Hello, MMD readers,  For the past few editions of the MMDigest I have
been following the topic of recut Duo-Art rolls.  Having produced new,
original Duo-Art rolls since the 1950s and especially since 1982 when
Artcraft Music Rolls, my third such venture, began, the availability of
exciting, effervescent arrangements has always been of interest to me.

On rare occasion, I have had a roll duplicated by Play-Rite "as is",
primarily as a joke.  Such a case was "Afternoon of a Fox" by Edna
Bentz, a roll so awful that even Aeolian dropped it in short order,
during the early days of their Duo-Art instrument.

Usually I re-master a roll for the measure as well as the key
depression time (a simulation of the keyboard attack or striking)
which, for my work, takes me to the sphere of 128th note in details.
For the most part, the old roll factories conked out in the 16th to
32nd note range, which is the reason for so many passages of identical
perforations (homogeneous notes), giving the average old roll a
droning, organ-like nature to the keyboard playing, no matter what
expression score was fitted to the arrangement.

"New Pink Tea" Fox Trot, also by Edna Bentz, is a good example of
re-mastering.  I kept all the original perforations and the Duo-Art
expression score but changed every single note length and added a new
sustaining pedal, plus I augmented the Themodist accents to the Aeolian
release.  One collector wrote, "It was like taking the wax out of my
ears and hearing the music for the first time."  Another exclaimed,
"That roll was like opening the windows to enjoy the music."  Yet the
expression levels and the keys being struck were the same in both the
original and the my re-mastered version, showing the advantages to
improving the arrangement while preserving the original performance
concept.

As far as I know, I'm the only producer of music rolls, Duo-Art included,
who has an entire building devoted to the storage of a new/old supply,
an estimated 10 years, in fact.  I was running on a 3-year buffer
inventory when the Play-Rite fire took place in 1997, but I managed to
squeak along for close to four years before the new rolls could be
duplicated in bulk and shipped again to our Maine location.

Frankly, I don't think that anyone would stock shelves of the original
Duo-Art library, beyond perhaps 50-75 titles at most.  The catalogue,
as a whole, is "twitchy" in rhythm (especially the direct cut
arrangements, prior to 1921) and dreary for modern ears, where good
audio performances of pianists abound.  The Aeolian-American tandem
arrangements for Ampico are graph paper layouts and are fine for
background music, but they wouldn't rivet many audiences now.  That's
the beauty of the Pianola levers on the Duo-Art: you can help the piano
with some sparkling accents if you wish!

When I started with music rolls in 1952 in the San Francisco Bay Area,
I had the good fortune to encounter/hear/purchase demonstration rolls
made for retail stores as well as the concert halls.  These were
created by the 'reproducing' piano companies as well as the 88-note
roll manufacturers.  In other words, the customer heard one arrangement
and was sold something else!

My roll of "Etude in a Form of a Waltz", "played by Cortot", has
entirely different expression on the demonstration roll from the
catalogue release, for example.

Our reissue (as is) of "Rhapsody in Blue", a Primo arrangement for
Aeolian Hall, began at Tempo 100, not the bland Tempo 60 which the
later Robert Armbruster "played by Gershwin" release had.

These effervescent rolls proved to me, at an early age, that the
Pianola could do far more than what the routine rolls provided.
In those days piano marketing was the focus, so house calls, action
regulation, hammer voicing and a host of variables forced the industry
to head for the quiet pastures of Mezzo-Forte ("normal touch") with
and without the Soft Pedal being added.  Progressively, the expression
arrangements got more and more bland as the years went along,
especially after radio came on the scene.  The lever controls allowed
a critical listener to improve things, immensely.

I made the decision decades ago to make rolls an "art form" of quality
and keep them in stock.  The factories of the past were putting out
a formula product, which is something else entirely.  Rolls that
I released in 1982 (some actually being my arrangements going back to
1959 and 1962!) are still in the catalogues today, thanks to my costly
storage building route.  The new rolls coming out in a few more weeks
will be continuously available and join the existing Artcraft roll
offerings.  My rolls are numbered and also by the lot size plus the
date.  What was Roll #3 of 48 could today easily be Roll #295 of 350
for some of the earlier releases.

I hope this explains our focus in rolls, since we do stock Duo-Art
titles, many selections that were never provided by Aeolian, such as
"Mephisto Waltz" (http://www.wiscasset.net//artcraft/mephisto.htm)
and others forthcoming, one of which makes the 1933 Aeolian-American
version sound like a "home show organist" (in my opinion):
http://wiscasset.nnei.net/artcraft/06rolls.html

Artcraft rolls were designed to be the center of attention, even on the
mellow and laid-back numbers.  The graduated staccato striking and
pedal effects make this so.  Recut old rolls usually meant background
music, but that was the original realm for the 'reproducing' piano for
most of its period of production.

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