Reviewed By Jim Santella
By using MIDI technology with collector’s copies of the original player piano
paper rolls, Artis Wodehouse has created the written music that corresponds with
Jelly Roll Morton’s piano rolls. The book contains music for six of those twelve
piano rolls. "Grandpa’s Spells," "King Porter Stomp," "London Blues," "Original Jelly Roll Blues,
"Shreveport Stomps" and "Stratford Hunch" are represented in complete and readable
musical notation consistent with the vast library of materials that has been issued
from Hal Leonard over the years. "Stratford Hunch" is also known as "Chicago Breakdown."
"London Blues" is also known as "Shoe Shiner’s Drag." These are memorable songs, and
attempting to recreate them on your own piano could be challenging. Slowing them down
helps. The original paper roll speed has been converted to metronome markings and
indicated for each song, giving the practicing pianist an opportunity to perform at
the same speed as a player piano.
The age-old interpretation of swing poses an immediate problem. Straight eighth
notes in pairs and triplets must be presented by the performer in the manner Morton
and other early pianists preferred. But that’s the easy part. Performers have been
"swinging the written music" for nearly a century.
The other problem is how to deal with the modifications made by the original roll
editors of the 1920s. Paper rolls were modified to make the product more interesting;
holes were elongated and some were added. It made the player piano’s version of these
classic songs quite interesting, but it also made them more difficult. Grace notes,
glissandi, and such are notated in the book. They’re easy enough to understand, but
quite difficult to play; they make quantifiable goals for the performer.
Jelly Roll Morton’s recorded music is available to the listener on CD. In an afterward,
pianist Butch Thompson reminds us that the piano rolls are different from the recordings
Morton made in roughly the same time period. Pianist and music historian Artis Wodehouse
has provided a means by which we can examine that difference and explore the music for
ourselves. Her book is suitable for the serious jazz student or for the curious fan.
This review copyright (c) 1998 by Larry Koenigsberg.
