Jens Hultgren wrote in 981024 MMDigest:

> Did any of the jazz masters of the past ever make any pianola
> recordings?  Like, say, Earl Hines, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans?
> Duke Ellington maybe?  ... And what about classical players,
> like Rubinstein or Glenn Gould?

Jens, the plain player piano died as a commercial entity about
two-thirds of the way through the really great jazz piano years, so
none of the later players were captured on roll.  Of the earlier ones,
there are a number, though not a large number, or rolls recorded by
Luckey Roberts, Charlie Straight, J. Russel Robinson, James P. Johnson,
Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton, plus a number of lesser-known but
excellent players such as Jimmy Blythe and Lem Fowler.

Original rolls by these performers are now rare but there is a
minor industry producing modern recuts; the people you should
contact for these are Paul Johnson <pianorol@tscnet.com> and
Rob DeLand <deland_robert@macmail1.csg.mot.com>.

Since 1975 John Farrell in England, and since the 1980s Robbie Rhodes,
have been transcribing jazz performances from record to piano roll with
creditable fidelity.  Robbie's transcription of the band version of
Jelly Roll's "The Pearls" was described by a friend of mine as better
than the original ! Exactly which pianists get represented in this way
is obviously a matter of personal preferences, and so far I haven't
seen anything of Oscar Peterson or Bill Evans.

John has done a very few Earl Hines pieces but most of his Duke
Ellington ones are "as played by" others.  Fairly readily available
in the UK at least are a number of extremely fine improvisations by
Marian McPartland recorded by the QRS company in 1978 or thereabouts,
and some equally good renderings of standards by Ralph Sutton, plus
some improvisations and "own compositions" by Johnny Guarnieri, taken
by Play-Rite about two years later.

These rolls don't "play themselves" like ragtime or barrelhouse jazz
and I would guess that both series were commercially a disaster, since
if you just pedal them you don't get much idea of what is meant to be
going on -- they have to be played like classical rolls with plenty of
loud and soft.

The Farrell and Rhodes recreations are handled by Paul Johnson under
the "Hot Piano Classics" label and I recommend them.

As regards classical music, almost every great pianist up until 1930
recorded rolls, including Artur Rubinstein.  (Schnabel made a publicity
point of saying he never stooped so low as to make rolls, but alas, in
his earlier days he did, for the Hupfeld company.  I have a DEA roll
with his photograph on it! Some of his performances were even
transcribed for the Ampico system and issued later in America.)

I haven't looked myself, but you should find references as to where to
find lists on the MMD web site.  These recordings were nearly all for
"reproducing" systems, and -- while some companies such as Aeolian and
Hupfeld also issued them without the power dynamics on "handplayed"
rolls for ordinary players -- most of the present-day recuts are for
the original instruments.  But they can be played on your Steck if you
cover the 4 (Duo-Art) or 3 (Ampico, Welte Licensee) note holes on each
end of the tracker-bar with hanging strips of very thin plastic sheet.

There are a lot of rolls out there!  But Glenn Gould, or Kristian
Zimmerman, or Evgeny Kissin: no.  (Or not yet.  Doing automatic
electronic transcription from record to roll is still a possibility.)
Look in the resource lists on the MMD web site.

Dan Wilson