After high school, Guy was also awarded a scholarship to study at the illustrious National Conservatory of Music in New York where one of his teachers was none other than Victor Herbert, cello instructor. In a Detroit Free Press interview in 1949, Guy reminisced about this experience: "Soon after I got there, the rumor went around that Mr. Herbert was going to write an opera. Some of the staff scoffed. But in that one summer he wrote three" Guy mused, chewing on his cigar at the piano. "No one ever laughed at him again." While in New York, Guy reportedly conducted classes at his own piano studio and also performed in several local concerts, including the Grand Star Concert at Carnegie Hall in 1890.
In 1894, Guy accepted a position as music instructor at the Paul
Quinn College in Waco, Texas. However, once the academic year
was completed, Guy headed for Detroit, a move apparently motivated
by his desire to marry Miss Julia Owens, daughter of the respected
George Owens' family of that city. Detroit, at the time of Guy's
arrival (circa 1895), was uniquely cosmopolitan in its musical
tastes and was a vital center of theatrical and musical productions.
Nearly all the important New York shows came to Detroit over
the circuit route: New York-Chicago-Detroit. Local impresarios,
such as C. L. Whitney of the Whitney Theater and the Detroit
Opera House, and E. D. Stair of the Lyceum, helped to ensure
that the country's most famous performers - from grand opera
to Shakespeare, vaudeville to circus - returned to their city
year after year.
The city also had strong ties with Canada, birthplace of several
important Detroit musicians born of slaves who had fled the southern
states. Their Canadian upbringing deprived them of the horrendous
slavery episodes which affected those more directly from the
South. Many of the Canadian-born musicians were better able to
intermix in Detroit's white society and they frequently joined
other forward-looking blacks in developing philanthropic organizations
designed to improve the quality of life. This included the formation
of numerous instrumental ensembles and choral groups, the Colored
Musical Society, and the elite Iroquois Club whose members consisted
of the most upstanding citizens of Detroit's Afro-American community.
The Iroquois Club hosted musical events on a regular basis at
its meetings.
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Above: Guy's Above: Guy's "Echoes From the Snowball Club" (1898), in a somewhat tattered copy; the first rag-time waltz, and his best-known composition.
In
1908, a "Coon specialty" recording was made by Ada
Jones and Len Spencer for Victor which utilized the first strain
of "Echoes from the Snowball Club" as background music.
A streaming "RealAudio" excerpt of Jim Jackson's Affinity"
may be heard if you have the latest version (RealPlayer 7.0)
of this rather ubiquitous "plug-in."
If not, please click here; but beware, don't accidentally "download" the version for which you have to pay; there is a free "basic" version hidden amongst the egregious advertising banners and promotional come-ons, tinctures, and salves. Also note that sometimes the "RealPlayer" doesn't work so well, especially if "line traffic" is particularly heavy.
