Lewis John Fuiks (aka Victor Arden) (March 8, 1893 to July 31, 1962)
Compositions
1909 Safety Pin Catch [1] 1918 Just Blue [2] 1919 In My Dreams Lucille [2] Marilynn [2] Honeymoon: Waltz [w/Ray Sherwood] 1920 Hy n' Dry Rose of the Orient [2,3] Dolly, I Love You [2,4] Molly [2,4] Who Wants a Baby? [3] Dottie Dimples [3] In Blossom Time [w/Louis Weslyn] 1921 'Round the Town Hand Painted Doll [3]	1921 (Cont) Lonesome Land [3] 1922 After A While (You're Goin' to Feel Blue)     [3] [w/Walter Hirsch] My Sweet Gal (Girl) [3] I'm Happy: Fox Trot [3] 1941 Hearts in Harmony We'd Rather Die Upon Our Feet (Than Live     Upon Our Knees) [w/Harry Murphy] Unity [w/J. Russel Robinson] Let's Incorporate [w/Lawrence M. Klee]    1. as Lewis J. Fuiks    2. w/F. Wheeler Wadsworth    3. w/George Hamilton Green    4. w/Dick Long

     Victor Arden was born, in theory and in name, a lot later than the man who actually created him as a pseudonym, Lewis John Fuiks. The only son of Samuel and Vallie Fuiks, both Illinois natives, Lewis was born and raised, for a time, in Wenona, Illinois, not far from Peoria. His father is listed in 1900 as working in "general merchandise," likely managing or owning a general store of some kind. Not much has been reported about Lewis' early musical training, but there was probably some piano instruction involved, along with harmony and theory. As evidence of this, Fuiks was able to publish a rag at age 16 in Chicago with the unusual title of Safety Pin Catch. By the time of the 1910 Census the family had moved to Chicago, where they were erroneously enumerated as the "Fox" family. Samuel was shown to be working in a clothing store as an assistant buyer.
     In the fall of 1910 Lewis was enrolled in the University of Chicago, and he emerged with a degree in music in short order. This was followed by training at the American Conservatory of Music, also in the "windy city." There is some possibility that Fuiks was producing piano rolls as early as 1915, likely in Chicago. There are some roll titles that were released by Imperial, a Chicago company, in the mid to late 1910s. In their advertisements of 1916 they promote Fuiks as "the Chicago University Musical Wonder." He and fellow dynamo performer Zema Randale were considered the primary "raggists" of the Imperial label. In a Music Trade Review notice in the October 7, 1916 edition, it was noted that: "...the Jazz-Ragger Fuiks and the inimitable syncopating star, Zema Randale, are coming under the protection of insurance companies. The Imperial Co. sells its high-grade products at such fair prices that it will not subject itself to loss through the inability of any of its staff to play."
     Yet Imperial did suffer that very loss shortly thereafter as Lewis moved on to greener pastures. To compound things, their other star, Miss Randale, tragically died in 1918. It is not known for certain when Fuiks moved to New York City, but given that his first output from there came in 1917, and he is known to have contributed at least four "operas" to the Chicago Blackfriars, the last presented at annual musical in May of 1916, he likely left for Manhattan late in 1916, along with his new wife Ilse Fuiks.
     One of Fuiks' first jobs in New York may have been as an accompanist for the movies and, given his training, for hire by singers as well. However by February 1917 he was arranging and recording piano rolls as his primary career. There was some output from the Rythmodik roll company in 1917 through 1919, including his own Honeymoon Waltz which was considered somewhat of a hit. However, the bulk of Fuiks' early works were on the Ampico label, the parent company of Rythmodik, turning out "hand-played" expression rolls of popular dance tunes, tangos, and operettas. When the Rythmodik label was finally abandoned many of his cut were re-released on Ampico rolls. Early advertisements for both labels touted him as a jazz artist.
     While about two dozen of these were printed under his given name of Lewis J. Fuiks, this may have proved problematic to either Lewis or Ampico management for obvious linguistic reasons (this has not been officially established in fact but has been discussed), and he was soon rechristened as Victor Arden on his popular jazz rolls as early as February, 1917.

The All Star Trio around 1920 with (l to r) George Hamilton Green, Wheeler Wadsworth and Victor Arden

Even though Lewis still used his given name for legal purposes, Arden would be the name he was professionally known as for the rest of his life, although rolls played by Fuiks were still shown in the listings as late as 1929. In at least one 1920 advertisement, both names are listed, a matter of continuity and removing the necessity to relabel all of the older rolls with the artist's new name. His 1917 draft record, taken in New York City, shows him working for the American Piano Company (Ampico) as a musician, with an address north of the city in Yonkers.
     Starting around 1918, Victor formed a group called the All Star Trio, with George Hamilton Green on saxophone and F. Wheeler Wadsworth on the newly-minted vibraphone and other tuned percussion. They recorded for the next two years on the Edison label initially, turning out recordings for Victor, Brunswick, Pathé, Okeh, Paramount, Emerson, and for the Vocalian label of Aeolian, a subsidiary of the American Piano Company. Fellow pianist and roll arranger Max Kortlander stepped in for Arden on occasion. Arden also continued to turn out great rolls of popular tunes during this time, earning him the title of King of the Piano Roll. The bulk of Victor's compositions were from this period. In either June or July of 1918 Arden shifted gears and labels as he started arranging and playing for QRS, the dominant standard roll manufacturer.
     It was at QRS that Victor first met pianist Fillmore (Phil) Ohman, who had been there for a couple of years. They found they had similar backgrounds, abilities and points of view concerning performance, and neither lacked the energy to explore new ways to play things. The duo quickly found they could produce some amazing roll arrangements with little effort, and were soon inseparable. Their first QRS rolls started to appear within weeks off Arden joining the firm. Ohman sketched out the general direction of what they would play without full notation, then they would record with Arden in the bass and Ohman in the treble.
     One critic who observed them up close found Ohman to be the "wag and clown of the pair," calling Arden the "serious minded, painstaking musician." While a slightly imbalanced point of view, Ohman's humor was more likely to come out in his playing, even during serious classical recitals that he accompanied. Both quickly became celebrities both in and outside the circle of jazz performers, and the public proved to be thirsty for their duet piano rolls. Lewis is listed in the 1920 Census as a "musician recorder" living in Yonkers with Ilse, and a new addition, Lewis John Fuiks Jr., born in July of 1919. Son Robert Spindler Fuiks would follow in 1921.
     While Arden and Ohman continued to make rolls both together and separately, Phil, through praise brought for his public performances, was offered a job in the fast-rising orchestra of Paul Whiteman, the so-called "King of Jazz." Not able to keep all his various positions, Ohman had to quit QRS and break up the duo for a while. Victor would continue to do duets through the mid 1920s, but with Kortlander, who he had been playing with since joining QRS, filling in for Ohman. Victor also kept busy with outside obligations. The All Star Trio expanded from 1921 to 1922 as the All Star Trio with Orchestra, featuring the distinctive Billy Murray on vocals. They signed a contract with the B.F. Keith Vaudeville Circuit for a 1922 tour.
     While the job with Whiteman was both good for his exposure as well as making connections, Ohman realized, as did Arden, that it was less fulfilling than their duo performances. So after a year or so he quite Whiteman's orchestra and concentrated on local gigs with Arden. They built their repertoire playing in clubs in midtown Manhattan, particularly on 52nd Street, and finally went into the studio late in 1923 to record live as a duo. Among their eclectic choices were the 1888 galop Dance of the Demons by multi-piano composer Eduard Holst and the popular rag turned song Canadian Capers. They were also one of the earliest piano duos to appear on radio as early as 1922, and were featured in one notable broadcast on wireless Chicago station KYW on April 11, 1925, for an estimated audience of 300,000 listeners. Phil had further exposure on the popular Roxy and His Gang Show which was broadcast from the Capitol theater where Ohman had worked. He brought Arden on for occasional appearances on the show.
     The performances were a sensation, and Broadway soon discovered them as well, knowing that they would be an additional draw to certain shows. The use of dual pianists or pianos was not new on Broadway, but their reputation was about as solid as their first Broadway employer/collaborator, Gershwin himself. So it was that they co-led the pit orchestra for Lady Be Good in 1924. According to the January 3, 1925 edition of The Music Trade Review: "An interesting anecdote relative to the two Story & Clark small grands being used by Phil Ohman and Victor Arden in the musical show 'Lady Be Good,'... was told this week by L. Schoenewald, New York district manager of the Story & Clark Piano Co. 'The original arrangement was that two of our pianos were to be used by the show when it opened in Philadelphia... but an error on the part of the stage carpenters resulted in building of the special moving platform too small to hold them. Although they had requested Story & Clark grands, Ohman and Arden were compelled to play their duet numbers on two 4 feet 8 grands of different make during the Philadelphia engagement. They were not satisfied with the tone of these pianos, so on coming to New York Victor Arden prevailed on the management to enlarge the platform to hold our 5 feet 2 inch grands. It has afforded the Story & Clark Piano Co. much pleasure to realize that our pianos are held in such esteem by two such talented pianists as Phil Ohman and Victor Arden.'
     Gershwin started what would become a popular trend throughout the remainder of the 1920s and into the 1930s, supported in the end by the economy of having two pianists and requiring less orchestra personnel. This trend was noted in The Music Trade Review of July 16, 1927, in the following excerpt:

     Phil Ohman moved from QRS to Aeolian in July, 1925, to cut Duo-Art rolls, effectively ending the six year run of QRS duets he had done with Arden. However, it was not the end of their partnership by any means. Their first Broadway success would be followed by more Gershwin shows such as Tip Toes in 1925, Oh, Kay in 1926, and Funny Face in 1927. Other shows included Treasure Girl in 1928, both Spring is Here and Heads Up in 1929.

Victor Arden (l) and Phil Ohman (r) in a
late 1920s publicity shot.

In between the Broadway shoes they recorded and performed on the road on the vaudeville circuits. Among the labels Ohman and Arden appeared on were Columbia, Victor (soon to be RCA Victor) and Gramophone.
     It should be noted that when they were billed in any venue that the order of their names did not matter to them, the sign of a solid partnership. They were also sought out in the late 1920s, as many New York acts were, by Warner Brothers for a few Vitaphone sound shorts, one of the first being The Piano Dualists in 1927. They were later seen and heard playing Dancing the Devil Away in the 1930 RKO musical The Cuckoos. Arden turned out many interesting arrangements during the 1920s of dance tunes on record, many sold very cheaply in Woolworths and similar outlets, making his name perhaps even better known than Ohman's.
     One of their contemporary critics, Gay Stevens, said the following concerning this formidable duo: "There is not a piano player in the land who, after hearing Ohman and Arden interpret a piece of jazz music on their two pianos, has not wanted to throw his piano out of the window. The keyboard magic of this duo-team has been the inspiration and despair of every real American youngster who sedulously practiced his Czerny with a secret desire to win excited gasps of admiration from the fair young things in his circle by his jazz piano playing."
     Arden, Ohman and Kortlander appeared together often for QRS promotions in the mid 1920s, playing live performances of their collective solo and duet piano rolls in addition the occasional trio. While Victor and Phil often performed just with the piano, the Arden-Ohman orchestra was started in 1925, initially for recording but later for both live performance and radio work. It was the latter that gave them their best overall exposure in the late 1920s through the first part of the Great Depression.
     In addition to this live duo, Arden went back to work for Ampico in the spring of 1928, turning out new popular roll arrangements. As announced in The Music Trade Review of February 11, 1928: "J. Milton Delcamp, vice-president of the Ampico Corp., announces that arrangements have been made with Victor Arden, the well known young American pianist and devotee of popular music to record his playing exclusively for Ampico records [rolls] in the future. Mr. Arden, a graduate of the University of Chicago and of the American Conservatory of Music of that city, came to New York several years ago, and in company with Phil Ohman has played in a number of musical comedy successes and has also been a member of Roxy's Gang." This job soon expanded into a series of duets with Ampico roll artist Adam Carroll. Carroll subsequently briefly joined Arden and Ohman to create a piano trio for a few performances on radio and for special functions.
     From 1928 to the mid 1930s, Arden and Carroll turned out over 60 rolls with their names on them. However, while some may have been arranged initially by Arden, many were filled in (and some created) by Frank Milne at the factory (often edited with colored pencils on Milne's kitchen table). They are still often considered to at least be in the style of Arden and Carroll, even if not entirely played by them. Both turned out rolls separately as well, but the player piano business faded fairly quickly as the Great Depression set in and free entertainment was available via radio.

