Art Hickman, Boyes Springs & Jazz -- long note

[George Thompson]

        Some notes on baseball at Boyes Springs, and Art Hickman's presence there, mostly from Proquest's San Francisco Chronicle.  Some of the background on Boyes Springs comes from Robert D. Parmalee, All About Boyes: Valley's hot springs area has colorful history.   http://www.sonomanews.com/articles/2003/10/03/special_features/sv_magazine/special09.txt.
        The Boyes Hot Springs had been discovered in 1886, but it seems that it wasn't until the beginning of the 20th C. that its owners tried to develop it into something comparable to Saratoga Springs or Hot Springs, Ark., with the lure of the medicinal water supplemented by that of dancing and other amusements.  However, "the demand for Boyes' Hot Mineral Water was so great and far-reaching that the management decided to establish a bottling plant and place the water on the market so it could be within the reach of all."  (Parmalee, quoting the Sonoma Valley Expositor, February 16, 1906)  In several of the 1913 baseball stories, the theme was that the Seals had run out of jazz and their manager should order a few more bottles.

        1913 was the first year that the Springs offered professional baseball as a diversion.
        "SEALS Will Train at Boyes Springs.  The Seals will do their spring training at Boyes Hot Springs. "Pop" Hardy will go there Monday to superintend the building of a ball park.  [This park came to be known as "Parramore Park".]  Thirty-seven players can be accommodated and conditions are said to be ideal for training purposes."
        San Francisco Chronicle, November 23, 1912. p. 9
        In addition to the Seals, management induced the Chicago White Sox to hold their spring training at the Springs.
        SOX LEAVE TOWN FOR CAMP FEB. 20.  Owner Comiskey Selects Paso Robles, Cal., for 1913 Spring Training. SAM WELLER.    ***  "I think I have found a great training place. . . .  It's a health resort and there are springs of natural hot water there.  The place is right on the coast, and it's between San Francisco and Los Angeles.  It's handy for the boys to work there all week and then play exhibition games in San Francisco and Los Angeles on Saturdays and Sundays.  ***"  [Charles Comiskey speaking.]
        Chicago Daily Tribune, November 2, 1912; p. 16
        Either the SFChronicle's reporter covering the Seals' training camp wasn't as tickled by this new word "jazz" as Scoop Gleason of the SFBulletin was, or he thought that Gleason had a right of exclusive use; in any event, the word didn't appear in the Chronicle that year.  The Chicago Tribune's reporter also seems to have not used the word.

        It's not clear when the Springs first hired a band to play for dancing, or when that band was one lead by Art Hickman.  He's first mentioned in 1913:
        ***
        "WILL ENTERTAIN SOX.
        The White Sox are due to arrive at El Verano, a mile below camp, via the Southern Pacific, and will be conducted to the springs in a sight-seeing automobile.  They will remain here tomorrow night as well, and Art Hickman, musical director, is tearing out his hair to figure something novel in the way of a programme with which to entertain the visitors."
        ***
        San Francisco Chronicle, March 25, 1913, p. 8, col. ?

        The word "jazz" appears in the Chronicle the next year:
        "FANNING WORKS YANS AT BOYES; Practice Continues and Seals Are Busy. Special Dispatch to the Chronicle.  The Seals Yannigans, the squad that was left in camp while the first division went to San Francisco to compete in the first real contest of the season, spent a day of moderate activity under the able supervision of Acting Manager Charles Skeeter Fanning.  ***  The Yannigans are to oppose the Solari's Boyes Spring Jazz boys Sunday at Parramore Park, and they showed today that they didn't hold this fast bush organization too lightly, for they worked hard for Foreman Fanning, and put in extra time in the field."
        San Francisco Chronicle, March 7, 1914. p. 4
        I think that this is the only occurrence of the word coming from the Springs since the flurry of 1913.

        It's believed that Hickman was also tickled by the word "jazz", and began to use it to describe the sort of vigorous, energetic dance music his bands played.  The SFChronicle file doesn't help to confirm that thought, though it remains very likely.
        His band is said to have made a stir at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, in 1915, but his name doesn't turn up in the paper that year, nor do the reports referring to music or dancing at the fair mention him.
        His band became a fixture in the Rose Room for the Hotel St. Francis -- his most famous composition was "Rose Room".  The hotel opened the "Rose Room" in 1914:
        Remodeling of Hotel St. Francis Commenced. ***  ["the present white and gold room" will be changed into "rose room"]
        San Francisco Chronicle, August 15, 1913, p. 20.  The earliest ad for Rose Room at Hotel St. Francis was in the
Chronicle, January 6, 1914, p. 55.
        Ads for the Rose Room mentioned it as a dancing venue, but did not mention Hickman as band leader until mid 1916:
        Hotel St. Francis.  ***  Dancing in the Rose Room Every Evening Except Sunday.  ***
        The Argonaut, July 1, 1916, p. 15, col. 4;
        Hotel St. Francis.  ***  Dancing every evening, except Sunday, in the Rose Room.  Hickman's Orchestra.
        The Argonaut, August 5, 1916, p. 95, col. 4  [The Argonaut was a magazine devoted to the doings of San Francisco society -- it's at the NYPL, where I looked at it.]
        The first ad in Chronicle identifying Hickman as the orchestra leader at the St. Francis:
        Hotel St Francis  Men's Luncheon Served in Grill -- 50 Cents.
        Dancing Every Evening Except Sunday, in the Rose Room.  Hickman's Orchestra.
        San Francisco Chronicle, August 21, 1916, p. 6
        The ads in the Chronicle for the Rose Room never identify Hickman's band as a "jazz" band.  Oddly, there was a "Jazz Orchestra" playing on Powell street a few blocks way:
        TECHAU TAVERN.
        San Francisco's Leading High-Class Family Cafe on the Ground Floor, Corner of Eddy and Powell Streets.
        Entire change of repertoire by our Show Girl Revue, but retaining by popular request the singing from the electric swings in midair.
        The Jazz Orchestra, under the leadership of Mr. George Gould, San Francisco's newest and most sensational find, for the dance lovers.  Mr. Gould renders a number of his own creations with that Jazz syncopation rarely ever heard above the Mason and Dixon line.
        ***
        San Francisco Chronicle, August 28, 1916, p. 2, col. ?

        Hickman described his band as playing jazz in 1919:
        "Jazz music was always a success.  The St. Francis was brave enough to install it in its principal ballroom, and the society matron found she didn't have to go slumming in order to hear bright and snappy melodies.  It has been refined.  ***  [A Symphony orchestra] plays but twenty weeks in a year.  My orchestra entertains people for fifty-two weeks.  A legitimate musician must play according to his music.  He can't improvise.  that's where we jazz musicians have the advantage.  ***  When liquor goes, jazz will be the only thing with a kick.  Instead of making people weep, we will give them an enjoyable pill of jazz."
        San Francisco Chronicle, June 15, 1919.  p. S16, col. ?

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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