Hi All,  I suppose it's just my lot in life to become involved in very
interesting and sometimes controversial topics. Such seems to be the case
with regards to the "Missing Four Minutes of Rhapsody in Blue". Below is
an excerpt from a letter I received from L. Douglas Henderson which I
hope you find equally interesting.

 --- snip--- 

 Subject: The Missing Four Minutes

Dear John,  Yes, I know about the "missing 4 minutes" discovered by
pianist/musician Alicia Zizzo - who did the score that was the basis
for my Pianola arrangement of Blue Monday.  I also know about the Boston
Pops Orchestra 'premiere' of this version.

She located a handwritten version - in the composer's own script - and
also recorded it for Pro Arte CD's, of which I have a copy.  Both Robin
Pratt and I (I played it on the 'phone at the time the recording came
out) believe it's a "work in progress" and not THE ORIGINAL version, of
a piece that went through many changes and additions.  For example, the
"Mysterioso" (machine imitation) section before the Coda is missing on my
Primo (in-house) Duo-Art demonstration roll and also in the early Harms
score (before Grofe' 'orchestrated' it) as an "extra" or "option".

This version has Liszt-imitation cadenzas in it, which stop-the-action in
my opinion ... leading Lois, Robin and me to consider it to be something
that Gershwin fiddled with, but didn't hammer down in that form.

Years ago, I took the Armbruster fake-Gershwin roll of the piece for
Duo-Art and a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody #2 roll and intercut them, going
back and forth from one to the other ... and the piece "stalled" in a
similar fashion.  (It was done as a joke, reading the 2 rolls on my
Leabarjan, and making this hybrid arrangement to play in the early '60s.)
Both pieces are in the Key of E and both have measures and measures of
the same chord progressions - which I discovered as a teenager by
comparing and sight-reading the 2 rolls.  (Somewhere this Duo-Art roll is
in my boxed up old projects, today.)

She and Edw. Jablonski - the Gershwin authority - decided this was "The
Version" and it's getting the hype along those lines.

Meanwhile, Masanobu Ikemiya (and his NY Ragtime Orchestra) premiered a
version based on (a) my Primo roll, of which he bought one of the 43
copies beyond mine; (b) the acoustic pre-Grofe' acoustic Victor 78 with
the blue label and (c) his own ideas.  We heard one of the first
performances at Dover-Foxcroft, ME, a couple of years ago, and he 'phoned
recently to say that this was being recorded for CD's and tapes, very
soon.  Mas (as he calls himself on Ragtime/Gershwin performances) "toyed"
with the music, added mordents and tossed the music back and forth among
his select group of musicians.

The Ikemiya trans. outdid the Gershwin 78 and had all the youthful Jazz
Age ambiance the piece deserves.  I doubt if I'll ever heard anything as
terrific as that version again, and Lois agrees.

On-stage before the performance - not knowing I was in the audience - he
said how he based this new arrangements upon a special demonstration roll
and the composer's first recording (a tape of which I had supplied to
him).  He told the packed house at the Foxcroft Academy that this "jazz
band" version, where piano and band were ONE, allowed for rubato effects
and all sorts of interplay that would be impossible with a symphonic
ensemble.  (Whiteman later had a 100-piece orchestra on the Stanley
Theatre chain, for example.)

Anyway, it's interesting to hear this early "4 mins. extra" version,
but knowing the Liszt connection to the music and also the fact that
Gershwin tweaked his music on Broadway and in the concert hall to fit
the occasion, I don't consider it to be "the source",  and find its
"Liszt stalling" to be an irritant when compared to the early Harms
'Jazz Band & Piano' edition.  For example, the "cut music" from Porgy
and Bess - after a Boston try-out - later turned up as a suite called
"Catfish Row"!

Hope to come out with a 3-roll Set based on the Primo roll, Ikemiya's
version and my own ideas, a high speed roll for Duo-Art which would give
better staccato.  The Primo roll starts at Tempo 100, not the Armbruster
"60" on the 'Muzak' rolls dumped on a naive Duo-Art public long after the
debut at Aeolian Hall.

 --- snip--- 

In another letter that followed, Douglas said:

 --- snip--- 

I think that Warner Bros. - and their media 'fronts' - have a calendar,
and every 3-4 years they "discover" something already known to Gershwin
fans, get a musician or a p.r. 'person' like Wodehouse, and then start
the promotional machinery going again.  Their Disklavier attempts at MIDI
for Horowitz and Ellington didn't pan out, but the "Gershwin mystique"
always finds a new crop of first-time customers.

 --- snip--- 

Musically,

John A. Tuttle "Self-Playing Pianos"    http://www.PlayerCare.com
407 19th Avenue             Pri E-Mail: JohnTuttle@PlayerCare.com
Bricktown, NJ 08724      Secondary E-mail:tuttleja@concentric.net
"We Keep Your Music Rolling"     Authorized QRS Music Roll Dealer


 [ Editors note:
 [
 [ John Tuttle has created a web page, "Rhapsody in Blue -- The Missing 
 [ Four Minutes," which presents all his correspondence:
 [
 [    www.playercare.com/rhapsody.html
 [
 [ In a letter to Doug Rhodes, Douglas added that Ms. Zizzo "recorded it
 [ a number of years ago on Pro Arte, and W. B. published the manuscript
 [ version (with the distracting Liszt-like cadenzas) in a limited edi-
 [ tion about the same period of time.  Thus the new-new Zizzo recording
 [ is the *second* edition, if one looks at the whole picture!"
 [
 [ Robbie