A 1931 broadcast transcription disc of Arden and Ohman with the Victor Orchestra.

When Ampico failed in the late 1930s many of these rolls were re-coded for Duo-Art performances, making them among the rarer rolls that were available for both reproducing systems. As off the 1930 Census Lewis and Ilse were still living in Yonkers with their sons Lewis and John and one servant, and Lewis Sr. was listed as a musician/performer.
     Realizing that the best possible future for success was on the radio, the most effective medium of the 1930s, the dynamic piano duo re-teamed and hit the airwaves. Arden and Ohman had no issue finding good sponsorship, playing for everything from news programs to two or three numbers advertising toothpaste or fine watches. Some of their musical shows included The Bayer Music Review, The Buick Program, and the landmark American Album of Familiar Music. But the stresses of performance partnership eventually interfered, more on the professional level than on the personal level, and in 1934 Arden and Ohman split to go different directions, remaining friends. The duo reunited for one more recording session on Brunswick in 1935. Ilse Fuiks had her own hobby as well, dabbling in the world of equestrian competitions. She owned a few different horses during the 1930s, including one fine jumper named Happy Days.
     While Ohman went on to some fame in Hollywood, Arden chose to stay back east where radio was still the predominant form of entertainment during the waning days of the Great Depression. He was able to secure work as both pianist and conductor on NBC (National Broadcasting System), including such shows as Kings of Melody, Sweetest Love Songs Ever and Broadway Varieties. Arden also worked and recorded with his own dance band, but with all the other engagements he had to keep it fizzled out before too long. He also filled in for leader Abe Lyman on many occasions, conducting for his popular Waltz Time shows. Arden enjoyed one last stretch on Broadway playing for the revue George White's Scandals of 1939.
     Lewis and Ilse were still living in Yonkers as of 1944 when their younger son, Lieutenant Robert Fuiks, USNR, was first engaged to Thirsa Burr Sands that October. In the 1940s during World War II, he continued to make records with various orchestras, and was featured on the Manhattan Merry-Go-Round for a while in 1947, eventually landing steady spot on The American Melody Hour near the end of the decade. In the 1950s Arden again led an orchestra, this time behind the charismatic Dick Powell, the singing star of many MGM movies. One of his last projects was a reincarnation of his first group, the All Star Trio, after which he went into retirement. He had moved from Yonkers in 1951, buying an apartment at Douglas Park, located at W. 236th Street and Henry Hudson Parkway in Riverdale.
     Lewis was remarried in the 1950s to Frances Newsom. During his last few years the couple lived at 77 Park Avenue in Manhattan. His former partner Phil Ohman died in the summer of 1954. Lewis Fuiks a.k.a. Victor Arden died almost exactly eight years later in 1962 at age 69 leaving behind a wealth of recordings allowing us a look into some of the most exciting music of the 1920s and 1930s. His work both alone and with Ohman brought a vitality to the driving rhythms and languid ballads of the 1920s and beyond, making the player piano a glamorous instrument, and its listeners always wanting more.

     Thanks to New Zealand piano roll historian Robert Perry for additional information and clarification on Arden's career with various piano roll companies, and for the Gay Stevens quote. For more on piano roll artists, please visit him at www.pianola.co.nz. The remaining information was researched by the author in public records, periodicals and recorded media.

Felix G. Arndt (May 20, 1889 to October 16, 1918)
Compositions
1908 71st Regiment Waltz 1911 As Long As the Band Will Play [1] Snow Time [w/Bert Fitzgibbon] If That Ain't Love Wot Is? [2] When Sunday Rolls Around [2] Night Time [2] 1913 When You Know Why [2] Ev'ry Rose Reminds Me of You [2] 1914 A Symphonic Nightmare: Desecration     Rag #1 From Soup to Nuts Kakúda Marionette	1915 Toots 1916 Nola An Operatic Nightmare: Desecration     Rag #2 Nola (Song) [3] 1918 In the Shade of the Mango Tree [2] My Gal's Another Gal Like Galli-Curci [2] Clover Club    1. w/Harold Atteridge    2. w/Louis Weslyn    3. w/James F. Burns
Discography
1912 Campin' on de Old Suwanee [1] Florida Rag [1] Persiflage [1] The Smiler - A Joplin Rag Porto-Rico - Rag Intermezzo My Sumurun Girl The Merry-Go-Round The Haunting Rag 1914 Thanks for the Lobster [1] Notoriety Rag [1] Hacienda Society Tango Hesitation Waltz From Soup to Nuts Humoresque Rag Desecration Rag Too Much Ginger [1] The Smiler Rag Medley [1] Chinese Picnic [1] Old Folks Rag [1] Old Folks Rag (retake) [1] Too Much Trouble [1] Toots - One Step [2] Le Trousseau [2] Indianola Patrol - One Step [2] Love in June Go To It! [1] Kakúda [1] Azalea Waltz [2] Annie Laurie/Coming Through the Rye [3] Home Sweet Home [3] Entr'acte Gavotte [2] Old Folks at Home [3] Old Black Joe [3] When You and I were Young, Maggie [3] Silver Threads Among the Gold [3] Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes [3] Woodland Sketches: To a Wild Rose [3] My Old Kentucky Home [3] Nearer My God to Thee [3] Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht (Silent Night) 1915 The Original Fox Trot [1] I Wonder What Will William Tell [1] Woodland Sketches: At An Old Trysting     Place [3] Whispering Hope [3] 1916 Nola An Operatic Nightmare 1917 Marionette Humoresque Valse Bleue Water Scenes/Narcissus    1. w/Van Eps Trio or Fred Van Eps    2. w/Dr. Clarence Penny, Mandolin    3. on Keyboard Celesta	Matrix and Date [Victor B-12237] 07/26/1912 [Victor B-12238] 07/26/1912 [Victor B-12239] 07/26/1912 [Victor B-12300] 08/08/1912 [Victor B-12301] 08/08/1912 [Victor B-12302] 08/08/1912 [Victor B-12303] 08/08/1912 [Victor B-12304] 08/08/1912   [Victor B-14419] 02/05/1914 [Victor B-14420] 02/05/1914 [Victor B-14493] 02/20/1914 [Victor B-14494] 02/20/1914 [Victor B-14502] 02/20/1914 [Victor B-14503] 02/20/1914 [Victor B-14541] 03/06/1914 [Victor B-14587] 03/19/1914 [Victor B-14588] 03/19/1914 [Victor B-14589] 03/19/1914 [Victor B-15093] 07/29/1914 [Victor C-15093] 09/04/1914 [Victor B-15094] 07/29/1914 [Victor B-15141] 08/24/1914 [Victor B-15142] 08/24/1914 [Victor B-15143] 08/24/1914 [Victor B-15144] 08/24/1914 [Victor B-15161] 08/31/1914 [Victor B-15162] 08/31/1914 [Victor B-15163] 08/31/1914 [Victor B-15375] 11/10/1914 [Victor B-15376] 11/10/1914 [Victor B-15377] 11/10/1914 [Victor B-15432] 11/25/1914 [Victor B-15433] 11/25/1914 [Victor B-15434] 11/25/1914 [Victor B-15435] 11/25/1914 [Victor B-15439] 11/30/1914 [Victor B-15440] 11/30/1914 [Victor B-15441] 11/30/1914 [Victor B-15558] 12/31/1914 [Victor B-15559] 12/31/1914   [Victor B-15632] 01/27/1915 [Victor B-15633] 01/27/1915 [Victor B-15634] 01/27/1915   [Victor B-15635] 01/27/1915   [Victor B-17399] 03/30/1916 [Victor B-17400] 03/30/1916   [Victor B-19200] 02/19/1917 [Victor B-19238] 03/05/1917 [Victor B-19290] 03/19/1917 [Victor B-19706] 04/20/1917
Rollography
A rollography is being considered for this entry. However, given the huge volume of Arndt's rolls, even if minimized to those recorded under his name, this is a daunting process that may take a while to complete. For now, you can view and search on scanned rolls at the following sites: Warren Trachtman's Roll Scans Robert Perry''s Pianola Roll Scans Terry Smythe's Roll Scan Library

