Pianophilia

Dear Benjamin,
Thank you very much for sharing your trascription of the Seger Ellis "Texal Wail" QRS Roll! It is very well written out..... and now along with "Prairie Blues" and "Sentimental Blues" which were published by Robbins we have a pretty much complete set of Ellis' Texas blues piano. The only other one of Ellis' numbers that would be worth transcribing is his Victor record of "You'll Want Me Back Someday," which is a very hot solo.
Thanks again and all best regards,

Frank

Dear Benjamin,
thank you so much for posting your transcription of "Texas Wail"!!
We have recently discussed about Seger Ellis and this piano roll in this forum.

fhimpsl wrote:The only other one of Ellis' numbers that would be worth transcribing is his Victor record of "You'll Want Me Back Someday," which is a very hot solo.

I absolutely agree with Frank! I personally consider "You'll Want Me Back Someday" the very best piano solo recorded in the 1920s among those I've heard, and I've heard many I think.
Later I will post the published sheet music, very poorly scored, and the masterpiece recording by Seger Ellis (you should download it Benjamin, although I've already sent it to you, because I have a much better transfer of it now).
Now instead I'd like to post a rather curious piano roll scan, scanned by Terry Smythe: according to his notes (that are not always precise), the piano roll was played (actually arranged) by J. Lawrence Cook.
The interesting fact about this piano roll, a raggy version of "Crazy Rhythm", is that it is note for note the Big Tiny Little arrangement of this piece.
BTW you'll know that Little has very recently passed away. He was a very talented pianist! Some of his discs were too much beefed with ugly sound effects, very bad sounding pianos, antics of any kind, he sometimes added modern touches to the music, but apart from that he was a very talented ragtime performer in my opinion.
Anyway, I'm posting here the Big Tiny Little arrangement of "Crazy Rhythm", including variations that are very typical of his style, together with the roll scan.
Although that's not a piano roll transcription, you may consider it like if it was....
The piano roll includes a key change and some octave note dubbings to add body to the piece, but it's almost precisely what you read in the score.
Enjoy the music
Best RAGards
Luigi

Dear Luigi,
There's a curious thing about the Seger Ellis Victor recordings. For some reason, the disc with "Sentimental Blues/"Prairie Blues" is a pretty common record and easy to find in e+/n- condition. The exact opposite is true of his Victor record "You'll Want Me Back Someday." That record is like a hen's tooth to find, especially in decent condition. One wonders why so often the best material is the toughest to find, but that is so often the case!
That's a neat find that "Crazy Rhythm" on 1950's QRS is the Big Tiny Little version. At that time QRS didn't always credit artists on the label (or if they did it was J.Lawrence Cook). But Cook made quite a few rolls in the styles of various artists such as Art Tatum, Cy Walter, Big Tiny Little, Teddy Wilson, Frankie Carle, and probably several more. I have some that credit the artist as "arrranged as played by .......", but usually the label doesn't say anything at all. Can you imagine someone wanting a popular sing-a-long roll of "Sweet Lorraine," for example, and coming home to find it's the Art Tatum arrangement!!! (That is, someone who wasn't familiar with Art Tatum's playing beforehand). Same thing with the various QRS versions of "Tiger Rag"---can you imagine trying to sing the printed lyrics to Tatum's arrangement!
All best,
Frank

fhimpsl wrote:Can you imagine someone wanting a popular sing-a-long roll of "Sweet Lorraine," for example, and coming home to find it's the Art Tatum arrangement!!! (That is, someone who wasn't familiar with Art Tatum's playing beforehand). Same thing with the various QRS versions of "Tiger Rag"---can you imagine trying to sing the printed lyrics to Tatum's arrangement!

I wouldn't try that...maybe a good scat singer would make it

fhimpsl wrote:There's a curious thing about the Seger Ellis Victor recordings. For some reason, the disc with "Sentimental Blues/"Prairie Blues" is a pretty common record and easy to find in e+/n- condition. The exact opposite is true of his Victor record "You'll Want Me Back Someday." That record is like a hen's tooth to find, especially in decent condition.

I just posted the recording of Seger Ellis and also some sheet music of his pieces on the School of Syncopation discussion: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=178&start=230#p6582
I hope that people here will enjoy them!
Best RAGards
Luigi

Hi everyone !

Here is a note-for-note transcription I made from a very likeable arrangement of Sugar Foot Stomp by J. Lawrence Cook.

There may be some corrections to do. If you want the lilypond source, just PM me.

I may have some time to make some transcriptions in the coming months. So if someone has a request...

Great job, Tinou!

I've finished about a third of another J. Lawrence Cook performance. Here is the MIDI file and my incomplete score. I'll finish it myself, but I have to practice for a concert in mid-July, and probably won't have time until August. If you like the piece and want to complete it sooner, be my guest.

Big Thanks to Tinou and Fred!!!!

Hi again everyone !

Here is a Jazz Arrangement of the very famous traditional Moscavian Nights .

As always with Cook, the piece quite tricky to play, but the harmonics are good enough for an enjoyable rendering when played slowly.
I also recommend to skip the first repeat bar, which makes the whole piece a little too repetitive.

Enjoy !

Delightful! Thanks, Tinou

Tinou wrote:Hi again everyone !

Here is a Jazz Arrangement of the very famous traditional Moscavian Nights .

As always with Cook, the piece quite tricky to play, but the harmonics are good enough for an enjoyable rendering when played slowly.
I also recommend to skip the first repeat bar, which makes the whole piece a little too repetitive.

Enjoy !

Dear Tinou and Fred,
thank you very much for these transcriptions of yours! The numbers you chose are really enjoyable!!
Speaking of J. Lawrence Cook, I'm attaching the recording of a piano roll of his from his own ragtime composition, "Freddy".
That piano roll was recorded on disc, with the addition of a couple of actors and a drummer.
That's a great rag and I guess you didn't hear that before.
Dear Tinou, if you're looking for interesting piano rolls to transcribe, I warmly suggest the piano roll scan I posted here some time ago, the piece called "Interference".
If you re-check the great piano roll scans posted by Frank Himpsl of the Thomas piano rolls, you'll find some fascinating hand-played piano rolls by Clarence Johnson, Clarence Williams and Hersal Thomas that really would deserve to be transcribed!
Then, I'm also including two very interesting piano roll performances here. They are "The Merry Widow Rag", played by the composer, Eubie Blake (a great piece in the ragging-the-classics vein), of which I also have a great recording by Eubie Blake himself (quite similar to the roll).
The other piece is what I consider to be the second greatest blues piano roll ever (the greatest blues piano roll in my opinion has been already transcribed by Frank Himpsl and it's Richard M. Jones' "King Of The Zulus", an incredible piece!).
The piece is "Down and Out Blues", played by the composer, Lemuel Fowler, one of the truly piano greats of the 1920s, together with Jimmy Blythe, Clarence Johnson, Frank Melrose and Jelly Roll Morton.
Here I'm attaching the two piano rolls, scanned by Warren Trachtman.
Speaking of your notation program, I think that's very interesting and I understand it has very useful features. The problem is that, as far as I could see, it seems I can't really install it on my pc and that the thing is organized so that the user works on a FTP server. Is that correct? In that case that's not my kind of stuff, but that's too bad, since I guess the program you created is very good!
Best
Luigi