The Dreamland Boys Band

 

 The image is blurred, hazy,
with colors ill defined.
The picture edges are torn,
crumbling from decay.
Yet as if in a dream
silent faces stare at us
across a void of time.
Their eyes seem to plead,
"Do not forget.
Remember me."

 

 This is a story about how memory
can be preserved in any photograph
no matter how spoiled or corroded.

 

 

 

The full damaged photo shows a band of 15 boys, mostly of a preteen age, playing outdoors in front of a building. Three adults are in the picture too. A middle aged woman stands at the back, an older gentleman with a star pinned to his coat is at right, and on the left, a man wearing a bowler hat stands  holding a trombone and a conductor's baton, clearly the band's leader. The band's name is on the bass drum and along the bottom in the photographer's handwritten caption.

Dreamland . Boys . Band . Redding . Cal

The location appears to be the entrance to a cinema theater as painted atop an arched double doorway is Dreamland, Continuous Performance / Motion Pictures with two playbills on either side. Though this much abused postcard was never mailed, the caption alone made it easy to find the group in newspaper archives.

 

 

Redding CA Courier Free Press
23 March 1912

 

They were first organized in March 1912 by the City Marshal of Redding, Henry Seng, the man standing right. He was a German-American having immigrated to America in 1882. He and his wife had six children, all born in Oklahoma. One son, Marvin, is playing cornet in this photo.

 

The director was Joseph Martin, a professional musician and music teacher in Redding. According to a nostalgic profile piece published in January 1983 by the Redding Record-Searchlight, Hestan Wright, a former member of the Dreamland Boys' Band, recalled that Joe Martin was a "paroled convict who washed dishes at the Lorenz Hotel."

 

"He could play any instrument—he was a marvelous teacher," said Wright, who played the trombone. "We had our own band hall on Pine Street. We played all over, including  Castella, Tehama, Chico, and Red Bluff. we used to have street dances in Redding."

Beginning in 1912, Joe Martin took out a regular classified ad offering music lessons on all brass, wind, and string instruments. I suspect with such talent he no longer needed to wash dishes, and it seems likely he played in the Dreamland's theater orchestra which accompanied the silent movies and vaudeville acts. By September 1912, he also became the leader of the Redding Cornet Band too.

 

 

The owner of the theater was Mrs. Jane Olney, standing at the back and it was she who sponsored the boys band and purchased their instruments. Born in Wisconsin in 1868, she and her Irish parents moved to northern California in the 1880s where she married A. H. Olney a Redding businessman. When he died in 1900, Jane Olney, now a widow, began using her husband's estate to invest in local property and businesses. In 1910 she secured full ownership of two Redding theaters, the Majestic and the Dreamland.

 

This was the first great age of motion pictures, and though they were silent, there was always music. Every day the Dreamland offered evening and matinee shows with two or three movies accompanied by a small "orchestra" of around five or six musicians. The movies were generally short and during the time to change reels, live vaudeville acts like acrobats, dancers, comedians, and trick artists of all kinds filled the entertainment. The bookings of films and acts changed regularly and were announced in Redding newspapers.

 

 

Redding CA Searchlight
19 April 1912

DREAMLAND

"It's the song ye sing, and the smiles ye wear,
That's a-makin' the sun shine everywhere,"—
If you go down to "DREAMLAND" every once in a while,
Their Pictures will cause you to laugh, cry and smile;
It is a place for the ladies, the children and men,
You'll learn more of real life there, than can be told with the pen,
You will see foreign lands which you know only by name,
You will see only clean pictures, which no one can blame.

Dreamland Theatre
Latest Photo Plays and Vaudeville
Mrs. Jane Olney

 

 

 

 

In the photo there are two playbills on the walls outside the theater entrance. One title reads: "A Sister's Love". and the other has only "...To Mend" as it is partly hidden by Joe Martin's hat. The first title, A Sister's Love, was a short melodrama about two sisters, who on the death of their mother, the eldest makes a sacred promise to care for the younger. This causes her to sacrifice the love of her sweetheart who refuses to assume responsibility for the extra sister's care. Separation and heartbreak ensues. 

 

The film was released on 8 February 1912 by the prolific director, D. W. Griffith, who produced 71 films in 1912 which was less than half what he did in 1909 when he made 149. He is best remembered for The Birth of a Nation, his controversial epic movie from 1915 that tells the story of two families during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. The Griffith's racist depiction of African-Americans, white supremacists, and the Ku Klux Klan contributed to a rise of segregation and violent racism in America during the 1920s.