     Felix Arndt, regarded by some as the earliest proponent of the novelty piano style, was born to royalty, at least in a sense. His mother, Charlotte [Harpeur] Arndt (5/1851), was born in Spain to a French father and Spanish mother. Charlotte was known as the Countess Fevrier of France, and was reportedly related to Napoleon III. (She was mistakenly listed as Carolyn in the 1910 Census.) Felix's father, Andreas W. Hugo Arndt (2/1853), was a carpenter born in Switzerland. The couple married in Manhattan in 1888. Felix also had a younger sister, Charlotte A. Arndt (12/1890). Born in New York, Felix was educated in the New York City public school system, greatly improved as the influence of Tammany Hall was waning, and usually fostering those who wanted to play instruments in the requisite school band. He took up the piano on his own, but later sought out advanced training in harmony and theory. One of his professors was pianist Carl Lachmund, who was a follower of Franz Liszt. Carl's son Arno F. Lachmund would one day work indirectly with Felix while employed by Duo-Art.
     Once out of school, Arndt's talent for arranging was quickly recognized by publishers, and he got a job composing special material on demand for several years, including for vaudeville stars such as the husband and wife team of Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth, and often with fellow composer Gus Edwards (although specific titles have not surfaced to date and may have been disposed of after use). His steady gig for a time was as the organist for New York’s famed Trinity Church, right on Wall Street and a focal point in the days following the WTC disaster of 2001. He was shown in 1910 as still living with his family, and as a musician working for a publisher. Charlotte is shown as a stenographer working for a publisher, possibly the same one.
     One of his more fortuitous breaks came in 1912 when Felix joined banjoist Fred Van Eps and his brother Bill Van Eps on a second banjo to form the Van Eps Trio, the first of many such groups led by Fred. Van Eps had already been recording for Victor Records, so had no problem bringing Felix into the fold. They also accepted him as a soloist, and this started a flurry of recording activity over the next several years. Felix would cut at least 30 keyboard solo sides in addition to his recordings of the trio, and 5 with mandolin player Dr. Clarence Penny. Many of the sides also featured Felix playing the delicate keyboard celesta. He also debuted many of his own compositions simultaneously on record and piano roll over the next few years. After several cuts in 1912 there were curiously no sides from 1913, but as it turns out, Felix was pretty busy.
     Another bit of good fortune came in 1913 when Arndt started at QRS during the advent of "hand-played" piano rolls. Being a fine arranger and pianist, it allowed him the opportunity to advance his skills when applied to other composer's works, and helped him in his first compositions as well the following year. Arndt also became a staff musician for Aeolian Hall, creating Duo-Art reproducing rolls in the Popular Music genre. In his three years for the two companies he reportedly created over 3,000 rolls, which would equate to four or five on an average work day. However, many of these may have been released under multiple sub-labels, so that number was likely substantially smaller, yet still astonishing. From 1913 to 1918 he would appear on a number of piano roll labels including Universal, Perfection, Metro-Art and Uni-Record. It was also during this period that he produced his first composition that is now considered a classic novelty, A Symphonic Nightmare: Desecration Rag (#1), an amusing send up of well known symphonic pieces in a complex syncopated format. It was followed by the unusual From Soup to Nuts, and a piece that would be the harbinger of genius yet to come, Marionette. Felix was a charter member of ASCAP, founded by several musicians in 1914 in an effort to provide a focal registration point for protecting copyrights and distributing royalties.
     It was also during this period in 1915 that he met his famous muse, Nola B. Locke, a professional singer with the St. Louis symphony, and a vocal teacher as well. She was born in Monroe, Arkansas in February 1890 to real-estate agent George Todd Locke and his wife Callie Blanche (Dooley) Locke. She was in the middle of six children in the family of three girls and three boys, the youngest boy dying in infancy in 1900. George died a year later in 1901. Nola was on her own as of the 1910 Census, living in St. Louis and likely working as a teacher at that time, having not yet been engaged by the Symphony. The circumstances of how she met Felix are unclear, but it is possible that she had traveled to New York to find a better situation.
     Soon after they met the couple was engaged, and Felix wrote his signature piece in honor of the occasion, Nola - A Silhouette for the Piano. A lilting tune made up largely of interesting patterns, and melodic lines that utilize both hands and span pretty much the entire keyboard, it was a much admired template for what would become the genre of novelty piano in the 1920s. Written in late 1915 it was first published and recorded early in 1916. Ten months after the piece was composed they were happily wed. A later attempt to turn it into a relatively unsingable song version with lyrics by added by James F. Burns was met with lukewarm response, the difficult pairing proven by a vocal recording of the piece. Still, Nola managed to remain in print throughout the 20th century, selling millions of copies to hopeful pianists who wanted to try and catch that unique style. It was available as a popular piano duet as well. Overall the piece became perhaps the best seller in the catalog of Sam Fox who also had acquired many other Arndt compositions. In the 1930s, orchestra leader Vincent Lopez made it his theme, preserving his arrangement on film in 1932 in the first of the Big Broadcast films and giving it constant radio exposure as well. Guitarist Les Paul even had a top-ten with it in the 1950s using his revolutionary multi-tracking guitar recording technique. In the 21st century pianist Sue Keller has become associated with the tune, which was a favorite of her mother.
     Felix performed both on record and live with variations of the Van Eps group, but at some point pianist Frank Edgar Banta started to fill in from time to time. Banta would eventually take over the piano spot in the group by 1916, partially at the insistence of Victor management who liked that particular combination. However, it was over the next two years from 1916 to 1918 that Felix really started to find his niche as a composer as well as a performer. There was a second Desecration, An Operatic Nightmare: Desecration Rag #2 (the first was renumbered at this time), and a nice dance piece titled Clover Club. This was also the time when young George Gershwin looked briefly to Arndt as a mentor of sorts, with Felix likely getting him a job with Aeolian Hall on 42nd Street in Manhattan in early 1916, and potentially inspiring or even contributing a bit to the single rag that Gershwin wrote, Rialto Ripples. It has been suggested that Felix may have introduced George to his friend Irving Caesar, with which Gershwin would later pen his first and biggest hit, Swanee.
     Felix's 1917 draft card shows him as an employee of Aeolian, and the sole support for Nola and her mother. His parents were still in Manhattan, and his sister Charlotte had recently married Alex Alexander. They subsequently had a daughter in 1918 named Elaine, and continued to live with Hugo and Charlotte for some time. Then the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic struck the world, and New York City was hit hard. This deadly flu deprived the world of Felix Arndt shortly before WWI had ended.
     Nola went on with her life, and interestingly enough was known to have lived for a time with their mutual friend Caesar. Following her late husband's lead in the music business, she contributed the lyrics to Nobody Loves Me Now by Billy Tracey in 1922. While not readily found in the 1920 Census, she was located in 1930 married to a Russian immigrant construction company president, Henry Mandel, working as a musician doing private concerts. A another song with lyrics by Nola appeared in 1938, Mia Cara (My Dear) with Oscar Malanga. Little is known about the remainder of her life. Nola died in Canada in July 1977, and was buried with her first love in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarrytown, New York. Arndt's music and style were most certainly influential on a number of composers of the 1920s, and they help provide us a continuation of his legacy and the potential he possessed.

Marvin E. Ashbaugh (October 4, 1914 - August 21, 1974)
Known Compositions
Pearl House Rag (1947) The Little New Yorker (1949) T 5 Blues (1951) Cajon Lament (w/Gus Call) (1955) Du a Ferdinand (1955)
Collective Discography
10" 78s (Some released on 7" 45s) Big Leg Mama/Last Call for Alcohol [1] South Rampart Street Parade/Mama Inez [2] Here Comes Your Pappy/Come Back Sweet Papa [2] Original Dixieland One Step/They Called It Dixie Land [3] Oh Baby/Ja Da [4] I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate [3] Sweet Woman/I Wonder What's Become Of Joe [3] Sensation Rag/Sweet Lorraine Lonesome Lovesick Blues/Sister Kate Cannon Ball/Maple Leaf Rag Pearl House Rag/Sweethearts on Parade [5] How Come You Do Me Like You Do/Washington and     Lee Swing [2] Fidgety Feet/A Bag of Rags 10"/12" LPs Honky-Tonk Piano Marvin Ash Marvin "Ash" New Orleans at Midnight   1. w/Wingy Manone Band   2. as Nappy Lamare's Levee Loungers   3. as Rosy McHargue's Memphis Five   4. as Rushton's California Ramblers   5. as Marvin Ash and His Mason Dixon Music	Matrix and Date [Gilt Edge 535] 1945 [Capitol 15050] 10/27/1947 [Capitol 15325] 10/27/1947 [Jump J13] 12/07/1947 [Jump J19] 12/07/1947 [Jump J22] 12/07/1947 [Jump J28] 12/07/1947 [Jump J62] 12/08/1947 [Jump J66] 12/08/1947 [Capitol 15435] 1949 [Capitol 855] 11/15/1949 [Capitol 884] 11/15/1949   [Capitol CCR-323] 1950   [Capitol T-188] 1950 [Jump JL-4] 1951 [Jazz Man LJ-335] 9/14/1954 [Decca DL-8346] 1956

