Record collectors may be familiar with the name Frank Banta—a name usually associated with hot novelty and jazz piano of the 1920s, and rightfully so. Banta was born in 1896, and was the son of Frank P. Banta, also a pianist, quite a famous one in his day. Frank P. was one of the dozen or so regular pianists that accompanied several thousands of records in the 1890s and 1900s.
Frank P. Banta was born in 1870, and came from curious beginnings, growing up in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen, with a dirt poor father named John and a Dutch heiress named Fannie. After some detailed ancestry digging, it becomes clear that Frank’s mother’s family were wealthy people. Their family names were Darrow and Westervelt, both respectable Dutch New York names that went back several generations even in the 1870s when Frank P. was growing up.
Many professional portraits of Frank’s cousins and aunts reveal their riches, as in each of these photographs they are all dressed in fine clothing that only Gilded Age socialites could afford. It was his mother’s wealth that kept the family moving along while old John worked at carving wood (maybe for pianos). Frank took after his mother’s family, not just in his diligence but in appearance and character.
As a child and teenager, Frank showed remarkab
