a narrower bore producing a brighter clarion tone. American audiences thrilled at the sound of Verdi's fanfares on four trumpets. The mid-brass always had at least three French horns alongside three alto horns. The low brass section was also much larger then American bands divided among 3 trombones, 2 baritones, 2 bass and 2 contrabass tubas. Reviewers remarked on the Italian preference for trombones with rotary valves instead of slides. This produced a section with solid intonation, something that American bands often found wanting.

Taken together, these imported Italian bands played with a high degree of rhythmic precision, uniform articulation, and tight intonation that impressed American audiences and challenged American musicians. The conductors were demanding because they knew what the musicians were capable of. The other thing that excited audiences was to hear a band perform transcriptions of orchestral music. This aspect was a particular passion of Channing Ellery who introduced numerous arrangements of opera music, both Italian and German, that were then unfamiliar to the American public. The Ellery band repertoire numbered in the thousands and meant that their concert programs were seldom repeated. 

This Italian musical pride gave their bands, if you will pardon my French, an esprit de corps, which translated into exciting concerts. Their music emphasized extremes in tempos, dynamics, and phrasing, that delighted audiences. Of course Italians bands popularized light familiar tunes too, but it was in the larger dramatic music that they proved most influential.

Los Angeles Times
11 June 1905

Another Ellery bandsman from 1901 who served in the woodwind section alongside Oreste Vessella and Francesco Ferullo was first bassoonist Nicola Donatelli. Though Ellery never listed Donatelli as a bandleader, by 1905 he too put down his bassoon and took up the baton to lead his own band. Another highly trained conservatory musician, Donatelli preferred to think his real calling was as a composer. All of these Italian conductors wrote music, primarily marches and songs, but Donatelli had ambitions for large scale works like opera. Sadly none of his music has survived into the 21st century.


Donatelli stayed mainly on the west coast and eventually settled in Los Angeles conducting theater orchestras that accompanied early cinema films. By 1915 he was a professor of bassoon and band conducting at the California Conservatory.

_ _ _

In 1906 Donatelli and his band were competitors with the band of Oreste's younger brother Marco Vessella who arrived in America in March 1902. It's not clear what his instrument was or if like Oreste he found a position in Ellery's band. But he definitely had ambitions and talent that made him leader of another Italian band on the California coast.

Bands of every kind, were always battling to get the best gig, the long engagement at an amusement park or seaside pier with a lucrative full summer season contract. For Marco's band the prize venue was at the oceanfront park of Long Beach, California. Back in 2015 I featured some of Marco's story in Music on the Beach. Marco was then only 25 years old and becoming as much a shooting star in California as his brother was in Atlantic City.

They shared a strong family resemblance.

Los Angeles Times
04 February 1906

Marco Vessella's conducting technique was noted for its "conspicuous lack of acrobatics and super-gesticulation," with none of the melodramatic action of Creatore and Ferullo. In July 1922 a Los Angeles Times reporter interviewed him on what he thought of the local audiences. "Southern California has a really musical population. When I came out here brother musicians said to me: 'Oh, don't play anything serious out West, they can't appreciate it; give them ragtime.' However, I had my own notions of California, from what traveling friends had told me, and I came here confident that to succeed I would have to give the people good music first, last and all the time. I have succeeded in this beyond my expectations.

" At a concert the other evening in the Long Beach Auditorium I produced, for the first time in the West, a new and rather obscure Mascagni composition – something of beauty, but of great delicacy and subtlety. Some of the musical 'cranks" told me that it would fall rather flat, for the people would not understand it. On account of the innovation in style, I felt the same way, but I let the number go – and the audience received it with boundless enthusiasm. That is a testimonial to general artistic intelligence that you could scarcely find anywhere else in the United States."


Over the winter of 1907-08, Marco lost out on the renewal of his band's contract. The mayor of Long Beach wanted an "American band." Donatelli tried to undercut him. There was a threat from Manfredi Chiaffarelli and his band who were just 30 miles up the coast in Venice, CA.  Managers accused musicians of being labor agitators with socialist or worst, anarchist sentiments. It was cut-throat showbizness. And being in Italian it was probably pretty noisy.


In 1908 Marco won a contract in of all places, Atlantic City at Young's Million Dollar Pier just a viola throw from Oreste's Steel Pier. Some of Marco Vessella's bandsmen followed him while others stayed behind in sunny California. Then in November 1908 a three paragraph report appeared in a Los Angeles paper with new about another Italian bandmaster's marriage in Atlantic City. This time there were no misty photos or soppy romance details.

Marco Vessella Marries
Widow with Fortune

Los Angeles Herald
14 November 1908

The report only identified her as Mrs. Going, a dashing widow, reputed wealthy. They met in Long Beach and nothing else. Except that Marco and Miss Esther Adaberto, the prima donna, were just good friends, and there was no truth to the reports two years ago that they were to be married.

In sharp contrast to his brother's engagement, wedding, and subsequent shameful tales of deceit, Marco's love story generated no followup society news and nothing in official state records. So far I've been unable to identify Mrs. Going's full name, residence, or age. In the 1910 U.S. Census, Marco Vessella, age 29, born in Italy, occupation Musician, Band, lived in San Angelo, Texas, northwest of San Antonio, with a wife, Lillian, age 31, born in Virginia. The census marks show this was the first marriage for both and they had been married for 4 years since 1906. Yet there is no clear connection between Lillian Vessella and the surname "Going," so the Los Angeles report may be incorrect.