     Marvin Ash was a remarkable and under-recorded New Orleans style pianist who actually spent much of his life wanting to visit the Crescent City, making him all that much more remarkable for his playing gifts. Born in Lamar, Colorado, one of two children to barber Roy Ashbaugh and his wife Nora Ashbaugh, Marvin grew up in Junction City, Kansas. He had a younger sister, WIllie (likely Wilhemina) born in 1918. The family is shown in the 1920 Census living in Junction City.
     In the late 1920s the family moved Emporia, Kansas, where Marvin started playing with a number of bands as early as his high school years. Among the known musicians he worked with from the town that produced the legendary Count Basie include Wallie Stoeffer, composer Con Conrad, Herman Waldman and Jack Crawford. He was greatly inspired while visiting Abilene one day in 1931 and heard "Fatha" Earl Hines perform in his capacious style. There was also an encounter one day at Jenkin's Music when seated at one of three grand pianos was Joe Sullivan teaching Thomas "Fats" Waller and Arthur Schutt, sitting at the other two, his own Little Rock Getaway. It set a desire in Ash to be able to play like all three of them - at once.
     When Marvin was 22 he moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma to expand his musical horizons and do some work in radio as a studio pianist, musical director and sometimes announcer of station KVOO. With so much exposure to recordings from all around the country he was able to further hone his skills while absorbing a variety of piano styles. Among his favorites influences were James P. Johnson and Waller, masters of stride, boogie man Pete Johnson, for whom he played the relief shift at the Sunset Cafe in Kansas City, jazz players Hines, Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, and long-time friend and traveling roommate Bob Zurke. On November 20, 1941, Marvin married Wavel Davis, a Creek/Cherokee American Indian-descendant of one of Tulsa's pioneer families. This may have been a second marriage since his enlistment card status indicates he had been divorced.
     After a few years in Tulsa, Ash enlisted in the Army for World War II service on January 16, 1942, assigned initially to Fort Sill in Oklahoma. The terms indicated an enlistment "for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law." His civil occupation was listed as "Blacksmith or Band or Orchestra Leader... or Musician." It is hard to determine for certain, but Marvin likely spent at least some of his Army service in entertainment, something that head General Dwight D. Eisenhower in particular felt was essential for morale on the front lines. The army was true to their word and indeed kept him nearly six months after the end of the European segment of the war.
     Following his four year stint (Marvin claims it was five in one source) Ash was let loose in Los Angeles and quickly found a place with the band of trumpeter Wingy Manone, resulting in some of his earliest ensemble recordings in late 1945. He also played in many of the clubs around the greater Los Angeles area, slowly growing his fine reputation. In 1947, jazz guitarist/banjoist Nappy Lamare and associates opened Club 47 (named for Musician's Union #47, not the year) on famed Ventura Blvd. in Studio City, an active music strip in the burgeoning San Fernando Valley. Ash was a regular there for the five years. Lamare ran the club, and it led to his initial sessions with Clive Acker's Jump Records as a soloist in late 1947 and with Rosy McHargue's Memphis Five. With a national musician's strike against the record companies looming in 1948, recording studios were very crowded in November and December of 1947 trying to get in last minute sessions, and Marvin was kept busy during that two month period. His work with McHargue also resulted in sessions with Lamare, drummer Ray Bauduc and others at Capitol Records (both companies used Radio Recorders, the best Hollywood studio at that time), recording as Nappy Lamare's Levee Loungers and Marvin Ash and his Mason Dixon Music. He also kept regular broadcast performance stints on radio at KRKD, as well as the aptly named Hangover Club on Vine Street in Hollywood where his late friend Zurke had held court from August 1942 to his death in Feburary 1944 at age 32.
     Ash's accurate no-nonsense jazz playing and his propensity for ragtime caught the ear of Capitol's producer and A&R man Lou Busch (who would later gain fame as Joe "Fingers" Carr), and he invited Ash to record a few more sides in 1949 with a small ensemble. Most of these would be incorporated into the groundbreaking 10" and later 12" Honky Tonk Piano LPs. His jazz interpretations of Maple Leaf Rag, Cannon Ball and Fidgety Feet were a nice contrast to Busch's arranged honky-tonk style and colleague Ray Turner's brilliant novelty recordings. Still, there would be no further work with Capitol.
     Marvin was in the right place when television really took hold in Hollywood. He was one of the earliest traditional jazz pianists to perform live on the air in Los Angeles in 1949, first heard several times on KFI-TV (later KHJ) on various shows, often with actor Harry Hickox in an interview and performance format. Lamare often joined them for some musical fun. In 1950 he was featured for a while on a talent program, Stars of Tomorrow, which aired on KTTV Channel 11. The Marvin Ash Trio was featured on the show for several weeks. There were many more live television and radio appearances throughout the early 1950s. One of his more enjoyable pursuits from 1949 to the early 1950s was traveling to the San Fernando Valley and entertaining veterans at Birmingham Hospital in Van Nuys. Ash would push his piano from ward to ward to entertain disable veterans, building up a strong fan base for his efforts. He was often called on to entertain at Veterans' Reunions.
     Ash spent much of the 1950s playing in various lounges in the Los Angeles area, but had few recording dates under his name, instead working on many undocumented studio dates. Some include recording or live sessions with trombonist Jack Teagarden, clarinet player Matty Matlock, New Orleans' sax player Pud Brown and cornetist Pete Daily, a favorite of Dragnet creator Jack Webb. Marvin's most significant sessions resulted in a continuous suite of an album for Decca titled New Orleans at Midnight, a virtual pastiche of elegant jazz and even a Scott Joplin rag. In 1956 he was part of an all star mega-band at the annual Dixieland Jubilee at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, a group that sometimes-Firehouse Five Plus Two member George Bruns, FH5+2 and Kid Ory Band clarinetist George Probert, FH5+2 trumpeter Don Kinch, bassist Jess Bourgeois, Red Roundtree on banjo and veteran traditional jazz drummer Monte Mountjoy. They received the largest ovation of the event for Probert's emotional performance of Canal Street Blues.
     The incurable entertainer also found some steady employment in the Walt Disney Studios music department playing for movie and television soundtracks, acting as the resident arranger and pianist for the Mickey Mouse Club Show, and performing with Bruns and his aptly-named Wonderland Jazz Band. Marvin's musical direction during this period was later described by Clive Acker, who noted that he had little patience for playing rags as written, and even taking liberties with the more complex works by composers such as Bix Beiderbecke, even though he could play note for note. "Even when humdrumming his way through the days at the [Disney] studios, he would seek a place, any place, where he could ply his first love, being a jazz pianist." Acker also cynically noted that Los Angeles was a town that had been hard on jazz pianists, such as Bob Zurke, Joe Sullivan and Jess Stacy, but that Ash was still a survivor in spite of the overall attitude of Angelenos.
     Marvin was often sighted with this group or with his own small ensemble playing for events at Disneyland as well. He was a fixture at Jim's Roaring 20s restaurant and bar in the early 1960s with the band of Johnnie Lane. His regular haunt as a soloist during the late 1950s and early 1960s was Nick Arden's Restaurant at the piano bar. In 1962 he migrated to the Brass Tiger Lounge at The Inn in Studio City on Ventura Blvd. Another favorite spot where Marvin and his buddies would drop in was Wit's End, also in Studio City near Laurel Canyon Blvd. Among those he played with at Wit's End included "Wild Bill" Davidson, Sonny Criss, Matty Matlock, Benny Carter and Barney Bigard, all storied names in jazz music.
     After his retirement from Disney in the mid-1960s, Ash spent some his last few years playing older jazz, stride and (sometimes allegedly grudgingly) ragtime in the cocktail lounge of Victory Bowl, a large San Fernando Area area bowling alley. He had a steady stream of regular customers and admirers, and was reportedly very happy with the situation. Another frequent haunt was The Pump Room in Studio City. He was still called on for special gigs and appearances up through his death, including festivals held by the Blue Angels Jazz Club for their 1969 and 1971 events. As late as October 1973 Ash was frequently noted in the Los Angeles Times Calendar section playing at south valley locations such as the Tail of the Cock in North Hollywood. He passed on in an Encino, California hospital in 1974 at age 59, largely as a result of overindulgence in alcohol combined with a heart problem caused by Rheumatic Fever as a child, the reported cause being a heart attack. Marvin was survived by Wavel, his wife of 33 years. According to her niece Wavel celebrated her 99th birthday in 2009.
     Marvin left many jazz and ragtime fans wanting for more in terms of recorded legacy, but also sadly forgotten by all but a few hard-core fans. The author, who lived in Studio City as a teen, was fortunate enough to hear Ash perform on two occasions, and still vividly remembers how captivating and engrossing his performance was in the noisy restaurant bar. Marvin's ability to merge styles, and also to approach the same piece in many different ways made him versatile and listenable, and his "always-on" smiling demeanor made him a popular friend to all who crossed paths with him. His approach to ragtime was successful in showing that piano rags were the root of jazz, and therefore could fuse well into the genre, creating a fresh look at older material while still respecting that material.

Roy Frederick Bargy (July 31, 1894 - January 16, 1974)
Compositions
1920 * Slipova * Justin-Tyme * Sunshine Capers * Pianoflage * Jim Jams * Behave Yourself Omeomy Ditto (I'll Have the Same) 1921 It Must Be Someone Like You [1]     [w/Harold G. Frost] When You Come to the End of a     Sometime [1] Blue Streak Rickety Stairs [1,2] 1922 Little Thoughts [1] [w/Hal Billings] Lonely [1,2] The Old Garden Gate [1,3]	1922 (Cont) * Knice and Knifty [3] (1918/1922) * Rufenreddy [3] (1918/1922) Tee-pee Blues [w/Roger Lewis &     Ernie Erdman] Broken Hearted Blues [w/Frank Henri     Klickmann & Dave Ringle] 1923 Sweet and Tender Foolish Child [w/McPhail/Nelson] 1924 Get Lucky (Chicago Stomp) Feedin' the Kitty    * From 8 Piano Syncopations    1. w/Charley Straight    2. w/George Moriarity    3. Both likely composed by       Charley Straight around 1918,       but listed as collaborations.
Selected Solo Discography
1921 Justin-Tyme 1924 Sunshine Capers Knice 'N' Knifty Pianoflage Rufenreddy 1924 Jim Jams	Matrix and Date [Victor 25709] 09/30/1921   [Victor 26557] 06/27/1922 [Victor 26854] 08/31/1922 [Victor 26855] 08/31/1922 [Victor 26856] 08/31/1922   [Victor 29668] 03/18/1924

     Roy Bargy was born in Newaygo, Michigan, to Frederick and Jessie Bargy, the youngest of two children including his sister Myrtle (8/1888). However, he grew up mostly in Toledo, Ohio. He began to study piano at age five and proved to be a child prodigy at the instrument. Fred Bargy was listed as a musician in the 1900 Census, so likely had some direct influence on his son's talent and musical direction. Roy continued taking lessons for 12 years and developed as a very competent classical pianist. Roy had aspirations of becoming a concert artist, but the thinking of the time was that serious pianists needed to study in Europe in order to be seriously regarded within classical music circles, a practice that continued into the 1940s. Family economics made this dream impossible to achieve at that time, as by 1910 his father was no longer working as a musician, but instead was listed as a market superintendent.
     Discouraged but not daunted, Roy began to hang around the growing Toledo jazz community and, still in his teens, found work playing piano and organ in silent movie houses. Roy also organized his own pickup orchestra, which played for school dances. He took lessons in both organ and piano with C. Max Ecker of Toledo for as long as seven years. Roy often cited Ecker as the person responsible for the development of his dazzling technique. He claimed to have attended no music conservatory, and beyond his time with Ecker to have never studied composition, harmony, theory, or similar courses that most arrangers and composers were taking at that time. His knowledge in these fields was mostly self-taught, and came from his observation of how the instruments in an orchestra complimented or interplayed with each other.
     Roy's 1917 draft card shows him listed as a musician playing for a Toledo country club. He ended up being enlisted for five months of 1918, serving in the Army in Central Officer's Training School in Georgia, and was honorably discharged at the end of November. In a Music Trade Review article of September 13, 1919, it was noted that: "Mr. Bargy was in an officers' training camp when the Germans resigned, and while in the service was a great organizer of bands and orchestras among the soldiers. He has played in many parts of the country and wherever he has appeared his true musicianship has been appreciated."
     In the summer of 1919, Bargy auditioned for pianist Charley Straight, manager of the Imperial Player Rolls company. He was asked to arrange a pop tune for roll. The initial cut was so good that Bargy was quickly hired and the tune was put into their catalog. Straight cultivated Roy's arranging abilities as he was assigned to record novelties and popular songs. He soon challenged Bargy to compose some of his own novelties in an effort to compete with rising star Zez Confrey of QRS. Bargy came back with six of the Eight Piano Syncopations that were every bit as innovative as Confrey's (with whom he became a long-time friend), but his pieces were not quite as accessible to the average pianist.

Bargy (the pianist) leading the Benson Orchestra in 1922.

