[ Karl Ellison wrote to Douglas]:

>> Pauline Alpert WAS A MAN!
>
> Oh Jesus ... in the music industry, these things (and vice-versa)
> don't surprise me.   ;)
>
> I have since found out, from numerous helpful direct e-mails, that
> she was indeed a woman.  (I also discovered that she was a smallish,
> rather pretty woman with shoulder-length dark hair.)  She performed
> for over 20 years on radio, on CBS, NBC and Mutual networks, as "The
> Whirlwind Pianist" because of her pyrotechnics.  She also made many
> phonograph records.
>
> Peter Mintun interviewed her in 1976, and in that interview she
> said, "I had a lot of nerve -- you know, 'spunk' -- in those days
> and I was about the only pianist they [The Duo-Art Music Roll Co.]
> had who played too many fancy things".
>
> Most certainly her music rolls for Duo-Art, Ampico and Welte were
> probably edited to some degree, just as _all_ modern phonograph
> recordings are today.  Does that make them "fakes"?  I think not.
>
> If you listen to the phonograph recordings on this CD and listen to
> the Ampico, D-A and Welte rolls, you will agree that the essence is
> certainly there on the roll recordings.
>
> As to whether or not George Gershwin played his own Duo-Art rolls,
> I can't say with any assurance, but I would say that certainly they
> (at least the early ones) sound very much like his Brunswick
> phonograph recordings -- loud, expressionless, and not terribly
> interesting musically; basically the recordings of a "piano
> pounder".
>
> The main difference I notice is that he doesn't play on the cracks
> on the rolls, and there are a _lot_ of clinkers on the records.  The
> acetate radio transcription discs which are periodically broadcast
> however, display excellent musicianship, are vibrant and a thrill to
> hear.  Perhaps he froze up when confronted with recording machinery?
> Who knows?  He and Ira are both very dead, and many "truths" are
> doubtless lost with them.
>
> Another reason was to utilize an artist to record different styles
> of music.  Thus Marguerite Volavy is George Kerr / Felix Gerdts, and
> Milton Suskind is Edgar Fairchild / Corrine deBert, and so on.
>
> In a few cases, and I believe it to be very few, the "name" artist
> had no connection with the company other than to be paid for the use
> of his name.  An example here are the Vincent Lopez Ampico rolls.
>
> According to Adam Carroll, he wrote out all these arrangements "in
> the style of" Lopez and made the recordings.  Lopez was a band
> leader (at the Hotel Taft) in NYC and the rolls are in the style of
> the orchestral arrangements he used.  It is my understanding that
> Lopez wasn't much of a pianist.  The roll labels say "Played by
> Vincent Lopez, assisted."
>
> By the late 1930s, Aeolian-American had almost no one but Frank
> Milne (they had no money to pay for artists) and so virtually all of
> the Ampico and Duo-Art popular music was done by him, using various
> names, all listed in the Obenchain Ampico book.
>
> Thanks for the note, Doug -- Your articles comment led to a wealth of
> information from the subscribers, you included!
>
> Karl


Good morning, Karl,

The Gershwin/Duchin/Baker/Alpert etc. Aeolian rolls were all 'fakes'
from the beginning.  Artists "sold their names" and received money and
publicity in exchange.  The keyboard attack, dynamic building, pedal
effects etc.  are all recognizably Frank Milne on these rolls (late
Gershwin only), and, to somebody like me, they sound like Milne rolls,
not the artists they allegedly represented.

I enjoy the rolls -- but usually override the ho-hum expression -- yet
the artists' names keep getting trotted-out in the player clubs and the
MMD.  It's that "yes, but..." -- implying that something of the artist
is there, when it never was.

You can't use 6 or 8 punches per beat and capture anything of virtuoso
or jazz pianists, so the graph paper route was selected.  (Or cutting
systems based on notation, which is another form of graph paper,
including the cutting piano used at Imperial Industrial and QRS.)

In 1931 in 'The Musician Magazine', Ernest Hutcheson wrote -- correctly
-- "The Pianola made a prostitute of itself when it tried to imitate
pianists." (True!)  As an educator and as an interactive entertainer it
has no equal, not even in our era of sloppy MIDI roll transcriptions.
But -- as a record/playback medium: no.

The industry code word of "editing" meant "arranging", which it really
was.

Baker's 78's -- by the way -- are _heavy bass_  'barrelhouse', 'driving'
musical solos, hardly the wimpy 'background music' formula that Milne
used also for his Gershwin rolls, with the accompaniment frozen, the
hammer rail up for low-dynamic crossed hand effects, connected treble,
light bass, and "crush notes" on the variations/breaks.

