Mike Bernard(néMichael Barnet Brown; March 17, 1875 – June 27, 1936) was an American musician who influenced the development of ragtime-era music.[1][2]
Career
A musical child prodigy born in New York City's Manhattan, Michael Barnet Brown was the son of decorator and wallpaper dealer Julius S. Brown and his wife Eva Eisenberg. He had one older brother, Harry, born in 1873.[note 1][3][4] Michael studied at the Berlin Conservatory and once reportedly played before the Kaiser. At age twenty-one, back in New York, he heard Ben Harney (the self-proclaimed "inventor of ragtime") perform, and decided to compete against him. He soon became known as one of the best ragtime performers in the country, billing himself as the "Rag Time King of the World." A white musician with little exposure to the African-American roots of ragtime, he pioneered a style of music that appealed to the public but is often derided by purists as "pseudo-ragtime." He was one of the first to record ragtime piano styles, working for Columbia Records starting in 1912.
While he played in vaudeville pretty much continuously from the late 1890s through the late 1910s, his style mostly fell out of favor by the onset of the jazz age. He was considered for a spot with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1918 after pianist Henry Ragas died in the Spanish influenza outbreak, but the job ended up going to J. Russell Robinson.[5] Mike still managed to work in increasingly smaller venues through the 1920s, last performing at Bill's Gay Nineties in Manhattan just weeks before his death.[6]
Married three times, he had three sons, one out of wedlock with Ziegfeld Follies girl Dorothy Zuckerman.[11] He also had an intimate relationship with singer Blossom Seeley around 1908 to 1909. Bernard and his first wife, May Convery — with whom there are two marriage certificates in Manhattan: February 25, 1897, and June 7, 1898 — [12] had a son, Melvin Bernard (musician; born 1899). Bertram M. Bernard (lawyer; 1914–1988) was born to Dorothy Zuckerman, but there is no evidence of any marriage to Michael. Julius "Jules" Brown Bernard was born to his third wife, Katherine "Kitty" Stapleton, on October 9, 1921. One other wife, Florence Courtney of the Courtney Sisters, divorced Mike in 1916 after just over two years of marriage, as he was discovered with another female companion, and they were sharing a single pair of pajamas.[note 2][13]
Notes
^Information collected from 1892 New York state census, Manhattan city directories from the 1870s through 1890s, and two different marriage certificates for Michael Bernard as Michael Brown. Refer to ragpiano.com/comps/mbernard.shtml link for a more detailed explanation
^Syndicated article from February 25, 1916, in national newspapers.
^New York birth certificate for Bertram Bernard dated January 22, 1914, plus later recollections from Bertram on his father.
^Mary Convery & Michael Brown, Manhattan, New York, Brides Index, Brides Italian Genealogical Group (www.italiangen.org), maintained by John Martino, Huntington, New York
