Re: School of Syncopation - Jazz, Stride, Novelties & the Like.
Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 6:59 pm
Hi Frank,
Wow!!! These piano rolls by George and Hersal Thomas are fantastic!!!
I especially enjoyed the obscure Thomas pieces like "Sweet baby Doll", "Don't Say A World", "I'm Going To The Jazz Ball", etc...
These are great pieces and very much in the peculiar style of this great pioneer!!!
The Clarence "Jelly" Johnson piano roll of "Muscle Shoals Blues" is a great surprise for me!! I've heard the Blythe or Johnson version of "Houston Blues" before and loved it and this other piano roll is another masterpiece!!
I'll make the J. Lawrence Cook fans here angry, as well as the stride piano fans, but I think that those Chicago south side pianists like Clarence Johnson or Jimmy Blythe had a better feeling for this kind of music, since they were such skilled pianists to add tricks and interest to them, but without betraying the original spirit of George W. Thomas genuine barrelhouse style.
Fine but more conventional pianists didn't really seem to know what to do with such a weird things and they unaivoidably produce clashing hybrids...
That's not the case of Clarence Johnson!!! It would be interesting to compare his (or Blythe's?) version of the "Houston Blues" with the one recorded by George Thomas himself (accompaining Tiny Franklin), the Johnson/Blythe version is a natural evolution of the Thomas recording!
Another fantastic piano roll is the one played by Hersal Thomas, his own "Hersal Blues": Hersal also made a piano solo recording of that (and of "Suitcase Blues"!) and the piano roll and the recording are very very similar!
"Caldonia Blues" is simply a masterpiece and there's not much to say about that, apart from listening to it! All three piano rolls of these piece are great, including the Cook version!
Also very interesting and enjoyable the hand-played rolls by George W. Thomas for National! Actually he sometimes sounds a bit more "advanced" and "modern" in these piano rolls ("Block Avenue Blues" and "Boot It, Boy", while "Harbour Blues" sounds closer to GWT's typcial things), in comparison with the recordings he made. Maybe he has been assisted by anybody with these rolls?
Thomas recorded "Boot It, Boy" with his band, Thomas' Devils. In the recording his piano accompaniment can be heard rather well.
In the following days I'd like to post some recordings of the Thomas brothers of that kind and, if Frank agrees, repost some of the piano roll versions he so generously shared with us, since some pieces are pratically identical in recording and roll versions, while others differs quite a bit.
Then there are things like the "Fish Tail Dance": the Kimball piano roll, certainly taken from an arrangement by George Thomas, is very similar to the bluesy version recorded on phonograph by Hersal (even the peculiar slurs in the verse are reproduced by Hersal), who was certainly quite influenced by his elder brother, although Hersal was quite more imaginative and modern than George.
Best
Luigi
Wow!!! These piano rolls by George and Hersal Thomas are fantastic!!!
I especially enjoyed the obscure Thomas pieces like "Sweet baby Doll", "Don't Say A World", "I'm Going To The Jazz Ball", etc...
These are great pieces and very much in the peculiar style of this great pioneer!!!
The Clarence "Jelly" Johnson piano roll of "Muscle Shoals Blues" is a great surprise for me!! I've heard the Blythe or Johnson version of "Houston Blues" before and loved it and this other piano roll is another masterpiece!!
I'll make the J. Lawrence Cook fans here angry, as well as the stride piano fans, but I think that those Chicago south side pianists like Clarence Johnson or Jimmy Blythe had a better feeling for this kind of music, since they were such skilled pianists to add tricks and interest to them, but without betraying the original spirit of George W. Thomas genuine barrelhouse style.
Fine but more conventional pianists didn't really seem to know what to do with such a weird things and they unaivoidably produce clashing hybrids...
That's not the case of Clarence Johnson!!! It would be interesting to compare his (or Blythe's?) version of the "Houston Blues" with the one recorded by George Thomas himself (accompaining Tiny Franklin), the Johnson/Blythe version is a natural evolution of the Thomas recording!
Another fantastic piano roll is the one played by Hersal Thomas, his own "Hersal Blues": Hersal also made a piano solo recording of that (and of "Suitcase Blues"!) and the piano roll and the recording are very very similar!
"Caldonia Blues" is simply a masterpiece and there's not much to say about that, apart from listening to it! All three piano rolls of these piece are great, including the Cook version!
Also very interesting and enjoyable the hand-played rolls by George W. Thomas for National! Actually he sometimes sounds a bit more "advanced" and "modern" in these piano rolls ("Block Avenue Blues" and "Boot It, Boy", while "Harbour Blues" sounds closer to GWT's typcial things), in comparison with the recordings he made. Maybe he has been assisted by anybody with these rolls?
Thomas recorded "Boot It, Boy" with his band, Thomas' Devils. In the recording his piano accompaniment can be heard rather well.
In the following days I'd like to post some recordings of the Thomas brothers of that kind and, if Frank agrees, repost some of the piano roll versions he so generously shared with us, since some pieces are pratically identical in recording and roll versions, while others differs quite a bit.
Then there are things like the "Fish Tail Dance": the Kimball piano roll, certainly taken from an arrangement by George Thomas, is very similar to the bluesy version recorded on phonograph by Hersal (even the peculiar slurs in the verse are reproduced by Hersal), who was certainly quite influenced by his elder brother, although Hersal was quite more imaginative and modern than George.
Best
Luigi