You'll see that Baker and Gershwin rolls are very similar in their
construction here, yet Baker on 78's is in another ballpark, as was
Pauline Alpert.  Baker rolled and whapped the bass notes.  Alpert
effervesced in the treble.

If one focuses on the roll arrangement and forgets the supposed
keyboard pianist, all these problems disappear!

Generally speaking, for publicity, roll artists posed at a 'recording'
piano for photographs and went through the motions of 'marking' a roll
or two, but they weren't around after this material hit the trash can,
or was largely ignored (due to formulae and stepping decisions at the
plant) for the final product.  Busy pianists didn't have time to rush
to Garwood NJ, Belleville NJ or Meriden CT to tweak rolls in those days
before plastic mending tape.

I have a special splicer -- designed by John Powers in Maine -- which
can, using modern tape, let me add and subtract things down to a single
perforation.  Usually, I cut a new measure (4") if things are really in
need of change on the Master Roll.

When I started perforating in the early '50s, 3-M's plastic tapes
didn't exist; I used beach ball cement and other acetone-odor glues,
which hardened in later years, with fresh paper strips re-perforated
over the errors.  In the old days it was black electrical tape on the
edit-masters and/or that glued library mending tape, a cellophane style
of material, also unsatisfactory.

Hope that answers your questions.  By the way, I heard Frank Milne on
open reel tape -- shortly before he died -- and he sounded totally
different on the piano keyboard, which is no surprise either.

This whole bit about roll artists, from Welte to B-Ampico, is like
religions: "Here's the plaster Saint and here's the roll".  Ignore the
pneumatics and machinery and factory production policies in-between.
Even the Celco Corp. called their 'Artecho' player a "Reproducing
Medium".  I blame the Germans for starting this whole marketing sham,
with Welte (Bockisch & Popper, included)!

From the start, the roll arrangers ONLY should have been on the labels.
QRS, in the Melville Clark days, did include Claude Melnotte on some
titles, and Aeolian trotted out Geo. Swift, Ellis Linder, H. Avery Wade
and others; but as the phony 'hand-played' market grew, these credits
tended to disappear.

It's "arranger's rolls + pianolist's interpretation = music".  That's
the system -- and the reason why 'reproducing' pianos had levers.  Some
of the later European Red Welte pianos had crescendo controls, not
unlike the Licensee models over here ... and there was a reason why.

The "unattended player" (whatever the type) is boring, and rarely keeps
to the proper metre unless recalibrated frequently.  As long as the
listener is on the piano bench, he/she might as well get involved with
the pedal, dynamic overrides, etc., when the roll isn't maximizing the
expression system.

Naturally, the Triphonola/Duophonola, Artrio-Angelus, many 'Recordo'
style models, Duo-Art, Licensee Welte and other players stressed the
"listen and learn" *followed by* the "do it yourself" approach.

Most of the really fake, pseudo-scientific hoopla began with the
automobile replacing the parlour activities, followed by radio and
the electric phonograph and talking movies.  Marketers tended to relate
players to radio tubes, telephones and movies -- as if an arranged
roll, interpreted by a human operator, had something to do with these
inventions.

Those who bought 'reproducing' pianos for the legacy? soon got bored,
purchased a radio, let the player fall apart, etc.  Rarely did this
customer ever have more than the 30 rolls they got with their piano.
Meanwhile, involved Pianola owners often had 150-300 rolls, spanning
a decade or more during their peak of interest.  (Original owners are
being described here, since those of us in the early '50s encountered
players still in the hands of the people who purchased them initially.)

Just play the rolls, Karl, and everything will fall into place.
(Look at the photographs of Alpert and the others when you play CD's
and tapes and 78's.)

Regards from Maine,
Douglas Henderson
http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/


 [ Editor's note:
 [
 [ Douglas reiterates that the dynamics of the reproducing roll are
 [ the work of the editor.  Testimony by the artists themselves says
 [ that the note-sheet recording was created by the artist at the
 [ recording piano.  One can easily confirm or deny this by playing
 [ the music roll on an 'expressionless' 88-note foot-pumped player
 [ piano and comparing the result with the phonograph recordings.
 [ (Adjust the roll tempo to match.)  
 [
 [ Make Edythe whop the bass, and make Pauline's treble effervescent!
 [ Make Gershwin pound the keys, and put some real accents into Vee
 [ Lawnhurst's DeLuxe performances.  In other words, be your own
 [ music roll editor -- be a Pianolist !
 [
 [ It is left to the reader and music lover to decide who really
 [ made the music roll, and to differentiate the roll editor's
 [ contributions (and perhaps errors) from the artist's intentions.
 [ And, as always, "take a grain of salt" with anything you see in
 [ print.  Test it ("pedal it") yourself.
 [
 [ -- Robbie