gazoozaland.com presents |
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Swifty's calling card promoting his new song "MY LITTLE JAVA LADY" |
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John Buckingham Lowitz was born August 1, 1873 in New York City. His father was Deny Adolph Lowitz and his mother was Isabel Gray Lowitz. John had an older brother Robert by three years. John's father Deny Lowitz ( 1837-1892) was born in Hamburg Germany and was educated to be an engineer. He traveled widely throughout Europe and visited Russia in 185. He immigrated to the United State around 1856 and married Isabel Maria Gray (1843-1913) in St. Louis in 1861 Not only was Deny well educated but he was also a very multi-talented man and loved music. We recently discovered that Deny Lowitz arranged music as shown with the two music sheets above - "Rock of Ages" and "The Loved One, Far Away!" . In 1889 the Lowitz family traveled to Europe for about a year. Deny Lowitz worked with a consortium of engineers and investors to dismantle the Eiffel Tower after the Exposition of 1889 in Paris and to reconstruct the tower in the United States. The Lowitz family spent the summer of 1889 in Paris and while there John Lowitz was hired by Thomas A. Edison to help introduce his new Edison phonograph to Europeans. John was multilingual and a very confident young man indeed. (See the cartoon below that John drew in 1926) - it depicts himself talking to King George of Greece and reassuring the King that the Edison machine was not a talking monkey. The French decided at the close of the 1889 Exhibition to keep the tower and so Deny and his family traveled to Hamburg for the winter to see his family. John Lowitz married Louise Morris in 1894 and they settled in New York City. John, being very clever and artistic, began doing cartoons and was later hired by the New York Herald to publish his first major comic series "Swifty and His Wonderful Dream". John's nickname was "Swifty" and he portrayed himself as a messenger boy with wonderful dreams. He was one of the first to have animals talking and was the first to have his weekly comics "to be continued" to the next issue. We have selected various examples of his artistic work which one can see on the SWIFTY'S COMICS PAGE. John's musical talents were evident from an early age. His parents encouraged his talent with piano lessons - he was a natural. Sometime shortly after 1900 John began writing the music and lyrics for Broadway personalities. It was important to have your songs sung by the leading singers and May Irwin found John and headlined his clever and stylish songs. John was associated with the leading composers of the time and counted them as close friends and collaborators |
SWIFTY and HIS WONDERFUL DREAM |
Above are images of Deny A. Lowitz and two of his sheet music.. |
John Buckingham Lowitz photographed in the 1890's |