 

Long Beach CA Daily Telegram
24 February 1912

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second title was a bit more challenging to find the missing words, but Umbrellas to Mend, a short Vitagraph comedy starring comic actor John Bunny fits very neatly. Like A Sister's Love it was also released in early 1912 and a theater in Long Beach, California put both films on the bill in February 1912. Since film studios were churning out new movies every week, neither film ran for very long. Comedies in particular had a short shelf life, so I believe the films coincidental run together likely date the photo of the Dreamland Boy's Band to around the end of March 1912 when the band was first formed.

 

 

 - - -

 

 

 

The population of Redding, California in 1910 was just 3,572 citizens yet in the surrounding county, there were several gold and cooper mines and other industries that put the region's population over 18,900. The town could boast of two newspapers in which Mrs. Olney managed to get regular notices about her theater billings every week. The block where the Dreamland theater was located had numerous hotels, restaurants, barber shops, gaming halls, and over 15 saloons.  The train depot was nearby and Mrs. Olney's other smaller theater, The Majestic, was two blocks away.  So Redding's entertainment district enjoyed more success than the town's population might suggest. Even so Mrs. Olney was smart to use the publicity about her Dreamland Boys' Band to generate ticket sales.

 Nearly 40 years later the band was still fondly remembered in Redding.

  

Shasta CA Courier
15 June 1950

  

In June 1950 the Shasta, California Courier published a special page of historic photos honoring  Shasta County's early pioneers. It included this same photo of the Dreamland Boys Band but with the valuable addition of a list of names, courtesy of Mrs. G. F. Graves.  "In the group are (back row) Mrs. Jane Olney, Clarence Ifincen, Earl Richardson, Earl Hersinger, Marion, Rolison; (front row) Joe Martin, leader, Max Polse, Melvin Geis, Adolph Bystle, George Graves,  Cecil Smith, Marvin Seng, Harvey Gilzezan, Tom Gardner, and City Marshal Henry Seng (with badge)."

 

 

 

 

Redding CA Courier Free Press
18 October 1912

 

 

 

 

 

After only a few months, Joe Martin had taught the boys' band enough music to schedule concerts at the Dreamland. Like most towns in America, Redding already had a regular brass band made up of adult men that had been around since 1885. This ban's popularity even sparked a spinoff boys' "cadet band" in 1899, but that group folded years before 1912.

 

I've written many stories about photos of boys' bands in my collection, and most follow the same pattern. Though it resembles the plot to Meredith Willson's The Music Man it was more often the result of a community's collective love of music. Usually a dedicated "professor" teaches boys the rudiments of music on an assortment of brass and reed instruments. The townsfolk, i.e. parents, are delighted with the discipline and culture that this instills in the boys, and soon their boys' brass band is touring the region acting as musical ambassadors for the town.

 

In the following year enthusiasm for the Dreamland Boys' Band increased and by May 1913 there was a campaign to buy the boys new uniforms. The band's membership increased and Mrs. Olney found patrons to fund travel expenses that took the band to other parts of the county and even to Sacramento, the state capital. 

 

 

 

 

- - -

 

  

Redding CA Searchlight
24 October 1914

 

Two years later in October 1914 a photo of the Dreamland Boys' Band was printed to advertise their next concert. There are now 26 musicians neatly arranged in front of the Dreamland archway all wearing stylish military-style band uniforms. According to another report the color was blue with gold trim. Joe Martin stands center in front of the bass drum and holding a fox terrier mascot. The feature film posted on the side wall is a 1913 Italian film, Anthony and Cleopatra. Directed by Enrico Guazzoni it was originally an 11 reel black and white silent movie but the U.S. release was shortened to 8 reels. It's curious that early cinemas like the Dreamland advertised big blockbuster films not by number of reels but by film length. A major motion picture might run with 3,500 feet or 4,000 feet of film which translated to about 45 minutes of playing time.

 

My story might have stopped here with this last image, but there was something else in this grainy newspaper photo that was more exotic than an Italian film poster. Over on the left is a boy trombonist who stands out because his complexion is not the same as the other boys. His presence is remarkable to see in any musical ensemble of this era when American society still suffered from pervasive racial segregation and discrimination. It took decades of civil rights protest and struggle to achieve this kind of public integration of children. This photo might match an image of a school band from 1962 but not from 1912. My ghostly postcard now had a new question to ask.

