New Duo-Art Rolls in England
By Dan Wilson
jonpryan@ozemail.com.au (john.p.ryan) asked:
> I heard that the original perforating equipment for Duo-Art
> rolls has been resurrected and is now recutting rolls. Can any
> of our English friends tell us if this is so. And from whom these
> rolls can be obtained.
Two perforators from the original Universal Music Co (Aeolian subsidiary) of Hayes survived the bombing of the factory in WW2 and were bought by Gordon Iles with the rights of the company, later renamed Artona Music Rolls. Around 1975 he sold the master rolls to Rex Lawson and the hardware to Autoplayer of Slough, basically a player-piano repair shop, who computerized one machine and issued "Ambassador" Themodist jazz rolls recorded on a Steinway B grand in the shop fitted with keyboard contacts. Some of these performances were quite excellent but there were endless quality-control problems with the computer output (which no-one there quite understood) and huge stacks of imperfect rolls were always on sale cheap. Autoplayer persuaded a number of old Universal employees to emerge from the woodwork (Slough is near to Hayes) and occasionally held open days for them. Paul Young, the proprietor, reckoned that on the basis of the upright "half Duo-Arts" he was offered by telephone every day, there must be 5000 of these instruments surviving in the Thames valley alone. He was tragically killed in a road accident and around 1990 Autoplayer was sold up, the recording piano going to Peter Davis of the Player-Piano Group and the perforators to Mike Boyd, also a PPG member.
Rex Lawson and Mike then collaborated on making the computer interface work properly. Rex had improved QRS's program and was getting QRS to make a series of subscription classical rolls to Themodist format. In 1991 Boyd started production of Lawson's "Perforetur" classical titles, which continue, but his main output is of Ambassador jazz performances and pre-war UK Aeolian best-sellers using the master rolls. These include a number of London-recorded Duo-Arts. Rex Lawson has added to these a few transcriptions from Ampico, for which he is developing a coding transfer program with the aid of several PPG and FPI (Friends of Pianola Institute) members owning well-adjusted reproducing grands.
Boyd's address is:
Universal Music Co
18 Cinque Ports Street
RYE
East Sussex ph +44 1797 223688
A recommended Duo-Art recutter is also:
Steve Cox
Laguna Rolls
Laguna
Lagoon Road
PAGHAM
West Sussex PO21 4TH ph/fax +44 1243 262041
Dan Wilson (Friends of the Pianola Institute, London)
dwilz@cix.compulink.co.uk |
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