The six were committed to piano rolls in 1920 and published as sheet music from the rolls two years later. Two others were most likely written by Straight in 1918 or so, but Bargy got collaboration credit when they went to sheet form.
     It was Straight that introduced Bargy to booking agent, Edgar Benson, who had just formed a dance orchestra which was slated to record for Victor Records. Benson was impressed by Bargy's skills and took him on as both pianist and musical director. The Victor recordings of The Benson Orchestra, which were very progressive for the time, helped secure many other bookings for Bargy as a pianist and arranger for other recording bands such as Isham Jones. Roy married to his first wife Gretchen, also from Toledo, around this time. Their daughter Jeanne was born in 1922. Patricia followed in 1924.
     After creative conflicts with Benson in late 1921, Bargy left to launch his own orchestra, taking many members of Benson's group with him. He was helped by music entrepreneur Ernie Young, who managed not only to get Bargy's group booked for a solid year at the Trianon Ballroom in Chicago, but made certain that the group was the highest paid dance orchestra in the country in 1923. But the group disbanded after only a couple of years, after which Bargy joined the Isham Jones organization for a while. Roy traveled with that group to England and Europe in 1925, shown arriving back in the United States on the Mauretania on December 8, 1925. Roy had also done a couple of recordings with Arthur Pryor's band earlier in the year.
     In 1926 Bargy continued again with his own orchestra, this time playing at the Hotel Stevens in Chicago. In May 1927 Roy was signed by Ampico as a roll recording artist. Bargy then migrated to Paul Whiteman's orchestra in 1928, quickly becoming Whiteman's musical assistant. Whiteman had been looking for a sound beyond the conventional dance band, and Bargy's arrangements provided much of that sound, some of them commissioned even before he joined the orchestra. Bargy claimed he joined Whiteman's organization so he could go to Europe with the group, which did happen in short order. Roy's piano was the featured attraction in Whiteman's film debut of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in King of Jazz, released in 1930. Bargy was partially responsible for the symphonic arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue, which varied in many ways from the original jazz band arrangement by his colleague Ferdé Grofé. His pianistic skills were also utilized on some of the early recordings made by Whiteman's star singer, Bing Crosby and the famous Rhythm Boys. In the 1930 Census Roy is difficult to locate as he was on tour, Gretchen and two daughters were living in his home base of Toledo.
     During the 1930s when Bargy wasn't playing with Whiteman during the occasional hiatus of the group, he would again assemble his own orchestra to work during the tour breaks. He and his groups continued to record for Victor Records, and were frequently heard on national radio broadcasts, mostly on NBC stations. As a member of the Whiteman Orchestra Roy became one of the premier interpreters of Rhapsody in Blue, and as of 1938 likely held the record for the number of performances of the work by one pianist. Soon after it was premiered, he was also featured in many performances of Gershwin's highly challenging Concerto in F. Bargy was also the assistant conductor, put in charge whenever Whiteman left the podium. In 1940, Bargy left Whiteman after a twelve year stint to arrange and conduct radio orchestras and bands. These included gigs with Lanny Ross (with whom he recorded some Irish tunes), Garry Moore, and famed Latin bandleader Xavier Cugat.
     In a 1937 article published in Amarillo, Texas in September, 1937, Roy looked back on his fortunes and success. In spite of his lack of formal music education, Bargy said: "I certainly don't wish to discourage people from going to the conservatory and studying those courses which I did not have... Nevertheless, I believe the method I followed of studying privately with one excellent piano teacher for some seven or eight years, and the way I had to dig out my extra musical knowledge alone, was the best thing for me." When asked if his former instructor, Max Ecker, was proud of his achievements, he continued: "Proud of me? Oh no, he's disappointed! He thinks it's been very fine for me to be with a great orchestra like Whiteman's, but he doesn't think that is my field. He accepts the concert stage for me and nothing else." Bargy also made it clear that he liked his work on the radio more than anything else at that time.
     Comedian Jimmy Durante, himself a competent pianist who got his start playing at Coney Island during the ragtime era, hired Bargy as musical director in 1943, and it was in this capacity that he remained until both of them retired from show business two decades later. Bargy and his orchestra were featured on the radio weekly on the show that originally starred both Durante and Moore on NBC radio. When Moore went to TV, Durante re-teamed with Alan Young, and retained Bargy for radio and live appearances. Roy's daughter Jeanne had debuted at age 13 on WPSD radio in Toledo in the mid 1930s as "the Voice of the Blues." She started to make a name for herself as a pianist and singer in the mid 1940s, appearing at various venues around the country, and favoring the style of her mother's good friend, singer Mildred Bailey. Jeanne also had a stint on CBS radio from 1948 to 1949.
     While the circumstances are not fully clear yet (still being researched), Roy, now remarried to Virginia Bargy, two decades his junior, acquired two more children by adoption, who appear to possibly be a brother and sister born in South Dakota. Roger Michael (MacLean) Bargy (03/08/1941) and Susan M. (MacLean) Bargy (c.1945) became members of the Bargy clan in the mid 1940s. An unfortunate accident involving a soda pop bottle exploding resulted in Roger losing his left eye in 1948, to which Roy sued the company (unnamed in the news reports) on Roger's behalf for $25,486.
     There were two bits of nostalgic resurgence involving Roy in the early 1950s. The first was a series of brilliant interpretations of his early piano novelties by performer Ray Turner, who was known as "The Hollywood Pianist" due to his soundtrack work that made actors sound like accomplished musicians. Turner's recordings for Capitol Records appeared both as solos on a 16" radio transcription and on two albums as well, the pioneering Honky Tonk Piano and Turner's own Kitten on the Keys. There was also a brief reunion of Roy with Paul Whiteman in 1953 when the two played along with others in a traveling revue. An ad for them in Reno in July, 1953, shows the "King of Jazz" on the same bill as the "Piano Extraordinary" of Bargy along with some teen-aged musical acts from Whiteman's television show. Unfortunately, performing became more difficult for Roy in the mid to late 1950s due to the onset of arthritis, so appearances by Bargy with Whiteman or Durante diminished throughout the decade. One of their last performances together was for Durante's Fiftieth Anniversary in Show Business special, broadcast in full color on NBC Television on August 9, 1961.
     Roy spent the remainder of his years in the California sunshine playing golf for enjoyment, but also helping his second wife Virginia with the Country Day School she founded in Vista, CA. Students have memories of him as both the cook for lunch time, as well as the entertainer from time to time for assemblies or casual afternoons. Their daughter, Jeanne, composed lyrics and some music for several stage productions throughout the 1960s with composer Jim Eiler, including some that were broadcast on NBC Television. Susan was married in 1964 in San Diego, then after a divorce married again in 1973 in Santa Barbara.
     Novelty pianist extraordinaire Roy Bargy died in his home in early 1974 after a fruitful career in music and helping with the Counrty Day School. It is reported that Virginia, who moved in with one of their daughters (likely Patricia) after his death, likely disposed of some additional compositions or arrangements that he had kept around their house. Roger (a.k.a. Michael) died in 1981 on Roy's birthday in San Diego. Virginia Bargy survived Roy until April, 2005, and Susan is still around as of this writing, as is Patricia. Although Bargy left behind only a few compositions, his contributions to recorded jazz are considerable but hard to measure because he left his imprint in so many places.

     Thanks to to ragtime researcher Robert Bradford, a friend of Susan Bargy, who was able to provide a few pieces of information on Bargy and his later years. The remaining information was culled by the author from public records, periodicals and collective writings on novelty piano, including piano roll catalogs.

Charles Spencer Chaplin (April 16, 1889 to December 25, 1977)
Compositions     (Note that many dates shown represent known or approximate composition dates rather than copyright, since some pieces associated with films were not published or copyrighted until some time after the film's release.)
C. 1909-1914 Every-Day Life [7] 1915 Oh! That Cello! 1916 The Peace Patrol There's Always One you Can't Forget 1920 Sweet Love [1] 1925 With You, Dear, In Bombay Sing a Song [2] 1931 City Lights: Film    Overture    Unveiling the Statue    At the Night Club    The Blind Flower Girl    Beautiful, Wonderful Eyes    Misfortunes of a Street Cleaner    The Burden of Poverty    Tramp Theme    Hopes of Riches    A Boxer By Necessity    Tragic Love Theme 1935 Modern Times: Film    Overture    Lunch Time    The Workers Demonstrate    A Huge Meal, Thanks to the Police    Smile (Theme Music)    Toy Waltz    Skating in the Department Store    In the City    Finale 1940 The Great Dictator: Film [3]    Overture    Falling Star    Conspiration's Meal    Napoli March 1942 The Gold Rush: Film Re-release    Overture    The Road to Fortune    A Delicious Dish: Boiled Boot    Georgia's Theme    The Ballet of the Bread Rolls    Square Dance 1947 Monsieur Verdoux: Film    Cancan a Paris Boulevard    Tango Bitterness    Rumba 1952 Limelight: Film    Limelight    Eternally (Terry's Theme) [4]    I'll Be Loving You    Spring is Here    Animal Trainer    The Life of a Sardine    The Death of Columbine 1954 Smile (Song from "Modern Times") [4,5]	1957 A King in New York: Film    The Spring Song    Park Avenue Waltz    Mandolin Serenade    Weeping Willows    Bathtub Nonesense    Clown Smile    The Paperhangers    Without You    Now that it’s Ended 1959 The Chaplin Revue: Film Package    Green Lantern Rag    Song Triste    Shoulder Arms    Coffee and Cakes    The Pilgrim    (Bound for) Texas 1966 A Countess from Hong Kong: Film    My Star    This is My Song    The Ambassador Retires    Crossing the Dance Floor    Zigeuner - The Three Ladies    Perdue    The Deb Shakes    Chamber Music    A Countess from Hong Kong (Waltz)    Change Partners    Bonjour Madame    Hudson Goes to Bed    The Ill-Fitting Dress    The Countess Sleeps    Gypsy Caprice    Tango Nastacha 1968 The Circus: Film Re-release    Swing High Little Girl    Circus Fanfare    Pursuer Pursued    A Magician Exposed    Love at First Sight    You Are the Song    The Clown's Appearance    The Barber's Apprentice    The Intruder in the Lion's Cage    Love's Disillusion    The Tightrope Walker    Finale 1971 The Idle Class: Film Re-release Score [6] The Kid: Film Re-release Score [6] 1972 Pay Day: Film Re-release Score [6] 1973 A Day's Pleasure: Film Re-release Score [6] 1974 Sunnyside: Film Re-release Score [6] 1976 A Womand of Paris: Film Re-release [6] Unknown or Uncertain A Million Dollars (Home recording)    1. w/Edward Smalle    2. w/Gus Arnheim    3. w/ or arr. by Meredith Willson    4. w/Geoffrey Parsons    5. w/John Turner    6. w/ or arr. by Eric James    7. w/Harry Boden
Pieces About or Associated With Charlie Chaplin
1915 That Charlie Chaplin Walk [William S. Downs & Roy Barton] The Charlie Chaplin Glide [Gordon Strong] The Charlie Chaplin Trot [Gustave Leon] The Charlie Chaplin ["Pauline"] (c.1915) Those Charlie Chaplin Feet [Edgar Leslie & Archie Gottler] Funny Charlie Chaplin [James G. Ellis] Charlie Chaplin's Frolics: Eccentric Dance [Theodore Bonheur] Charlie! Charlie! [Herman Darewski & Dan Lipton] Broadway Is My Home Sweet Home [Meyer Davis, Uriel Davis & Donald M. McLeran] 1920 At the Moving Picture Ball [Howard Johnson & Joseph H. Santly] 1921 The Kid (Introduced in 'The Kid') [Joe Bren & Haven Gillespie] 1924 Mandalay [Earl Burtnett, & Abe Lyman]

