*Having compared with the earlier QRS roll, I rescind my previous comment (but am leaving it up for the historical info). This is certainly derived from the QRS version played by Pete Wendling and possibly (not known for certain) arranged by Max Kortlander (based on Mr. Wendling's performance, with lots of added notes). That version can be heard here: kzread.info/dash/bejne/gI2WyI9qmtbAobA.html The Columbia Music Roll Co. of Chicago started in 1919 and bought the coin-op roll making equipment from the U. S. Music Co. of Chicago (who continued making 88-note rolls). By the 1920s they had become the second or third largest maker of coin-op rolls in the US (after Clark, who took over QRS's coin-op division and mostly used QRS masters for most of their arrangements, and after Wurlitzer, who used a combination of QRS and their own in-house arrangements). It is believed that Columbia continued the U. S. Music numbering scheme for the style "A" coin piano rolls they continued to make, which is why the roll number is so high for this early of a roll (U. S. had started making A-rolls much earlier, perhaps as early as 1911 or even earlier; they were definitely making endless coin-op rolls in at least 6 different formats in the 1907-1910 period, and didn't start making standard 65-note and 88-note home player piano rolls until 1909). The earliest Columbia Music Roll Co. coin-op rolls (such as "A" rolls, and probably their very early "C" and "O" rolls) apparently used QRS arrangements, possibly under license/contract. This is an example of one of those. I am unaware of a Columbia 88-note home player piano roll using an arrangement derived from another company such as US or QRS, but one might exist. All those I've heard, even the earliest ones, were their own in-house arrangements. However, by 1921 they were definitely producing their own in-house arrangements under the direction of chief editor Roy Rodocker, who also added his own musical stylistic traits to the resulting arrangements he made of most of the credited guest pianists/artists listed on the label, giving all their roll arrangements a distinctive "Columbia / Capitol" sound.

A little more background: A-rolls (also known as "standard 65-note Electric Piano" or "65-note Rewind" rolls, NOT to be confused with 65-note home piano player or player piano rolls) are large-core spooled rolls which have multiple tunes on them, usually 10 tunes per roll, but certain rare A-rolls have more tunes or fewer tunes. The roll itself is spooled onto a hollow cardboard (usually) or wooden (rarely) core which has no spool ends but has a small "dog" or protrusion on the inside which locks into a mating part on a metal "spool chuck" which belongs to the particular brand of coin piano with which that roll will be used. This way of chucking the roll into the piano ensures better tracking and more reliable roll-handling which is crucial for instruments in hard commercial service like the way coin pianos were originally used (in saloons, speakeasies, smoke shops, candy stores, hotel lobbies, restaurants, etc etc in the 1910s and 1920s), and was also used, in variants, by most American makers of coin-operated pianos and/or rolls such as Seeburg, Wurlitzer, Coinola, Cremona, Peerless, Western Electric, and many others, for instruments using spooled (not endless) rolls. A few very early (mostly pre 1910) and/or rare or unusual coin pianos used spooled rolls mounted on a spool with spool ends like a giant home player piano roll, but almost all later coin piano and orchestrion rolls had rolls spooled onto a hollow core like this one, and it is quite unusual to find one of these spooled coin piano rolls with a solid core and spool ends, extant today. A-rolls have 58 notes ranging from C two octaves below middle C (aka MIDI note C2) up to A two octaves above the A above middle C (aka MIDI note A6). There are actually 65 holes across the roll of which the other 7 are used for non-note-playing functions (not in this order): hammer rail (soft pedal); sustain pedal; mandolin attachment on; extra melody instrument (pipes or xylophone) on; rewind, play (stop rewind when roll is rewound); and shutoff (subtract one coin credit from the coin counter in the piano after each tune, which may or may not shut off the piano depending upon the number of coins counted and tunes played). All these holes allow the roll to activate the various functions of a basic coin-operated commercial piano, and A-rolls were also used (sounding strange, but that is how the factory built them!) to play many vintage air calliopes like the Tangley Calliaphone and the National air calliope. This 58-note range may seem a strange and limited compass to a newcomer, but this was the standard compass of most 19th-century classical pipe organ manuals (and some larger reed organ manuals, although most parlor reed organs built had 61 notes in F-compass from F1 to F6), and there were at least three earlier formats of home musical instrument roll that used this compass: 1. the Aeolian Grand 58-note rolls which played the Aeolian Grand and Orchestrelle player reed organs (the smaller ones used their 46-note rolls), as well as some pipe organs and their earlier model 65-note push-up piano players which were really combination 58/65-note; 2. the Wilcox and White "Symphony" 58-note rolls which played the larger model Wilcox & White Symphony player reed organs (the smaller ones used their 44-note rolls), as well as playing on their earlier model 65-note push-up piano players (some with built-in reed organ) which were also really combination 58/65 note; and 3. the Melville Clark "Apollo" 58-note rolls, used by the Story & Clark "Orpheus" player reed organ and the very early Melville Clark "Apollo" push-up piano players and some of the earliest Melville Clark "Apollo" built-in player pianos (many of which, after 1902, also played their rare "Apollo Concert Grand" wide 88-note rolls, as well as, later, standard 65-note and 88-note rolls, interchangeably). The success in the USA in the 1890s-1910 era of these three 58-note formats (both musically, and commercially), plus probably the already-large master library of arrangements of salon, dance, and popular music in 58-note format which Melville Clark / QRS had made (and QRS was a major maker of coin-op rolls of various formats in the pre-1920 period) was probably why the Marquette Piano Co. chose this note scale when designing their first "Cremona" coin pianos built in 1907, which to my personal knowledge were the earliest instruments built using the "A" roll. It was so successful that many makers quickly adopted this format for their own instrument and it became the most successful single coin op roll format in the USA. Apollo 58-note rolls were discontinued sometime probably around 1910 or maybe as late as 1915 (I'm not sure the exact year), so all later coin-op rolls that QRS and other companies produced with a 58-note range had to be either arranged from scratch, or adapted from an existing 88-note master, either of that same roll company (as with most Columbia and Capitol rolls), or licensed from another company (almost always, QRS). When the person arranging the A-roll master adapted a larger-compass format, such as this 88-note QRS word roll, to the smaller 58-note A-roll compass, they had to necessarily reduce down the arrangement in compass/range and in order for all important notes (such as most bass and most melody notes) to be included, so they would often transpose the key of the roll arrangement into another new key, shifting it up or down from the original key of the 88-note roll so that as many important notes as possible could be included and the arrangement sound as good as possible within that range. That is why this arrangement is in another key when compared with the 88-note original here, and why it doesn't include any notes lower than C2 or higher than A6: kzread.info/dash/bejne/qKOoqrGmqpTWoLw.html