How did this kid get to play in the Dreamland Boys' Band?  

And then I found him in another photo.

 

Dreamland Boys Band, Redding, California, circa 1913-15
Source: IBEW.org.uk

This next image of the Dreamland Boys Band comes from the vast photo archives of the Internet Bandsman's Everything Within, or IBEW.org.uk. Like my postcard this photo is conveniently captioned and has the band's name on the bass drum. Here the boys are set up for a concert, presumably on the Dreamland Theatre stage, which can barely contain the two dozen musicians. Behind them is a painted backdrop of some grand house or castle. Their leader, Joe Martin, stands at the left. And just in the center of the back row is a dark face with a trombone, surely the same young black trombonist in the previous newspaper photo.

Even now in the 21st century the history of racism in America is a subject that remains challenging to discuss. As I have learned from many years collecting antique photographs of musicians and musical groups, a photograph of black musicians playing together with white musicians is a very rare thing to find. A few that I have in my collection have been featured in previous stories. Most recently in  The Star Ball Bearing Axle Band from April 2020;  The Springfield Technical High School Orchestra from May 2013; and in one of my first stories from May 2010, Schneider's 1908 High School Band which features a postcard with a young black trombonist. This same progressive concept of inclusion seems to be part of the Dreamland Boys' Band story. But this kid is not even a blur in the photo I own. He is literally an anonymous shadow in a news clipping. It seemed very unlikely that I could identify him and probably impossible to learn how he became part of the band.

Or so I thought.

There are very few internet references to the Dreamland Theatre in Redding California, much less its boys' band. But as I kept hunting this week I discovered another blog that actually answered my question on how a young African-American boy is pictured in this band, at a time when all of America, even in California, was rigidly segregated and rarely integrated. The blogger's name is Michael Kuker, and in his blog he writes about little-known history of Shasta County. In this post from 1 March 2019 he featured Jane Olney and the story of her theaters in Redding. 

 

He finished with an account he found in the Western Outlook, an African-American weekly newspaper in San Francisco, made by one of its journalists who went on a tour of African-American communities in northern California in the fall of 1915. While visiting Redding, the writer noticed a boy playing trombone in a local boys' band.

San Francisco Western Outlook
16 October 1915

One thing that pleased us very much while waiting for our train we stepped around to the theater where the boys' band plays in front three times a week, and to our surprise saw Adolph Norman, about 12 years of age, playing a slide trombone. On inquiry we learned that some of the boys objected at first, but the lady who owns the theater promptly informed them that Adolph was going to play if he played alone, so they could suit themselves about playing. This was a year ago, and they are all playing yet. He is a sight reader, a natural musician and the best of the bunch.  Merit will tell.

This was the key to solving my puzzle. In the previous paragraph the editor of the Western Outlook, described staying at the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Norman while visiting Redding. I easily found them in the 1910 census. James Norman, age 25, worked as a porter at a Redding barber shop. His wife was Mand, age 26, and they had been married only 5 months. Their only child was Adolph E. Brown, step-son, who was then only 9 years old. So it's understandable how the writer could mistake Adolph's surname. But he was right about the boy's talent. Even at age 12, Adolph Brown was getting feature billing at the Dreamland.

 

Redding CA Courier Free Press
21 November 1913

 

Using just his name, I found Adolph Brown linked to many reports in the Redding newspapers.It was surprising how many times this young boy got his name in the papers. Most notably he was connected to the Dreamland theater, as it was clear Mrs. Jane Olney was his secret patron. Though we can't know her real motivation the account of her defense of Adolph's participation in the band rings true because it came firsthand from an African-American newsman. 

 

Besides the slide trombone, Adolph also sang and performed solos. One piece that he played was "Alexander's Ragtime Band" the Tin Pan Alley song by American composer Irving Berlin that was released in 1911. This quaisi-march has a minstrel show style that quickly captured the attention of the public when it was first published, selling over two million copies by 1912, not to mention that several phonograph recordings of the song also became best sellers too. Its catchy melody is also so simple than it could be played by any school boy as accomplished as Adolph. Perhaps he also sang it too.

 

However we should remember that this was only 1912, and the word "jazz" was not yet a common musical term. Most American would not hear New Orleans style syncopated bands until 1918, so it would be wrong to think Adolph was playing anything other than popular sentimental songs and traditional dance tunes.

