Hello MMD readers,  Just read a posting on the latest recycling of
Confrey rolls, via the CD medium.  This is a player group, so my
question is, "Why not play the rolls made in his name?"  Or play recuts
of them, produced for decades via a variety of sources?

Not long ago a piano technician (and player roll enthusiast) sent me an
audio cassette of a live broadcast on WQXR in New York City.  The program
featured one of these "realized" (trans.: recycled) Confrey presentations.

Part was played by hand on a Steinway grand piano, and it sounded good.
The rest was slopped through, via a bogus piano, the GranTouch Disklavier
(or, if a real stringed instrument Disklavier, if was in serious need
of being taken to a landfill!).  One of the arrangements was an erratic
scanning of an Ampico roll, as I recall.  (This is one of those tapes
that you only play once, so I don't have it handy at the moment to
check the Disklavier titles.)

Of course, I consider Max Kortlander to be the arranger of the Confrey
releases by QRS, and J. Milton Delcamp, for the Ampico 'reproducing'
rolls.  The WQXR broadcast instrument had ratty rhythm and none of the
better-than-average accents one hears on an Ampico, playing one of
these Confrey rolls, such as "Jay Walk", for example.

I think that people should discover Zez Confrey through audio reissues
of his actual playing, a pneumatic player-piano running Confrey rolls
and/or some modern pianists who have done a great job in performing his
piano solos.

Maurice Peress' excellent CD, "The Birth of Rhapsody In Blue" (CX8475),
is a good place to start.  Pianists Dick Hyman and Ivan Davis give good
examples of the Confrey panache, something which eludes the old music
rolls and _definitely_ escapes the Disklavier efforts of our time.

Better still, buy one of the sheet music folios of his work.  With
a little practice, most of the pieces can be executed by an amateur
pianist, as was the case when "Kitten On The Keys" started his career
as a composer of sparkling piano novelty pieces.

Happy Listening!

Regards
Douglas Henderson - Artcraft Music Rolls
Wiscasset, Maine
http://wiscasset.nnei.net/artcraft/