But it adds good irony
to Edna and Oreste's Atlantic City Love Story.

 

The Billboard
24 July 1909

In July 1909, Marco's band played the circuit of amusement parks in the Midwest. The Billboard, one of the entertainment industry's trade magazines ran a brief report that hints there might be something to that "Widow with Fortune" report after all. The headline announced:

Mrs. Marco Vessella Gives Banquet

The Billboard
03 July 1909

It was her custom every year to give the members of her husband's band a banquet on her birthday. As this occasion happened while the band was in Chicago's Sans Souci park, she arranged to host the feast at Chernili's Italian restaurant. After the band concert the 50 musicians with guests and friends from the Creatore and Ferullo Bands repaired to the restaurant for a grand banquet in the Italian style, including some half dozen Italian wines and special dishes were served with speaking and merry making til 4 a.m. The members of the band presented Mrs. Vessella with a huge bouqet of fifty American beauty roses, one fore each member of the band, and took the occasion to present to the director a magnificent gold medal, appropriately engraved with their sentiments of admiration and respect.

Speeches both in Italian and in English were made by every one present. There seems to be a model sentiment of appreciation throughout this band, as Marco Vessella, more than any other conductor, sympathizes with his musicians and wants to get only those in his organization who are the very best of musicians and good fellows as well as gentlemen. The social side is praiseworthy.


Two summers before in 1906, Marco's brother Oreste was at the San Souci Park conducting the Banda Roma. The social side was definitely NOT praiseworthy. Variety magazine, the New York show business trade journal, reported:
 

NY Variety
10 August 1906

Band Leader Attacked
                    Chicago, Aug. 10

The members of the Banda Roma playing at Sans Souci Park here attacked their conductor, Oreste Vessella, one night this week and a fistic encounter followed in which the band director received decidedly the worst of it.

The men claimed that Vessella insulted them while directing, and it is common knowledge that he has the habit of swearing while conducting.

The fracas occurred in the presence of a large audience and the excitement nearly culminated in a panic. Had it not been for the interference of the park police the affair might have ended seriously.

This musical discord transpired only a few weeks after Edna Vessella's interview appeared in the Cincinnati Post where she said, "Musicians Make Ideal Husbands."

Next weekend:
An Atlantic City Love Story, part 3

* * * CODA * * *

Brooklyn Daily Eagle
31 March 1917

On March 30, 1917 Channing Ellery died at his home in Brooklyn a few blocks north of Prospect Park. He had been ill for some time and retired from managing his Royal Italian Band since 1913. A life-long bachelor, he was 60 years of age. (Not 62 as reported in his obituary from the the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.)

For many years I've known about Ellery's Royal Italian Band but never bothered to research its owner Channing Ellery's background. I mistakenly assumed he had a Wikipedia page or a brief biography in some compendium of useful musical trivia. But as learned more about how instrumental he was in bringing Italian musician to America I discovered there was no internet encyclopedia reference and in fact no modern references of any kind on his life. That is a very rare and peculiar condition in this information age. I could not find anything about him except in  accounts contemporary with his life. So I feel an obligation to put something up on the vast ethernet universe that celebrates his priceless contribution to music, both American and Italian.

What I find most remarkable about Channing Ellery is that almost single-handedly he changed the nature of American music by personally introducing hundreds of virtuoso Italian bandsmen to the American public over his 20 year career as a concert promoter.

It's clear from his interviews that he was extraordinarily passionate about bringing Italian musical culture to America. In October 1912 he spoke to a reporter for the Wichita, KS Beacon.

"My experience has been worth the money and labor I've put into it," Mr. Ellery said. "I'm still convinced that Italians are the premier band musicians of the world and fourteen years in managing hundreds of them should give me an opportunity to judge.

"The first Italian band I ever heard won me. since then through ups and downs, in Europe and in fact around the world several times, my enthusiasm has not diminished."

"United States has good musicians," he said, "but the trend here is material rather than musical. My men come from generations of musicians. Their rearing has been in an atmosphere that develops musicians. There is ability here yet the rush for money and the hurly burly of competition robs the American life of any tendency towards the spiritual in music.

"America's musical taste is deteriorating. The vaudeville is to blame for this. Cheap music that has a swing to it is proving more interesting than real music with soul and motif. The only way this downward tendency can be stopped is by educating the public to a better standard of music. My band is trying to do this. We are satisfied to give worthwhile music as best we can.

"My leader has been playing solo cornet since he was ten years old. He comes from a family of Italian musicians. He demonstrates clearly that a real musician is developed through several generations. Occasionally there are prodigies, yet the real musical artists of today reach their height by evolution rather than by genius."

_ _ _

Davenport IA Quad City Times
15 April 1917

Channing Ellery had a good friend in Davenport, Iowa who drew a wonderful caricature of him smiling with little puppets of Italian musicians and bandmasters arrayed on his coat. It's an uncommon memorial for a music impresario, and I think it says more about his character than a thousand words can.

As much as I wish I had a time machine to travel back and watch Signor Creatore lead the Royal Italian Band, or hear Oreste Vessella play a clarinet solo, or even partake of a grand Italian banquet, I really, really wish I could have met Mr. Channing Ellery. I'd shake his hand and say, "Thank you, sir, for all the music you've given us."

_ _ _

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where what you see is not what you saw.