Noticing a posting recently about a roll being made by J. L. Cook and a
similar one by Jeff Watters, I decided to add my two cents worth, since
I was "there" at Imperial Industrial (QRS) during the last years of Max
Kortlander's ownership.  I also corresponded with Max by letter and by
open-reel tape in the 1950s; so ideas/suggestions/comments went back
and forth from my home in Berkeley, Calif., and the Bronx in New York
City.

When I was at the factory, they had drawers and cabinets of ancient
roll labels, including Welte-Mignon Licensee "brown box" styles, all
type-set and with the DeLuxe Reproducing Roll Corp. name blocked out
with a bar.  To my knowledge, these hadn't been used since the early
1940s.

What were used, however, were QRS Word Roll labels of the late 'teens
through the 'twenties.  I suspected this back in 1953, since my mail
order to R. H. Macy in New York City (their San Francisco store didn't
deal in music rolls) was for titles that bore old serial numbers, such
as "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles," "Charley My Boy," and "The Burning of
Rome."  The rolls that came in the mail had labels saying "Played by
Max Kortlander" and other pseudonyms of the day such as "Pep" Doyle,
but were in fact the work of J. Lawrence Cook, who made most of the QRS
masters after 1931, when Max Kortlander purchased the perforated music
assets from QRS-DeVry.

Was I ever a disappointed teenager!  They were tempo 75, short playing
rolls, with the cocktail lounge trademarks of Cook: 6ths in the
accompaniment, connected chromatic 10ths in the bass, and those tiring
triplet passages in the middle of the keyboard, with the melody notes
connected like a "Home Show" electronic organist of that day.  These
rolls were definitely created in the 1940s through the 1950s and had
nothing to do with the original rolls, except that the same serial
number and artist name were on the box labels.

That early purchase, a large shipment funded by my Oakland Shopping
News paper route, led to my borrowing a Leabarjan #5 perforator and
then finding my own, the first of several others, today still-operating
in my Maine studio.  I wanted to go a different route from that "QRS
Sound", as it was called by the factory people of those days.

I recall Herman Kortlander telling me that "Sid" Laney, one of the Cook
pseudonyms, and "Pep" Doyle (ditto) "would be over 100 years old if
they really existed today."  However, QRS still used the same label
designations, re-setting them for modern QRS rolls, when the old label
stock was exhausted.

As for Harold Scott and Jeff Watters, these names were used by both Lee
S. Roberts and Max Kortlander in their sheet music publishing
enterprises.  You'd see "Music by Kortlander; Lyrics by Watters" and
the like on scores of that period.  Since formula arranging was at its
peak then, it's difficult to guess which arranger made the final roll
under those names.

I have said for decades "focus on the roll arrangement" and how it
performs on your instrument.  Skip the alleged pianist, because formula
arranging was the norm in the heyday of that instrument.

Back around 1955, I used to buy QRS Rolls, give them to friends, and
purchase replacements for myself.  Imagine my surprise to discover
three different versions in the same year of "Davy Crockett," the theme
song from the Disney film, all with the same serial number and artist.
When I visited the factory for the first time in 1960, I could guess
what happened.  Somebody stepped on or tripped over the Cook master of
that title, so he simply made another, and another, during the course
of that year ... all different.  I have also seen two versions of
"He'll Have To Go," the Jim Reeves song.  No doubt this happened more
than once.

The roll companies were very cavalier in what they said on their box
labels, and the same could be said for 78-rpm record labels ... but
that's another subject.  Piano sales fueled the industry.  Players sold
additional pianos.  Rolls were the necessary evil to keep the
instruments up-to-date, and everything was done on piecework and
quotas.

I was on the scene, and I saw new/old labels being used on modern
arrangements perforated by J. L. Cook.

Douglas Henderson
Wiscasset, ME