Here's an interesting newspaper article about Bob Taylor,
Clombia, Missouri. See also the pic of him on the newspaper's
web site.

Regards,

Terry

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Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 15:43:52 -0500
From: "Karl Ellison" <ellison1@...>
Subject: AMICA's Bob Taylor (Missouri) in-the-news

Source:
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/story.php?ID=17569

Missourian NewsDecember 18, 2005

Sing us a song, you’re the piano man

Two men make it their mission to restore and preserve old
ragtime music

By Caroline Dohack

-----------(pic)

Bob Taylor has been playing, collecting and repairing player
pianos for 30 years. He bought this player piano from a dealer
in Chicago in 1974 and restored it himself. Taylor enjoys his
hobby because he likes to repair things and loves the music,
which is stored on paper rolls that the pianos play.

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Technological advances move at the speed of ideas nowadays, and
a performer’ s work can be lost if it is not reproduced with an
eye on the future.

Since the 1980s, the music industry has gone from eight-track
cartridges to cassette tapes to compact disks and, most
recently, to MP3s. But there are some who make it their mission
to preserve the memories — and more importantly, the music — of
the past.

Mike Montgomery is one of those people. From his home in
Detroit, Montgomery, who considers himself a natural historian,
has been collecting piano rolls since 1951. The survival of
these rolls is crucial to the survival of the genre.

Some of best — and most rare – surviving piano rolls are by
ragtime musicians, whose style originated in Missouri. While
ragtime was most popular between 1900 and 1917, it was a major
influence on the emerging jazz and blues styles.

At the time, few blacks knew how to notate their music, so very
little sheet music for popular ragtime tunes exists. Racism also
prevented much of this music from being published, Montgomery
said.

The music survives because of piano rolls, which allow scholars
to transcribe the music for future performers.

“If you think about it, piano rolls are notes in a piece of
paper,” Montgomery said. “It’s note on or note off. It’s been
digital for years, but piano rolls are easily digitized and can
be made to play on digital player pianos.”

Piano rolls can be found in antique stores for between 50 cents
and $3. “They’ve been plentiful for years,” Montgomery said.
“They’re still plentiful if you know where to look.”

And they are often in surprisingly good condition.

“These things are rolled up all the time, so air and acid don’t
get in them,” he said. “Except for any flaws the rolls acquire
as they’re being played on a regular player piano, they’re like
new.”

Knowing where to find piano rolls is only half the game of
collecting them. Buyers should be familiar with artists,
composers, titles and labels of the era — although Montgomery
admits he buys blind on occasion. There’s a natural curiosity
that goes with owning a piece of history, he said.

“You’re never satisfied just getting somebody’s rolls,” he said.
“You want to know as much as you can about the performer; you
want to know about his life, his photograph — everything, the
whole thing.”

Ragtime’s hallmark is its polyrhythm, or multiple rhythms played
simultaneously, said Lucille Salerno, a ragtime enthusiast and
president emerita of the John William Boone Heritage Foundation.

Because of its origins, some considered ragtime to be “brothel
music.” Its identity was sometimes masked by the more socially
acceptable name, “foxtrot,” said Bob Taylor, who repairs and
collects player pianos and rolls. While this was not necessarily
a common practice, there are some instances where a song called
foxtrot had the same characteristics as a rag.

Scott Joplin, of St. Louis, who wrote “The Entertainer” and
“Maple Leaf Rag,” was the most famous ragtime composer. However,
much of his success followed the pioneering music of Columbia’s
own William “Blind” Boone.

Boone was born in 1864, the illegitimate son of a runaway slave
who settled in Warrensburg after the Civil war. Boone was
afflicted with “brain fever,” and the only way to reduce the
potentially lethal swelling of his brain was to remove his eyes.

Blindness was not a handicap for Boone, Salerno said. In fact,
it was a blessing because his world would forever be one of
sound.

Although Boone couldn’t see the keys, he had an impeccable ear
and could play anything he heard, helping spread ragtime around
the state and later around North America.

“Boone’s real importance is that he took what he heard and
created ragtime compositions, but he did it in a way that he
heard happening as a youth,” said Salerno.

While Joplin is considered the most sophisticated ragtime
composer, Taylor said Boone’s music was more true to the genre’s
roots; a folk ragtime that reflected black, tent-meeting style.

Because electric recording wouldn’t come until 1924, piano rolls
were how performers like Boone recorded their music.

The most common method of recording on a piano roll is by
cutting holes into the paper to create the melody line. There
are limitations: The person operating the player piano’s
controls must provide any note inflections required. Directions
were usually printed on the rolls, as were song lyrics.

Hand-playing rolls are made on a piano fitted with a stylus,
which makes pencil marks on the roll as the musician plays. The
holes are cut into the paper later, and though these rolls
required more editing, they reflected more technique, said
Taylor.

A self-described mechanical nut, Taylor has been repairing
player pianos for 31 years. He owns five player pianos, as well
as a player organ.

While the stereotypical player piano, a Western movie standby in
any saloon scene, has a “rinky tink” sound to it, the instrument
is a sophisticated machine capable of reproducing myriad sounds.
Some are operated by pumping the pedals to control the song’s
volume; the faster the operator pumps, the louder the song is
played. Levers along the sides of the piano control the speed of
the song.

With electric player pianos, each roll has the correct tempo
setting printed on it, and the holes tell the piano what notes
to hit and when the damper or soft pedal should be activated.

Player organs are exponentially more complex, requiring two sets
of holes to operate multiple keyboards. Additional codes operate
chimes, echo and other features unique to pipe organs.

Taylor’s organ once belonged to John D. Rockefeller Jr. Taylor
bought it from a New Jersey man, Johnston F. Stewart, who had
been a friend of Rockefeller’s sister, Alta Rockefeller
Prentice.

After her brother’s house was made into a museum, Prentice took
a roll changer — a cabinet that holds several organ rolls and
works much the same way a CD changer does — from Rockefeller’s
house. She later gave it to Stewart, whose widow sold it to
Taylor.

To hear Taylor’s organ is to be inside the music itself. The
pipes blare in front, while the echo sounds behind. The melody
comes in from the left and the right. The player organ isn’t
playing the music; it seems as if the whole house is – and all
controlled by a single piece of paper.

While piano and organ rolls aren’t as popular as other antiques,
people like Montgomery and Taylor share a passion to pass along
their knowledge to others.

While restoring his player organ, Taylor has been storing much
of the music as special computer files called MIDIs. Computer
storage allows easier access to the thousands of songs in
Taylor’s library and protects the rolls themselves, some of
which are highly acidic, from deterioration.

Taylor plans to use the organ to put on small concerts, as well
as to make new recordings that others can enjoy.

Montgomery said such dedication can recapture a lost music and
an oft-neglected element of popular music culture.

“The thing you want to do, is rescue stuff that’s endangered of
getting lost and put it a little higher up on the shelf so the
next generation of people interested won’t have to look as
hard,”
he said.

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Terry Smythe 204-832-3982 (land line)
55 Rowand Avenue 204-981-3229 (cell)
Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3J 2N6 smythe@...
Preserving a unique slice of our Musical Heritage
http://members.shaw.ca/smythe/rebirth.htm