I enjoyed Bob Conant's account of roll artist pseudonyms. I had
a similar disappointment to Karl Ellison's (happily mistaken) over
Pauline Alpert, but in my case over Edythe Baker.
I had always supposed this player to be black -- I don't know why. The
rolls seem a shade over-arranged but the good ones really romp. There
was one dismissive mention of her in a jazz book I had as "Edythe Baker
and her night-club pink grand".
But shock, horror, on touring Jim Edwards's Centenary Festival exhibi-
tion of Women Roll Makers cartoons in Aurora public library last April
-- originated, I believe, for an AMICA conference of some years ago --
there was one of Edythe Baker: slim, tricksy, and indubitably white.
The blurb reported her as having moved to London towards the end of her
career and one late roll I have calls her Edythe Baker Donaldson.
Can anyone fill me in with more detail, or direct me to a biography ?
Dan Wilson, London
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