Caraïbes

1890 · Best.-Nr. List3666 — New York: Jos. W. Stern & Co 1890. Folio sheet music illustrated pictorial cover printed in orange. 5 pp. including cover. Approximately 13 ½ x 10 ½ inches. Covers detached loss to front cover contents complete fair to good. A decorative late nineteenth-century dance publication for “Trocha” described on the cover as “A Cuban Dance” composed by the African American composer and bandleader W. H. Tyers. The elaborate pictorial cover incorporates stylized tropical foliage and island scenery rendered in a bold single-color design typical for the period’s fascination with exoticized musical forms. William H. Tyers 1870–1924 was an African American composer arranger and bandleader active in New York during the ragtime era. Born in Petersburg Virginia to Henry Tyers and Jane “Jennie” Jones both formerly enslaved he spent part of his youth in Richmond before his family relocated to New York City where he began studying piano. His early teachers recognized an aptitude for composition as well as performance and by the mid-1880s he was writing dance pieces including polkas and waltzes. Around the age of twenty Tyers secured employment as a music librarian and arranger with a touring concert company a position that brought him to Europe where he studied orchestration and arranging with Professor Gaspari in Hamburg. Returning to New York Tyers became active in the city’s rapidly expanding popular music trade working as an arranger and composer for publishers including F. A. Mills and Jos. W. Stern & Co. In 1896 he published “Sambo” a syncopated march sometimes considered to be one of the first instrumental rags.1 “Trocha” also released in the 1980s brought Tyers prominence for his ability to write Latin-style rhythms. It was re-issued in 1913 as a tango and its success led Tyers to work as an arranger with Joseph W. Stern in 1897. Tyers’ compositions blended contemporary American dance music with Caribbean and Latin themes a style reflected in pieces such as Trocha and later in his well-known ragtime composition Panama 1911 which remained a staple of early jazz and dance orchestras. OCLC finds two copies with different entries at the Cleveland Public Library and the British Museum Reference Collections. 1 “William Tyers Music Arranger” African American Registry https://aaregistry.org/story/william-tyers-born/ accessed March 10 2026. Jos. W. Stern & Co unknown