Hello MMD readers,  My correspondence with Max Kortlander at Imperial
Industrial Co. in The Bronx began in the early 1950s, thanks to a radio
broadcast called "Rinky Tink Time" featuring a player upright in the
KFRC Studios of the Don Lee/Mutual Network in San Francisco.  Don Davis
hosted that weekly program as well as a longer one called "Dusty Records".
Many of these I taped on my Wilcox-Gay Recordio tape recorder, my first
open reel deck, purchased when I was in junior high school.

Beyond playing new and old 88-note rolls on an Angelus electric upright,
from time to time Don Davis held interviews.  One of these had Mme.
Sturkow-Ryder, then living in Oakland, Calif., who talked about marking
the rolls for duets with Lee S. Roberts at QRS.  His taped interview was
so popular that it was repeated at least once in those long gone days.

Another feature of that player program was that Mr. Davis invited people
to "write to Max" in care of the AM radio station, since in effect this
was an indication of the listener audience size, much as the radio
serial box-top premiums were in the prior days of Tim Mix (Ralston),
Captain Midnight (Ovaltine) and the others of the pre-television age.
I took up the call and wrote to Max Kortlander, not expecting an answer,
but instead he wrote back some letters of musical depth, perhaps
because I was already in my early stages of arranging music rolls.

This led to correspondence by open reel tape (5-inch reels in those
days), keeping in mind that Max had passed away when cassettes were
first introduced in the next decade.  One of these reels turned up in
the estate of Herman Kortlander and was returned to me, but I don't
have a way to play the 3-3/4 ips speed here, just dual track decks for
7-1/2 and 15 ips.  At any rate, I would play examples of rolls that
I thought QRS should make -- all of which were a reversal of the 'Cook
formula', of course -- and he would ask that I play/send him samples
of what I thought that the customers might want.

One of these was the Autopiano arrangement of "Mad House Rag".  Max
turned down my reissue suggestion after receiving the roll (and
returning it), writing, "We only produce 'hand played' rolls today.
That was an 'arranged' roll."

I guess he thought that I believed QRS rolls after the QRS-Autograph
era were really examples of a keyboard artist; incredible, since
everything followed mathematical stepping/striking rules.

(A footnote: "Mad House Rag" was released on an early 1980s label in
Maine which was connected with Artcraft Rolls for a time, and sold
well, but this was several decades down the road, of course.)

Later, when I made three masters for Imperial Industrial in New York
City, the company put out one of those blue text "laundry list"
bulletins calling me "a young pianist" on their staff.  Actually, the
released roll, number 9838, "You Do Something To Me", was truncated by
Cook but the edit master was arranged and perforated in Georgetown,
D.C., at the residence of the Konvalinkas, while operating my Leabarjan
perforator.  I didn't use a piano and had a small portable Estey reed
organ to check the chords, much as I did with a piano accordion in
Berkeley, Calif., before coming east in the fall of 1960.  In spite of
that the roll, which was in the QRS Catalogue approximately 25 years,
had "played by" in front of my name.

Whether James P. Johnson, Thomas Waller, Zez Confrey and others 'played
upon' the Melville Clark marking piano under the era of Mr. Tom Pletcher,
who ran QRS and QRS-DeVry prior to the Kortlander acquisition of 1931,
I do not know.  The released rolls look just like the arrangements that
Kortlander made under his own name and also Pete Wendling (referred to
as "a style" in the Bronx, much as Sid Laney, the Cook pseudonym).

I do know that when I visited the Cook residence that Apollo
'recording' piano was in the division of the parlour and the dining
room while the marking apparatus was next to the arranging piano and
perforator at the QRS factory, with sheet music scores and beverage
cans piled on top of it.  In other words, the two components for "hand
playing" (i.e., 'marking' rolls for an arranger/editor) were in
separate locations.  This was in the period of 1960-1963.

The later 1920s rolls allegedly by keyboard artists, such as Fowler,
Wendling and Waller appear to be the work of J. Lawrence Cook.  What
few Fowler rolls I had were on Imperial (QRS), and these typically had
the composer and the title but no "played by" artist on the labels.

All this stems from a sales gimmick of the 'Teens, in my opinion.
The Victrola and the upright piano were competing for the price and
space in the typical parlour.  Piano rolls were keyed to the price of
phonograph records, and this was still being done at the time I was
there, viz. mentioning the playing time and price of a 45 rpm disc vs.
a QRS single title roll (as if that mattered).  Putting an artist on
the label was a method of equating the player-piano to a phonograph,
when in fact one was audio and the other was a machine which is an
arranged music medium.  The two have nothing in common.

Having had the privilege of perforating a 'marked' QRS roll for a
player club convention in 1990, plus another title from a separate
source, I can see that the striking effects, erratic tempi and clumpy
staccato on the QRS-Autograph rolls of the 'Teens were not that of the
pianist but the irregularities of the marking equipment.  In fact,
I kept a test strip from the convention project, which shows that the
pencil marks are plus-minus about a 16th to a 32nd note "off", and
often in between -- hardly reflecting a good pianist at the keyboard.

Chas. Stoddard published a statement during the days of development
of the B Ampico (a.k.a. The New Ampico) saying that people should not
practice upon the recording piano keyboard.  Why?  It was probably
better regulated and things got worse with heavy use.  The alignment
problems remained the same in both cases.

Thus, when I read about "QRS Artists", I see little relationship to
the people in the old photographs, their existing audio recordings or
anything else when viewed in relation to the commercially perforated
rolls issued in their names.

Instead, I consider the roll in itself.  Is it challenging?  Is it
interesting?  Does it have something to say musically, as most of the
old 78s by these same artists did?  I know this flies in the face of
the "here's-the-artist-on-a-record-and-here's-the-roll" stance but,
as I head into my 57th year of arranging and publishing music rolls,
it just doesn't make sense to pair the two under a musician's name.

Consider Zez Confrey -- Kortlander on QRS in my estimation and then
later on Delcamp on Ampico.  Some music articles were printed, saying
"Confrey changed his style around 1926."  No, a different arranger made
the rolls in his name after that time.  Meanwhile, Confrey's phonograph
records have the same staccato effects, on both acoustical and
electrical discs.

Publicity and an income were the two reasons for allowing one's name
to be stamped on music rolls, in those days of non-union performances.
Whether pianists were present for marking a roll or not really had
little to do with the final product.

Enjoy the rolls for the music they provide!  Many are exciting to
experience, even if they sound nothing like the audio recordings of
the artist.  Enjoy the old records on CDs, tapes and/or shellac discs,
for that's where the pianist remains.

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