Seth Weeks

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| image = Seth Weeks.jpg

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| caption = Weeks in 1900

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| birth_date = {{birth date|1868|9|8}}

| birth_place = Vermont, Illinois, U.S.

| death_date = December {{death year and age|1953|1868}}

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| occupation = Composer and musician

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| relatives = Fay E. Allen (daughter)

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Silas Seth Weeks (September 8, 1868 – December 1953) was an American composer who played mandolin, violin, banjo and guitar.[http://www.oxfordaasc.com/oa/article/opr/t0001/e4701?p=oamonthAAc9NcDekIq0E&d=/opr/t0001/e4701 Oxford African American Center, Weeks, Seth]Sampson, Henry T., [https://books.google.com/books?id=DVsKAgAAQBAJ&dq=Fred+Lewis%2C+mandolin&pg=PA1439 "Seth Weeks" From Banjo World, Vol. 8, No. 73, December, 1900, p. 20], in Blacks in Blackface: A Sourcebook on Early Black Musical Shows, Scarecrow Press, October 30, 2013, pp. 1439-1440. Although he played many instruments he concentrated professionally on the mandolin. He is considered to be the first African American to play mandolin during its golden period and was considered instrumental in bringing the mandolin to the prominent national standing that it had in the early 1900s. He was the first American known to write a mandolin concerto (in 1900) and led a mandolin and guitar orchestra in Tacoma, Washington.

Biography

Weeks was born in Vermont, Illinois. One of his musical goals was to make the mandolin independent of other instruments, and his playing emphasized the duo style, a way of playing in which the mandolin takes the melody, counter melody and harmonic parts all at once. Properly done, duo style produces what sounds like "two or more instruments" instead of only one.[http://www.banjohangout.org/archive/200994 ARCHIVED TOPIC: "Duo Method?"], Banjo Hangout. A review of his music by Lyon and Healy of Chicago indicated success, saying that he had included harmony with the melody in most of his arrangements.

He toured America in "circuits" performing and teaching, including in public schools in Chicago, Boston, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco. He also performed in New York City, Philadelphia, Providence, Rhode Island, and internationally in Montreal, Canada.

He composed and arranged as well, performing his own works on tour. He became prominent enough that he was able to tour Europe (England, France and Russia) and live there periodically. He settled temporarily in Europe, living first in London until World War I, when he returned with his family to New York and played in jazz bands. When he returned to Europe in 1920, he went to France, playing at the Apollo in Paris. His place of death is unknown, but was reported in the January 9, 1954, edition of the New York Amsterdam News, on page 9.

He was an admirer of the performances of America's other mandolinists of his day, Samuel Siegel, W. Eugene Page, Valentine Abt, J. W. Marler, W. L. Barney (a Chicago musician in the 1890s–1920s), and Fred Lewis.

Recordings

File:Seth Weeks 1922.jpg

Weeks made recordings with Edison Records in London and with Berliner Gramophone in Berlin while touring Europe. His recordings are mostly unknown or lost today and are available on compact disk only as part of box set about Black-people who made music in Europe.Lotz, Rainer, [http://www.readperiodicals.com/201112/2558311901.html "Black Europe, Some early African-American recording artists outside the United States"] (presented at the 2011 IAJRC Convention), IAJRC Journal, December 1, 2011. Recordings which have survived include:[http://www.black-europe.com/index.php/tracklisting Black Europe compact disk track list]

(Record companies and dates come from a list of lost music published by the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board, and not from the Black Europe compact disk set.)

Poet And Peasant
Concert Polka (Pioneer/Columbia/Edison) (1901/1903/1904)
Handicap March (Pioneer/Edison Bell/Pathe) (1901/1903/1904)
Georgia Camp Meeting (Pioneer/Columbia) (1901/1903)
Hungarian Dance (Pathe) (1904)
Poet And Peasant
Soldiers In The Park (Pioneer) (1903), (Pathe) (1904)

List by the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board of recordings feared lost:{{cite web|title=Lost Recording List|url=https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/about-this-program/donations/lost-recording-list/|publisher= Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board|accessdate=22 November 2016}}

Allegro (Pioneer/Columbia/Edison) (1901/1903)
The Charlatan March (Berliner) (1900)
Donauwellen (Pioneer) (1903)
Jeunesse Doree (Nicole) (1904)
Laburnum Gavotte (Pioneer/Columbia) (1903)
Lumbrin' Luke (Columbia) (1904)
Mazurka de Concert (Pioneer/Edison) (1901/1903)
Overture (Pioneer/Columbia/Edison) (1903)
Popular Airs Medley (Pioneer) (1903)
The Washington Post March (Pioneer/Pathe) (1903/1904)
Whistling Rufus (Pioneer) (1903)

Personal life

He is the father of Fay E. Allen, an accomplished musician in her own right. Father and daughter would frequently play together with on at least once occasion they were invited to perform before King Gustav of Sweden. She would later become a distinguished music educator and the first African American to serve on the Los Angeles Board of Education.{{cite news |last1=Scott|first1=Phyllis |date=10 April 1947 |title=Trail Blazers: Fay Allen |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/692878084/ |page=7 |url-access=subscription|work=California Eagle|location=Los Angeles |access-date=31 October 2021|quote=Although they were wonderfully received by European royalty, Princess Yolande of Italy and King Gustav of Sweden were her favorite patrons for whom she liked to perform.}}

References

External links

[http://www.neilgladd.com/SethWeeks.html List of published works. Also reprint of Banjo World article about Weeks.]
[http://www.neilgladd.com/Publications/NGP%202002.html The Romantic Mandolin, 30 Pieces for Mandolin and Piano], mandolin and piano compositions edited by Neil Gladd. Still being edited. Will contain sheet music for three of Seth Weeks' works: Grand Concert Polka, Laburnum Gavotte, and Polka Caprice.
[https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/poprock/detail/-/art/Black-Europe-The-Sounds-And-Images-Of-Black-Peop/hnum/2868112 Sound samples that include Seth Weeks, as part of the sales literature for the compilation albums], Black Europe.

Category:1868 births

Category:1953 deaths

Category:19th-century African-American educators

Category:19th-century African-American musicians

Category:19th-century American composers

Category:19th-century American educators

Category:19th-century American guitarists

Category:19th-century American male musicians

Category:20th-century African-American educators

Category:20th-century African-American musicians

Category:20th-century American educators

Category:20th-century American guitarists