Re: Quality of Modern Rolls
By Rob DeLand
Thomas, this could be a _very_ broad & deep subject, so I'll try to keep my comments close to your issues. I haven't had any personal experience with many QRS rolls since I bought everything I was interested in from their catalog about 10 years ago, so I can't speak for the quality of their rolls today. I do want to share two thoughts on your comments, though.
First, while I agree that the Themodist perforations are important and should be preserved when reissuing old rolls, I'm guessing they're not important to most QRS customers so I doubt if QRS is terribly concerned about them. You can't fault QRS for not adding accents to non-Themodist rolls, and you can't fault them for not cutting specific roll types you're interested in, if that's not where the bulk of their sales are. It's unfortunate, but I think you have to be fair to QRS in this respect.
As far as the Joplin Connorized rolls go, I think it's important to know that the original Connorized rolls do not suffer the problems you described. It sounds like the QRS masters currently in use are different from the Connorized originals. Remember how, over time, QRS has reissued many titles with updated arrangements, and kept the same catalog numbers?
Think of all the old pop tunes that were reissued in the 1950's with "modern" swinging arrangements by J. Lawrence Cook. This is a known practice, and again in their defense, it is smart marketing: keep the music current and appeal to your customer base. I don't have a problem with that, but I (like you?) am more of a vintage roll collector, and I'm not generally interested in many of those interim "improved" rolls! There are exceptions, of course -- some of those "hot" JLC rolls are really good.
I have a recent (10-year-old?) QRS recut of the Connorized Joplin roll of Maple Leaf Rag, and _guess what_: it's a 1950's swing arrangement! The original roll is a straight march beat; I don't think Joplin knew how to swing!
[ Did Scott Joplin _really_ play the roll? Certainly the arrangers at
[ Connorized didn't swing in that era! -- Robbie
This reissue subject is actually a touchy area because I and others recut vintage rolls, including some from old QRS sources, and QRS's policy with us has been to not have an issue with us about it, as long as we do not compete with them and issue material that is currently in their catalog. So what is a guy like me to do when something like this Maple Leaf Rag roll comes up?
I went ahead and recut it on my BluesTone label because I wanted to have a copy that came directly from the Connorized original, and I wanted to make the same available to my customers. I trust QRS has no problem with this, because I think we are dealing with 2 completely different customer bases: they don't sell many rolls to us specialty collectors, and recutters like me keep those collectors from nagging at QRS to issue rolls that do not appeal to QRS's main customer base! This is my opinion, anyway, and I think it's generally true.
I realize I'm not speaking to your issues about pedaling perforations or melody tempo, and I really don't know what's going on there. Apparently somebody did _something_ to the master, 'cause it ain't that way on the Connorized original. Knowing whether it was a production problem or a problem with the new roll master might help answer your question.
Regards,
Rob DeLand
(deland_robert@macmail1.csg.mot.com) |
(Message sent Fri 24 Jan 1997, 16:22:38 GMT, from time zone GMT-0800.) |
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