The Four Minute Record

With this development, the cylinder record became a competitive medium with the disc and could achieve a playing time of some 4 and ¾ minutes which enabled the longer pieces of music to be recorded with less cutting. The Edison company was very proud to be able to fit all four sections, albeit somewhat cut, of Rossini’s William Tell Overture on one cylinder as its first offering to the public of this format.
Bob Down, You’re Spotted! (not published) sung by Arthur Osmond. Edison Wax Amberol 12305. (May 1911) This is a classic piece of music hall comedy embracing political satire, irony, social comment, saucy innuendo and malicious humour all in one harmless little song. On other records, the singer is known as Arthur Gilbert.
The Ragtime Goblin Man (H. Von Tilzer) sung by Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan. Edison Wax Amberol 1071. (June 1912). Ragtime emerged in the 1890s with syncopated band and dance tunes and remained hugely popular right through the teens until jazz became the new buzz. Although waltz based chorus songs and the ever popular patter songs held their own during this period, ragtime became so pervasive that parodies on ragtime and songs complaining about ragtime, all of course in ragtime style, became popular. The Ragtime Goblin Man has another slant whereby the infectious quality of ragtime is personified as an almost supernatural force in the form of a dangerous goblin!
Everybody Loves a “Jass” Band (Flatow) sung by Arthur Fields. Edison Blue Amberol 3197. July 1917. When the first jazz bands ventured north to Chicago and New York in 1916 and 1917, bewildered patrons fled the dance floor as the wild new music was played. But the music was youthful and exciting and quickly caught on with club-goers and the dancing public alike. This song extols the “jass” of its day and the composer includes snatches of his impression of a contemporary jazz orchestra. The word “jass” was susceptible to small boys deleting the J on posters, so it was quickly respelled with two Zs! 

From 1915 onwards, most Edison cylinders were dubbed from the discs made by that company. The results were often full in tone but less bright than the direct recordings. British cylinder enthusiasts hearing these dubbed records for the first time after the war were appalled and nicknamed them “damberols”.
Give Your Little Baby Lots of Lovin’ (D. Morse and J. Burke) Ermine Calloway and the Seven Blue Babies. Edison Blue Amberol 5682. (June 1929). Edison continued to serve his ever fewer cylinder buying customers with new records up until June 1929, although the last releases to reach Britain were from May of that year. On both sides of the Atlantic, dealers such as the London Provincial Phonograph Co. SW 8 and J. Jenner in Leyton, E 10 in London, and C.A. Ferguson of Merrill Wisconsin, kept cylinder record users supplied with remaining stocks until they ran out some years later. The music is a hot dance number typical of the late 1920s with Texan born radio star, Ermine Calloway and what may be Harry Reser’s Orchestra.