     As there has been so much written on the life of Charlie Chaplin, this biography will largely focus on and take into context the parts of his life as a composer and musician, while still covering the major events and time line. Chaplin was not really a ragtime composer per se, but he did what he could to keep music viable in his films by directing the use of certain pieces or genres of pieces, and eventually composing them as well. Many of these works made it into print as far back as the mid 1910s, and a handful endure today. So his music was born out of the melding of ragtime and popular music as it accompanied early silent films, and therefore he should be not be ignored as a composer who drew on that era for some of his work. But he went well beyond that, as will be seen here, and should further be acknowledged for the boldness he displayed in scoring some of his later films as well, putting him also in the category of film composer.
     Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in England to Charles Chaplin and Hannah (Hill) Chaplin, both performers in London music halls. He had an older brother, Sydney Chaplin, from a different mother. While his father was a talented actor and singer, he was also an alcoholic, and ended up seperating from Hannah when Charlie was three. To compound an already difficult situation, Hannah Chaplin had some mental illness, and her inability to keep jobs required the broken family to move from place to place around Kensington Road, so as to be close enough to the theaters. In this way, Charles had constant exposure to the stage, and to the music as well. His mother preferred to bring the boys to the theater rather than leave them alone, so they quickly became familiar with the songs of the day, bawdy and otherwise. They would occasionally see Charles Sr. perform as well, even after he had left the family. One of his frequent haunts was the Canterbury Music Hall.
     As Chaplin told it, his first time on stage was when he was but five years old. He was backstage at the Aldershot Canteen while Hannah was performing for a group largely made up of soldiers. She was having a rough time of it, her voice cracking during her song. Whether Charles ventured out after she left the stage or whether he was pushed on remains conjecture or hearsay. However, he took over for his mother, singing two songs, and picking up coins thrown on stage by the amused audience in response to his work before he left. It was the start of a very long career performing for the public.
     Even as a juvenile performer Chaplin claims he had not yet really discovered music. However, he told of that day in his biography, leaving the impression that he was perhaps eight or nine at the time. Charles had come home to an empty house, and bored after a while he wandered out into the streets again. As he tells it: “Suddenly, there was music. Rapturous! It came from the vestibule of the White Hart corner pub, and resounded brilliantly in the empty square. The tune was 'The Honeysuckle and the Bee,' played with radiant virtuosity on a harmonium and clarinet. I had never been conscious of melody before, but this one was beautiful and lyrical, so blithe and gay, so warm and reassuring. I forgot my despair and crossed the road to where the musicians were. . . .It was here that I first discovered music, or where I first learned its rare beauty, a beauty that has gladdened and haunted me from that moment…”
     Charles first worked as a billed artist in 1898 with a group of pre-teen clog dancers. They were called The Eight Lancashire Lads, and the experience allowed him to hone his agility of movement as well as gain a better sense of timing and rhythm in conjunction with the musical accompaniment. Although the work was necessary to help support his family, he was thoroughly at home on the stage, and became quite acrobatic as a result of his time as a dancer. He reportedly may have also done some singing with this act, but there is no direct billing that fully supports this contention.
     Steady work was hard to come by in Charlie's teen years, so there were periods where he was out of work, supported in part by Sydney. When he was just out of his teens Chaplin secured a position with British performer Fred Karno's comedy company. Working in various groups of this traveling organization, Charlie quickly became a star of the sketch and pantomime comedy sketches, and his timing and choices were evidently highly regarded by the boss. It has been noted that his use of music in his act fully availed itself of the possibilities presented in the rhythmic and melodic elements of a tune, adding to the overall essence of his act. The acts often used classic 18th and 19th century melodies accompanied by sound effects or slapsticks to emphasize falls or other actions, which gave his form of comedy its name, even before he became associated with it. Among the actors he worked with during his time with Karno was another future comedy star, Stan Laurel.
     The Karno company toured Europe a couple of times from 1909 to 1910. Reportedly at on show in Paris presented at the famous Folies Bergère, composer Claude Debussy was in the audience and went backstage to meet him after the show. The impressionist composer told him, "You are instinctively a musician and a dancer." While this was clearly a great compliment to Charlie he did not know who Debussy was at that time. However, he eventually knew all to well, noting in his autobiography it was the same year that "Debussy introduced his Prélude à L’Après Midi d’un Faune [Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun] to England, where it was booed and the audience walked out."
     In 1912 the core of the Karno company ventured to America to tour the vaudeville circuit for several months. Laurel remembered several facets of this trip and recounted some information about Chaplin in a later interview with historian John McCabe. "Charlie carried his violin wherever he could. Had the strings reversed so he could play left handed, and he would practise for hours. He bought a cello once and used to carry it around with him. At these times he would always dress like a musician, a long fawn coloured overcoat with green velvet cuffs and collar and a slouch hat. And he’d let his hair grow long at the back. We never knew what he was going to do next.” This concurs with Chaplin's own account: "On this tour I carried my violin and cello. Since the age of sixteen I had practised from four to six hours a day in my bedroom. Each week I took lessons from the theatre conductor or from someone he recommended. As I played left handed, my violin was strung left handed with the bass bar and sounding post reversed. I had great ambitions to be a concert artist, or, failing that, to use it in a vaudeville act, but as time went on I realised that I could never achieve excellence, so I gave it up."
     It was also during this period that Chaplin went to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City to see the opera Tannhäuser, something that may have influenced even more his sense of the melding of music and storytelling. According to Charlie: "I had never seen grand opera, only excerpts of it in vaudeville – and I loathed it. But now I was in the humour for it. I bought a ticket and sat in the second circle. The opera was in German and I did not understand a word of it, nor did I know the story. But when the dead Queen was carried on to the music of the Pilgrim’s chorus, I wept bitterly. It seemed to sum up all the travail of my life... I came away limp and emotionally shattered."
     While on the American tour, Charlie was witness to, and soon was entranced by the growing medium of motion pictures, now well into their second decade. The notion of putting something into a permanent record that could be viewed by potentially millions in a short time, as opposed to hundreds in a week, was appealing to him. So near the end of 1913 Chaplin decided to achieve his own success in America and left the Karno company to pursue a career in the movies.
     
     
     
     

Edward Elzear "Zez" Confrey (April 3, 1895 to November 22, 1971)
Compositions
c.Late 1910s On the Banks of Dear Old Illinois Over the Top 1921 My Pet Kitten On The Keys You Tell 'Em Ivories Greenwich Witch Poor Buttermilk 1922 Stumbling Stumbling (Paraphrase) Coaxing The Piano Tricks Dumbell Dizzy Fingers Kitten On The Keys Song [w/Sam     Coslow] 1923 Three Little Oddities    I. Impromptu    II. Romanza    III. Novelette Nickel In The Slot Anticipation Zez Confrey's Modern Course in     Novelty Piano Playing 1924 African Suite    I. Hi Hattin'    II. Kinda Careless    III. Mississippi Shivers Who Do You Suppose? 1925 Charleston Chuckles Träumerei [Schumann] Spring Song Melody In F [Mendelsohnn] Flower Song [Lange] Home Sweet Home Humorestless There's No One Can Love Me Like You Zez Confrey's Conception of Six Old     Masterpieces for Piano 1926 Fantasy (Classical) Fantasy (Jazz) Jack In The Box 1927 Jay Walk Valse Mirage 1928 Sparkling Waters 1929 Concert Etude 1931 Buffoon Heaven's Garden 1932 Wistfulness Champagne Moods of a New Yorker (Suite)    I. At Dusk    II. Movie Ballet    III. Relaxation    IV. After Theater (Tango) Indian Prayer Desert Dance In The South Of France Phantom Cadets	1933 Grandfather's Clock Smart Alec 1934 Sittin' On a Log, Pettin' My Dog     [w/Byron Gay] 1935 Arabian Maid Blue Tornado Giddy Ditty Lullaby From Mars Mouse's Hooves Rag Doll Dimples Rhythm Venture A Heart Like The Ocean Tin Pan Symphony 1936 Audacity Motif Du Concert Midsummer's Nightmare Tap Dance Of The Chimes Meandering Ultra-Ultra Wise Cracker Suite    I. Yokel Opus    II. Mighty Lackawana    III. The Sheriff's Lament Home-Run On The Keys Sugar Dance Sunshine From The Fingers 1937 Sport Model Encore 1939 The Hobble De Hoy 1943 Forgive Me, Silent Soldier 1944 Dancing Shadow Parade Of The Jumping Beans Pickle Peppper Polka Elihu's Harmonica 1945 Tune For Mademoiselle Amazonia Flutter By Butterfly Rag Doll Carnival 1949 Four Candy Pieces    (A Suite for Children)    I. Captain Butterscotch    II. Chocolate Bunny    III. Marshmellow Minstrels    IV. Peppermint Drum Major 1951 Thanksgiving: A Miniature Opera 1951    Song Of Thanksgiving 1959 Piano Sketch Of A Symphony Orchestra     (based on Tschaikovsky themes) Fourth Dimension Four Circus Pieces    I. The Cannon Ball Man    II. Parade Of The Bears    III. Trapeze Lady    IV. Barnaby The Clown Unknown/Posth Jap-a-lac-ee [w/Alex Gerber] Piano Concerto No. 1 Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major
Selected Discography
1921 Kitten on the Keys My Pet Poor Buttermilk You Tell 'Em Ivories Kitten on the Keys Poor Buttermilk Kitten on the Keys 1922 Greenwich Witch Coaxing the Piano Greenwich Witch You Tell 'Em Ivories Kitten on the Keys [1] I Love Her, She Loves Me     (I'm Her He, She's My She) [1] Are You Playing Fair? [1] Struttin' at the Strutter's Ball [1] Zenda [1] I'm Going to Plant Myself in My Old     Plantation Home [1] Cowbells [1] True Blue Sam (The Traveling Man) [1] All Muddled Up [1] Open Your Arms, My Alabamy [1] Fuzzy Wuzzy Bird [1] Dumbell [1] 1923 When All Your Castles Come     Tumbling Down [1] Some Little Someone [1] Sunny Jim [1] Liza [1] New Hampshire [1] Wet Yo' Thumb [1] Morning will Come [1] Oh Harold [1] Rosetime and You [1] Nickel in the Slot [1] 1924 Mississippi Shivers [1] Humorestless [1] Charleston Chuckles [1] 1927 Prudy [2]    1. w/The Zez Confrey Orchestra    2. w/The Victor Orchestra	Matrix and Date [Brunswick 5061] 02/??/1921 [Brunswick 5092] 02/??/1921 [Brunswick 5601] 07/??/1921 [Brunswick 5813] 07/??/1921 [Emerson 41996] 09/??/1921 [Emerson 41997] 09/??/1921 [Edison DD 50898-L] 12/31/1921   [Brunswick 6719] 01/??/1922 [Brunswick 6742] 01/??/1922 [Emerson 42202] 02/??/1922 [Emerson 42203] 02/??/1922 [Victor 26259] 04/21/1922 [Victor 26322] 05/04/1922   [Victor 26656] 06/29/1922 [Victor 26657] 06/29/1922 [Victor 26742] 08/30/1922 [Victor 26743] 08/30/1922   [Victor 26791] 10/02/1922 [Victor 26792] 10/13/1922 [Victor 26955] 10/13/1922 [Victor 27133] 11/10/1922 [Victor 27134] 11/10/1922 [Victor 27259] 12/26/1922   [Victor 27260] 01/14/1923   [Victor 27447] 02/01/1923 [Victor 27448] 02/01/1923 [Victor 27563] 03/21/1923 [Victor 27564] 03/21/1923 [Victor 27820] 04/12/1923 [Victor 27821] 04/12/1923 [Victor 28007] 06/04/1923 [Victor 28008] 06/04/1923 [Victor 28211] 07/01/1923   [Victor 30355] 07/03/1924 [Victor 31437] 11/21/1924 [Victor 31438] 11/21/1924   [Victor 37523] 01/07/1927 Unissued

