George Gershwin during his lifetime "recorded", played, made 140
player piano rolls, possibly 141.  This figure is from the late
Mike Montgomery's Gershwin Rollography which appears in the book,
"The Spirit of Gershwin," published by the Oxford University Press.

The book is not easy to find and if you purchase one you will pay
between USD 80.00 and USD 110.00.  I used Craig Smith's idea and
resorted to inter-library loan, which in San Antonio is free.

Of great interest to historians are the thirteen rolls that he recorded
for the Welte Corporation which were issued as Red Welte rolls.  George
was under contract with Aeolian at the time, 1919, and how Aeolian felt
about his trip to the Bronx is unknown.  Six of the rolls remain
unaccounted for.  Seven of the rolls are extant and were converted to
Licensee format and are available from time to time.

It is believed that Gershwin made two rolls for the Yiddish Theater,
however, only one has turned up on the Arto label.  This roll has been
expertly reproduced by Bob Berkman using the QRS perforators.  Bob also
recorded the selection on his CD, "Klezmerola," a collection of music
rolls as interpreted by Bob on his push-up player.  Search for him on
YouTube -- you will be glad you did.

I purchased all of the remaining rolls Bob had and am offering them to
readers of the MMD.  Simply PayPal me $15.00 (use the email address
this post is coming from) and I will send out a copy of the roll.  The
supply is limited so if such things interest you, do not delay.

Searching on the 'Net for information on Gershwin's piano roll career
brings up very little even though there are hundreds of hits when you
type in his name.  His first rolls were recorded in January 1916 for
the Standard Music Roll Company in New Jersey.  George used to schlep
over there on Saturdays and knock out four or five rolls during the
day.  He was paid USD 5.00 per roll and a bonus of USD 5.00 if he
completed five rolls.

The rolls were issued under the Perfection label.  The selections are
consecutively numbered, so Standard assigned Gershwin three pseudonyms
so it would look like they had more artists than they really did.
"Fred Murtha", "Bert Wynn" and "James Baker" were pseudonyms used
during Gershwin's roll making career.  Montgomery cautions the
researcher that those names _may_ have been used by other artists, so
consult the rollography just to make sure.

Gershwin's last player piano roll was recorded in 1926.  After that
time, other artists recorded his compositions.

If you search the MMD Archives under "Gershwin" you will find a lot
of posts concerning the CD "Gershwin Plays Gershwin" [released by
Nonesuch Records].  I am not going to get into that one, but I will
say what is not generally known is the fact that if you have listened
to the "realizations", what you are hearing in some selections are
_two_ Yamaha Disklaviers!

It seems when this was all produced, the Disklavier could not play more
than sixteen notes simultaneously.  After all, most people only have
ten fingers!  A second grand was procured and software was written to
have the "extra" notes played on that second grand piano.  This bit of
history from someone who was there for the recordings.

Ed Gaida - Preserving music by punching holes in paper
San Antonio, Texas