.

 

  

Redding CA Courier Free Press
22 April 1914

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In April 1914 the Dreamland Boys' Band gave a concert that was reviewed by the Redding Courier Free Press. There was a full house and the band now number 31 boys. The program included a cornet solo by Harvey Gilzean; a clarinet duet with Max Polse and Manuel Brass with piano accompaniment; and "Adolph Brown, the pride of the Dreamland band, gave a trombone solo, with band accompaniment, which brought down the house. Mrs. Jane Olney, owner of the theater, and Joe Martin, instructor of the band, are to be congratulated on the development and showing of such an aggregation of youthful musicians."

- - -

 

A year later the Norman family hosted the journalist from the Western Outlook. The Dreamland Boys' Band got its picture in the paper. Mrs. Olney's determination to treat all her boys fairly and offer them an equal chance seemed to be paying off with success for the band. 

Then on 25 September 1916 tragic news reached Redding.
Adolph Brown had died, a victim of the great scourge tuberculosis.

 

Redding CA Courier Free Press
25 September 1916

When he became ill a few weeks earlier, Adolph was taken by his mother to Santa Cruz, California on the Pacific coast below San Jose, about 300 mile south of Redding. Years before, his father, Walter Brown, had died of the same disease. Adolph's obituary in the Redding Courier Free Press described him as "one of the most  talented trombone players in Northern California. He was a member of the Redding band and an active member of the Dreamland band from the time of its organization several years ago." For some reason Adolph's obituaries gave his age as 14 making his birth year as 1902, while the 1910 census record claimed 1901. I think the census taker was correct, as newspapers editors were likely to knock off a year so to add a degree of sympathy for a young person's untimely death.

 

Such sad news was all too common in past times when medical science gave doctors few diagnostic tools or effective treatments for virulent diseases like tuberculosis. The body of Adolph Edward Brown was laid to rest at the Redding cemetery a few days later. The Dreamland Boys' Band and the Redding Band combined to lead the funeral procession. The principal of the  Redding grammar school allowed the entire eighth grade class to attend the service. A female choir from the Redding "colored church" sang appropriate hymns. A week later the newspaper published a note from Mr. and Mrs. James Norman thanking the Dreamland band, Adolph's teachers, his classmates and his many friends for their kind sympathy.

 

Though he is not pictured in my tattered old postcard of the Dreamland Boy's Band, I think the memory of Adolph Brown is preserved in the hidden history behind this image. I decided to include him in my story, not so much for the tragedy of his unfulfilled life, but because the acceptance of his youthful friendships and musical talent made Redding, however briefly, the hopeful exception to an era filled with hate. That deserves remembering.  

  

 

Redding CA Record-Searchlight
7 February 1999

 

After Adolph's death, the Dreamland Boys' Band seems to have drifted apart. I could not find any concerts reported in Redding's newspapers after December 1916. Of course Redding still had music but the musical ensembles were changing with the turbulent times brought by the War in Europe.

 

In the fall of 1917, Joe Martin advertised for more students on all instruments to replace the musicians who were leaving for college or enlisting in the army. He was considering training a second younger band to help fill the vacancies, a system currently used by all school bands, but nothing came of it. In June 1920 Martin announced that he was leaving Redding for a music teaching position in Dunsmuir, about 55 miles north of Redding. He regretted that the "World war had nearly broke up the organization [the Redding bands] because of the loss of many of the players to army service." A few months later in December 1920 it was reported that Joe Martin, age 36, of Dunsmuir he had married Miss Mae Woodrum, 35, of Redding. Joe was employed at the Southern Pacific machine shops in Dunsmuir.

 

Mrs. Olney tried to sell the Dreamland theater in June 1918, but the deal fell through. Poor health forced her leave Redding. The following summer in July 1919 the Houston Undertaking company signed a five year lease on the building formerly occupied by the Dreamland theater and Mike Twomey's saloon. Their plan was to convert the theater into a chapel, undertaking room, storeroom and morgue. A 1999 reprint of the Dreamland band's photo said the theater burned down in 1924. Today the block where the Dreamland theater once stood is a pedestrian shopping mall.

 

In 1931, Jane Olney returned to Redding in very poor health to seek care at her sister's home on Pine Street. She died there on 31 December 1931, just two weeks short of her 64th birthday.

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where there may be bad boys
but never any bad photos.