     "Zez" Confrey has long been known as one of the most popular progenitors of the Novelty Piano style that was born out of the desire for piano roll arrangers to give their works more bite. Born the youngest of five children of Thomas J. and Margaret Confrey in rural Peru, Illinois at the dawn of the ragtime era, Edward (who may have just as often been called Elzear as he was shown on some official records) displayed his propensity for music at the age of four. Just after his talented older brother Jim had completed a piece during a piano lesson, the youngest Confrey stood at the piano and picked out the melody of the same piece he had been listening to Jim play. So lessons for him started quite early, and by he time he was in high school in La Salle, Illinois (near Peru), and conducting his own orchestra, "Zez" (as he was now known) had progressed well beyond what most local teachers could offer him. So he soon attended the fairly close by Chicago Musical College (run by Florenz Ziegfeld Sr., father of the famous Ziegfeld Follies founder) for better grounding in all musical forms ranging from classical music to contemporary composers Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, and others. It was the influence of the French impressionist composers that showed up in his later compositions.
     In an effort to support himself during college, Zez logically chose performance, and his older brother Jim stepped in to help him out. They formed an orchestra, then even opened a hotel to feature it, as well as engaging in occasional short performance tours. This was interrupted by The Great War (WWI). His 1917 draft card lists him as a music teacher living in La Salle. Zez ultimately joined the Navy, where he ended up entertaining the sailors more than serving with them. One of his performing partners during his stint in the show Leave It To Sailors was a talented violinist from Waukegan, Illinois named Benjamin Kubelsky. He later started telling jokes between tunes and changed his name to Jack Benny.
     When Zez was fresh out of the Navy he sought to expand his exposure by successfully auditioning for the QRS Piano Roll Company, making it clear that he felt his arranging skills would help their rolls sell better. During his six-plus years there he proved that contention to be accurate. In all he made at least one hundred twenty rolls for QRS, and perhaps several more that have not been positively identified as they were released under pseudonyms. Zez secured a job as a manager with publisher G. Schirmer in Chicago in 1919, a branch dealing mostly with vaudeville singers. From there, it was a natural progression that his next step would be composition.
     After a few interesting pieces, Zez pulled My Pet out of his hat in 1921 (possibly a couple of years earlier). Where Felix Arndt's Nola had broken some new ground six years earlier in the use of seemingly complex sounding patterns, My Pet threw in a impressionistic harmonic progressions and previously implausible syncopated patterns to define his own brilliant take on the novelty piano genre. It was followed almost immediately by his wildly popular mega-hit Kitten on the Keys, and both were quickly packaged on a Brunswick record, as well as arranged for piano roll. In the midst of a barrage of interesting solos that would follow, he penned Stumbling, his most popular vocal song. Some of the sides he did for Brunswick were repeated in 1921 and 1922 for the Emerson label, and he performed Kitten on the Keys on a celebrated Edison Diamond Disc as well on the last day of 1921.
     Publisher Jack Mills was thrilled to have Confrey as one of his prime composers. Confrey had experienced rejection by many publishers who thought his pieces were outlandishly difficult for the average pianist, and was reluctant to even present them to the adventurous entrepreneur. However, Mills saw the sales potential by promoting their musicality as well as making sure they were available on phonograph records. This created a successful paradox where even hack amateurs were so sure they could play what they heard on those recordings that they bought Confrey tunes by the thousands, only to discover their own limitations as represented by the apparent complexity. In truth, Zez Confrey novelties mostly consisted of simple patterns, and had they taken the time to master those patterns the learning curve would have been greatly lowered. A very successful folio of Zez Confrey's Modern Course in Novelty Piano Playing was created in 1923 to address this issue, and indeed remained in print for four decades. A ringing endorsement of this was the adoption of this book by the dominant Christensen School of Music with branches throughout the country. Still, in the end, it was the complexity of novelty piano that soured sheet music sales for Mills and other companies in the genre, but money was still to be made in the record business.
     Perhaps the highlight of Confrey's performance career, and indeed a benchmark for jazz music that announced it was here to stay, was the legendary concert that bandleader Paul Whiteman arranged at Aeolian Hall in New York City on February 12, 1924. While most may remember that event as the premiere of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue as arranged by Ferdé Grofé, it should also be noted that some of Confrey's compositions were featured as well, and the composer himself rolled out his newest piece, the classically structured Three Little Oddities, along with the bombastic Dizzy Fingers and famous Kitten on the Keys. After the event he accepted a position creating rolls exclusively for Ampico reproducing pianos, and turned out forty-four over the next three years. In addition, Whiteman had sponsored Confrey's own orchestra as part of his band empire as early as 1922, a dance orchestra which recorded several sides for Victor as well as performed live at many events. Some of these made it overseas on the HMV (His Master's Voice) label as well
     For all of his performance duties, it appears that Zez took the creation of piano rolls more seriously than anything. It is difficult to get a full estimate of the number of rolls he recorded for QRS, Aeolian and other concerns (the number 223 has been suggested), but each of them clearly has his stamp on them. Confrey could take a semi-popular song, as he did with Titina in 1925, and turn it into a novelty masterpiece, sometimes by adding an original section or altering the format of the song. They were also carefully edited after he made the mark-up copies for a very refined performance. His acoustic recordings were more throwaways in some regards, even though some of them indicated as many as 12 takes for a piece, sometimes across two sessions. In on instance, fellow pianist Phil Ohman sat in for Confrey both playing and leading his orchestra. After two years of constant recording with Victor his output appears to have simply dropped off in 1924, perhaps so he could focus on other concerns like composition and traveling with the orchestra. A series of recuts of Confrey pieces was done in 1927 after the advent of electronic recording, but with the exception of one tracks, this time it was Victor's musical director Nat Shilkret at the piano with the "Confrey Orchestra," which was actually the Victor house band.
     As he became more popular, Confrey became a spokesperson in some ways for the advancement of music forms, which is natural since he was part of the transition of ragtime into jazz and novelty tunes. An article from The Music Trade Review of February 25, 1928, read as follows:

     WATERTOWN, N. Y., February 21.- During his concert here at the armory this week, Zez Confrey, composer of "Kitten on the Keys" and other piano novelties, gave a short talk on the development of jazz music in recent years. Standing by his piano, after playing some of his compositions, Mr. Confrey said: "Radio is largely responsible for the change brought about in American dance music. The old-time so-called 'jazz' could not be broadcast with success. Since the introduction of radio several years ago, I have watched this evolution of the small dance orchestra to the present day concert dance orchestra, playing symphonic jazz with its intricate harmonies and pulsating rhythms. The radio has also served to instruct the small town orchestra, and as a result this type of orchestra is better than its prototype of several years ago.

     However, as the 1930s approached, Zez turned more to composition than to performance. An announcement in the October 6, 1928 edition of The Music Trade Review noted the following:

     Zez Confrey, pianist-composer and for many years leader of his own dance orchestra, has just signed an exclusive contract with the Irving Berlin Standard Music Corp., New York, and will place all his compositions with that organization in the future. Mr. Confrey will concentrate on novelty orchestra numbers similar to his famous "Kitten on the Keys," which proved one of the biggest novelty hits ever published. His first release on the order of "Jumping Jack," the firm's present hit, will be introduced shortly both as a novelty piano solo and in orchestra form. The number will be exploited by the organization in a country-wide campaign.
     Mr. Confrey is also working on modern piano instruction books, both for beginners and advanced students. This news should be of real interest to music dealers throughout the country, who have enjoyed a substantial sale of Mr. Confrey's compositions in the past. His novelties all bear the individuality of his style of playing, and he belongs in a class by himself among modern American composers.

     

Zez at the piano with composer Byron Gay (L) and slugger Babe Ruth (R)

The onset of the Great Depression may have hit Confrey hard as it did much of the music business not directly involved with radio, as the 1930 census shows him living once again with his parents and two of his brothers back in La Salle, although this may have also simply coincided with a visit there. Still, he did fall on some hard times over the next few years. In the mid 1930s Zez participated in a few short subject films in New York. One of those, Home Run on the Keys from 1937, featured his Kitten on the Keys played live, and also starred fellow composer Byron Gay who had recently returned from a trip to the South Pole. The star of the film was the one who garnered the most attention at that time, Yankee slugger Babe Ruth. Zez's signature piece, Kitten on the Keys, was also prominently featured in a 1935 Disney Silly Symphony, Three Orphan Kittens, through the emulation of a piano roll that was actually played live. Beyond incidentals like these, occasional radio appearances were largely his mid to late 1930s exposure to the general public.
     Confrey's 1942 draft card shows him listed as a "free lance composer" living in Queens, NY, so a decade later perhaps well enough off from his royalties in addition to any playing appearances he might have made during this time that things had been looking up. He sought out ways to expand genres within his repertoire of pieces. This ambition was mostly realized, but hindered by the onset of Parkinson's Disease in the mid to late 1940s. While this did not inhibit his compositional abilities, it made performance difficult, and he retired from public appearances. There was a definitive revival of Confrey's pieces, including Kitten on the Keys and Dizzy Fingers among others, in the 1950s, thanks to artists like Lou Busch, Ray Turner and Dick Hyman. Zez finally succumbed in 1971 at the beginning of the big ragtime revival that would culminate in a book of his [nearly] complete works. Zez Confrey left behind a staggering variety of memorable pieces that are still continually rediscovered by a new generation and are actively performed in the 21st century.

