The Midnight Flyer Music Sheet

The Midnight Flyer music sheet is a March-Two Step arranged by Edward Taylor Paull. Music by Frederick W. Hager.

Frederick W. Hager (December 31, 1874 - March 3, 1958) was an American musician, recording artist, composer, and music director active between 1895 and 1923.

Hager was born in New Milford, Pennsylvania in 1874 and began studying violin at 8 years old. He received a scholarship to study violin at the National Conservatory, and led his own band in New York City at the age of 21.

In 1898 he began recording for Harms, Kaiser and Hagen, a recently formed independent record company based in New York and in September of that year won the Phonoscope gold medal for best violin record for Schumann's Traumerei. He began recording for Edison in 1899 and Zonophone and Columbia in 1900. Between 1900 and 1907 Hager served as a bandleader for Edison (Edison's Concert Band), Zonophone (Hager's Orchestra), and Columbia (Columbia Orchestra, Climax Orchestra) recording hundreds of sides and becoming the nation's leading recording orchestra.

He was composing at the same time, and beginning around 1903 published a number of successful popular songs, including Laughing Water, The Midnight Flyer, and My Ramapoo.

He worked in music publishing between 1907 and 1910 before returning to the recording industry as a musical director (choosing artists and repertoire) for several startup companies including the Boston Talking Machine Company, Keen-O-Phone, and Rex Talking Machine. In 1918 he began as musical director for OKeh Records, one of the most successful independent labels of the time. In this role he managed the recording of Mamie Smith's historic recording of Crazy Blues that initiated the "Race Records" craze in the U.S. Hager retired from recording in 1923 to Long Island, New York and died in Dunedin, Florida in 1958.

Edward Taylor Paull (February 16, 1858 – November 25, 1924) was a minor American composer, arranger, and sheet music publisher.

He was born in Gerrardstown, in what is now West Virginia, and died in Brooklyn, NY.

He had some success with a few titles which enabled him to set up his own self-publishing company. His music was intended for the piano sheet music trade.

His first publication was for the Richmond Music Company in Richmond, VA where he was general manager. The first publication was The Chariot Race or Ben Hur March with a full-color cover. Paull's success with Ben Hur, prompted him to use it in his marketing as he moved into the music teaching market and the phonograph manufacturing business.

He began publishing in 1894, specializing in marches. He is known for his 1905 march entitled, Paul Revere's Ride which was dedicated to the Daughters of the American Revolution.

In order to sell music, the music was marketed with uniquely colorful front cover illustrations to catch the eye of buyers. He was the first music publisher to use five-color lithography for his sheet music. For this reason alone, music published by his firm has become highly collectible in the modern era and has latterly aroused interest in the composer.

To further boost sales, he marketed his music as "descriptives" and ascribed certain sections of the music to allude to certain depictions of events on the cover illustration. This type of publication alludes to its being comparable to program music whilst never achieving the requisite complexity. The marketing of the pieces as "descriptives" (often a latter enhanced recycling of earlier published material) enabled the same music to be sold a second time around to the wide market of beginner-level pianists who had been accustomed to fare of this kind since Pridham's "Battle March of Delhi" in the mid-19th century. On this musical level, his true contemporaries were the British writers Ezra Read and Theo Bonheur of the same period.

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