Thanks for transcribing and posting this. I don't believe this is derived from the Pete Wendling QRS roll. This is an early Columbia roll probably made by them in Chicago. I don't know the name of every single arranger/editor and pianist who worked for Columbia, particularly in the pre-1924 period (before P. M. Keast joined them), but Roy Rodocker was chief editor from the beginning of the firm around 1919 thru the end in the mid-1930s, so this roll could be his work. It is known that a person remembered by Keast as "H. Gullman" and thought to be Ralph Goolman (former head arranger with the Kibbey roll company of Chicago which is believed to have gone out of business in 1917), was another arranger at Columbia there, so perhaps it's his work instead. (Mr. Keast also remembered that "Gullman" "died in 1925" but I don't know enough about Ralph Goolman yet to confirm or deny that this might be the same person, nor am I familiar enough with Mr. Goolman's arranging style to recognize it yet when hearing an uncredited roll). Mr. Rodocker is never known to have made a roll credited under his real name, although the late David Junchen, who had perfect pitch and was a big fan of Columbia and Capitol rolls, believes that nearly every Columbia and Capitol hand-played roll was edited or arranged by Mr. Rodocker and that the resulting master arrangement represented about 50% his own style and about 50% the listed pianist's style "so far as musical stylistic traits were concerned" and I agree with him for the most part. It is thought that the late Capitol rolls credited to "Rod Romberto" might be Mr. Rodocker's work on his own, but this is not known for certain. It is also possible and likely he and/or Keast and another arranger such as "Gullman" were responsible, solo or together, for earlier Columbia and Capitol arrangements credited to pianist names not known/proven to have been real people. That being said, thanks to tireless research from Robert Perry, the late Mike Montgomery and others, I guesstimate at least 3/4 of the names found as credited pianists on Columbia and Capitol rolls WERE real people, or were at least known pseudonyms of real artists (such as "Harry Earl" which was a name used by artist Harry Geise, and "John Matthews" which was a name used by Johnny Honnert).

The reason for the mis-identification of artist is that this is the first "encrusted" Pete Wendling roll arrangement I've ever heard, where it doesn't sound audibly like his likely actual performance (with or without impossible tripled melody line), but instead sounds like a physically impossible "4-hand" performance with the "doodly bits" or "noodly bits" in the high treble, like one of Max Kortlander's 4-hand "Ted Baxter and Max Kortlander" arrangements for QRS. That is also why I suspect Mr. Kortlander did the master arrangement of this roll, as there is a great stylistic similarity with his work, and Kortlander and Wendling were good friends during this time. I have no doubt that Wendling was responsible for at least some of it, however, as several of his favorite musical devices crop up within this arrangement, and are used in the same way he usually used them. My friend Todd Robbins (the magician and pianist; "Coney Island Todd") used to know an oldtimer who played cards in a regular card game many years earlier (in the 1920s???) with several of the head QRS artists including Lee S. Roberts, Pete Wendling and others. I believe this took place in New York City somewhere. According to him, while talking about the roll-making business in conversation, Wendling mentioned that he had nothing to do with arranging (quantizing) his own rolls or making final roll masters; he just turned up, played the QRS marking piano live to record his performance to a 'marked master' roll in real-time, got paid, and left! The rest was up to the editor/arranger as to what they did with his performance. This known statement, coupled with his 6 known commercial phonograph recordings (4 of which can be heard on Frank Himpsl's KZread channel) showing how he actually played, is crucial to understanding his rolls vs his live performances.

@andrewbarrett1537

3 жыл бұрын

*The "oldtimer" who Todd Robbins knew was magician and pianist Dai Vernon. He was the fellow who was friends with the QRS mainstay artists in the 1920s.