George Gershwin (George Bruskin Gershvin) (September 26, 1898 to July 11, 1937)
Instrumental Compositions
c.1914 Tango Ragging the Traumeri 1917 Rialto Ripples [1] 1919 Lullaby (A String Quartet) Novelette in Fourths c. mid-1920s Three Quarter Blues (Irish Waltz) 1923 Rubato (Novelette-Prelude) 1924 Rhapsody in Blue 1925 Short Story (Novelette) Sleepless Night Concerto in F     1. Allegro     2. Adagio - Andante con moto     3. Allegro Agitato 1926 Three Preludes for Piano    1. Bbm - Allegro    2. C#m - Andante (Blue Lullaby)    3. Ebm - Allegro (Spanish Prelude) 1928 An American in Paris Merry Andrew 1929 Impromptu in Two Keys (Yellow Blues) 1931 Second Rhapsody 1932 Cuban Overture (a.k.a. Rumba)	1932 (Cont) Piano Transcriptions of Eighteen Songs     1. Swanee     2. Somebody Loves Me     3. My One and Only     4. Who Cares     5. I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise     6. The Man I Love     7. Strike Up the Band     8. Sweet and Low Down     9. Do It Again    10. Fascinatin' Rhythm    11. 'S Wonderful    12. Oh, Lady Be Good    13. Do-Do-Do    14. Nobody But You    15. That Ceratin Feeling    16. Clap Yo' Hands    17. Liza    18. I Got Rhythm 1933 Two Waltzes in C 1934 Variations on "I Got Rhythm" 1936 Catfish Row Suite from Porgy and Bess     1. Catfish Row     2. Porgy Sings     3. Fugue     4. Hurrican     5. Good Morning, Brother 1937 Promenade (a.k.a. Walking the Dog)
Popular Songs/Broadway Shows
1916 When You Want ’Em, You Can’t Get ’Em       (When You’ve Got ’Em, You Don’t Want       ’Em) [2] The Passing Show of 1916: Revue    The Making of a Girl [3,4]    My Runaway Girl [2] 1917 Gush-Gush-Gushing [5] When There's a Chance to Dance [5] When the Armies Disband [6] A Good Little Tune [6] Beautiful Bird [7] We're Six Little Nieces of our Uncle Sam [7] 1918 Hitchy-Koo of 1918    You-oo, Just You [6] Ladies First: Musical    The Real American Folk Song Is a Rag [5]    Some Wonderful Sort of Someone [8] Half Past Eight: Musical    There's Magic in The Air [5]    The Ten Commandments of Love [9]    Cupid [9]    Hong Kong [9] 1919 Oh Land of Mine, America [12] Good Morning Judge: Musical    I Was So Young (You Were So       Beautiful) [6,13] Lady in Red: Musical    Something About Love [7] Capitol Revue: Musical    Swanee [6]    Come to the Moon [7,14] La, La, Lucille 1919: Musical [10,11]    Kindly Pay Us    When You Live in a Furnished Flat    The Best of Everything    From Now On    Money, Money, Money!    Tee-Oodle-Um-Bum-Bo    Nobody But You    Hotel Life    (Oo, How) I Love to Be Loved By You [7]    It's Great to Be in Love    There's More to the Kiss than the       Sound [X-X-X] [6]    Somehow It Seldom Comes True    The Ten Commandments of Love    Our Little Kitchenette †    The Love of a Wife †    Kisses † Morris Gest's Midnight Whirl: Revue [10,15]    I'll Show You a Wonderful World    The League of Nations (Depends on Beautiful       Clothes)    Doughnuts    Poppyland    Limehouse Nights    Aphronightie (Parody on Fokine's Bacchanal       from Aphrodite)    Let Cutie Cut your Cuticle    Baby Dolls    East Indian Maid Dere Mabel: Musical [6]    We're Pals    Back Home    I Don't Know Why (When I Dance with You) 1920 Yan-Kee [6] George White's Scandals of 1920: Revue [11]    My Lady    Everybody Swat the Profiteer    On My Mind the Whole Night long    Scandal Walk    Tum On and Tiss Me    The Songs of Long Ago    Idle Dreams    The Lattice Room Number    My Old Love is My New Love The Sweetheart Shop: Musical    Waiting for the Sun to Come Out [5] Broadway Brevities of 1920: Musical    Spanish Love [6]    Love Me While the Snowflakes Fall [11]    I'm a Dancing Fool [11]    Lu-Lu [11] Ed Wynn's Carnival: Musical    Oo, How I Love You to be Loved by You [7] 1921 Molly on the Shore [5] Phoebe [5,7] [Unpublished] Swanee Rose (a.k.a. Dixie Rose) [6,10] Tomalé (I'm Hot for You) [10] In the Heart of a Geisha (Nippo San of     Japan) [16] Blue Eyes: Musical    Wanting You [6] From Piccadilly to Broadway: Revue    Something Peculiar [5,7] Snapshots of 1921: Revue    On the Brim of Her Old-Fashioned       Bonnet [17]    Baby Blues [17]    Futuristic Melody [17] The Broadway Whirl: Musical [10,15,18,19,20]    From the Plaza to Madison Square    Button Me Up the Back    Three Little Maids    Poppy Land [10,15]    Lime House Nights [10,15]    Stars of Broadway    The Husband, The Wife and Lover A Dangerous Maid    Boy Wanted [5]    Just to Know You are Mine [5]    Some Rain Must Fall [5]    The Simple Life [5]    The Sirens † George White's Scandals of 1921: Revue [11]    I Love You    South Sea Isles (Sunny South Sea Islands)    Mother Eve    Where East Meets West    Drifting Along with the Tide    (She's) Just a Baby The Perfect Fool: Musical    No One Else But that Girl of Mine [6]    My Log Cabin Home [6,10] For Goodness Sake: Musical    Someone [21]    Tra-La-La [21] 1922 The Flapper [10,22] The French Doll: Musical    Do it Again [10] For Goodness Sake: Musical    Someone [21]    Tra-La-La [21]    All To Myself [21] George White's Scandals of 1922: Revue [10,17]    Little Cinderlatives    (Oh, See What) She Hangs Out in Our Alley    (My Heart Will Sail) Across the Seas    I Found a Four Leaf Clover    I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise    Argentina    Little Cinderlatives    I Can't Tell Where They're From When They       Dance    Just a Tiny Cup of Tea    Where is the Man of My Dreams?    You Can Tell Who We Are by the Things       That We Have Done Blue Monday (Miniature Opera) [10]    Overture    Prologue: Ladies and Gentlemen    Blue Monday Blues (a.k.a. 135th Street       Blues)    Has Anyone Seen My Joe?    Monday's the Day That All the Earthquakes       Quiver    I'll Tell the World I Did    I'm Gonna See My Mother Spice of 1922: Revue    The Yankee Doodle Blues [6,10] Our Nell: Musical [22,23,24]    Gol-Durn!    Innocent Ingenue Baby    Old New England Home    The Cooney County Fair    Names I Love to Hear    By and By    Madrigal    We Go to Church on Sunday    Walking Home with Angeline    Oh, You Lady!    (All the) Little Villages    The Custody of the Child † 1923 The Dancing Girl: Musical    That American Boy of Mine [6]    Why Am I So Sad [3]    Cuddle Up [3]    Pango Pango [3] The Rainbow: Musical [25]    Sweetheart (I'm So Glad I Met You)    Good-Night, My Dear    Any Little Tune    Moonlight in Versailles    In the Rain    Innocent Lonesome Blue Baby [22,24,25]    Beneath the Eastern Moon    Oh! Nina    Strut Lady with Me    Sunday in London Town George White's Scandals of 1923: Revue [10]    Little Scandal Dolls    You and I [26]    Katrinka    There is Nothing Too Good for You [10,17]    Throw Her in High [10,17]    Let's Be Lonesome Together [10,17]    Lo-La-Lo    The Life of a Rose    Look in the Looking Glass    Where is She?    (On the Beach) How've You Been?    Laugh Your Cares Away Little Miss Bluebeard: Musical    I Won't Say I Will (But I Won't Say I       Won't) [5,10] The Sunshine Trail: Musical    The Sunshine Trail [5] Nifties of 1923: Musical    Nashville Nightingale [6]    At Half-Past Seven [10] 1924 Sweet Little Devil: Musical [10]    Strike, Strike, Strike    Virginia, (Don't Go Too Far)    Someone Who Believes in You    System    The Jijibo    Quite a Party    Under a One-Man Top    The Matrimonial Handicap    Just Supposing    Hey! Hey! (Let 'Er Go!)    The Same Old Story    Mah Jongg    Hooray for the U.S.A.    Pepita    Be the Life of the Crowd †    You're Might Lucky, My Little Ducky †    Sweet Little Devil † George White's Scandals of 1924: Revue [10,27]    Just Missed the Opening Chorus    I'm Going Back    (I Need) A Garden    (Night Time in) Araby    Somebody Loves Me    Year After Year We're Together    Tune in (to Station J.O.Y.)    Rose of Madrid    I Love You My Darling    Kong Kate    Lovers of Art Primrose [28]    Leaving Town While We May    The Countryside    Boy Wanted [5,28]    This Is the Life for a Man    When Toby is Out of Town    Some Far-Away Someone [5,10]    The Mophams    I'll Have a House in Berkely Square    (Isn't It Terrible What they Did to) Mary       Queen of Scots    Wait a Bit, Susie [5,28]    Naughty Baby [5,28]    Primrose Ballet    Till I Meet Someone Like You    That New Fangled Mother of Mine    I Make Hay when the Moon Shines    Isn't it Wonderful! [5,28]    Roses of France    Berkely Square and Kew    Can We Do Anything? [5,28]    Four Little Sirens    Beau Brummel Lady Be Good: Musical [5]    Seeing Dickie Home    Hang on to Me    A Wonderful Party    The End of a String    We're Here Because    Fascinating Rhythm    The Robinson Hotel    So Am I    Oh, Lady Be Good    The Half of it Dearie Blues    Juanita    Leave It to Love    Little Jazz Bird    Carnival Time    Swiss Miss [5,11]    The Man I Love †    Evening Star †    Will You Remember Me? †    The Bad, Bad Men †    Weatherman/Rainy Afternoon Girls †    Singin' Pete †    Laddie Daddie † 1925 Tell Me More: Musical [5,10]    Tell Me More!    Mr. and Mrs. Sipkin    When the Debbies Go By    Three Times a Day    Why Do I Love You?    How Can I Win You Now?    Kickin' the Clouds Away    Love Is in the Air    My Fair Lady    In Sardinia    Baby!    The Poetry of Motion    Ukulele Lorelei    Oh, So 'La' Mi    Murderous Monty (and Light-Fingered       Jane) [28] [London production only]    Love, I Never Knew [28]       [London production only]    Shop Girls and Mannikins [sic] [Unusued]    I'm Something on Avenue A [Unusued]    The He-Man [Unusued] Tip-Toes: Musical [5]    Waiting for the Train    Nice Baby! (Come to Papa!)    Looking for a Boy    Lady Luck    When Do We Dance?    These Charming People    That Certain Feeling    Sweet and Low Down    Our Little Captain    Harbor of Dreams    It's a Great Little World    Nightie-Night    Tip-Toes    Harlem River Chanty †    Gather Ye Rosebuds †    We †    Dancing Hour †    Life's Too Short to Be Blue † Song of the Flame: Musical [29,30,31]    Far Away    Song of the Flame (Don't Forget Me)    A Woman's Work is Never Done    Great Big Bear    The Signal    Cossack Love Song (Don't Forget Me)    Tar-Tar    (You May) Wander Away    Finaletto    Vodka    Finale    I Want Two Husbands    You Are You    Midnight Bells    The First Blossom Ballet    Going Home on New Year's Morning    Finale Ultimo 1926 Oh, Kay!: Musical [5]    The Woman's Touch    Don't Ask!    Dear Little Girl (I Hope You've Missed Me)    Maybe    Clap Yo' Hands    Do, Do, Do    Bride and Groom    Someone to Watch Over Me    Fidgety Feet    Heaven on Earth    Oh, Kay!    What's the Use †    When Our Ship Comes Sailng In †    Bring on the DIng Dong Bell †    Guess Who †    Isn't It Romantic †    The Moon is on the Sea †    The Sun is on the Sea † Americana: Revue    That Lost Barber Shop Chord [5] Lady Be Good: Musical    [London production only]    I'd Rather Charleston [28]    Buy a Little Button from Us [28] 1927 Strike Up the Band: Musical (Original) [5]    * Denotes numbers cut or revised in 1930    Fletcher's American Cheese Choral Society *    Seventeen and Twenty-One *    A Typical Self-Made American    Meadow Serenade *    A Man of High Degree    The Unofficial Spokesman    Patriotic Rally *    Three Cheers for the Union    This Could Go On for Years    The Man (Girl) I Love *    Yankee Doodle Rhythm *    Finaletto Act 1	1927 (Cont)    Strike Up the Band    Oh, This is Such a Lovely War *    Hoping That Someday You'd Care *    Military Dancing Drill    How About A Boy? How About A Man       Like Me? *    Finaletto Act 2    Homeward Bound    The Girl I Love *    The War That Ended the War *    Finale Funny Face: Musical [5]    We're All A-Worry, All Agog    When You're Single    Those Eyes    Birthday Party    Once    Funny Face    High Hat    'S Wonderful    Let's Kiss and Make Up    Come Along, Let's Gamble    If You Will Take Our Tip    He Loves and She Loves    Tell the Doc    My One and Only (What Am I Gonna Do?)    Sing a Little Song    In the Swim    The World Is Mine    The Babbitt and the Bromide    Dance Alone With You    Acrobats †    When You Smile †    Aviator †    Blue Hullabaloo † 1928 Rosalie: Musical [4,5,32]    Show Me the Town    Here They Are    Entrace of the Hussars    Hussar March    Say So!    Let Me Be a Friend to You    West Point Bugle    Oh Gee!-Oh Joy!    Kingdom of Dreams    New York Serenade    The King Can Do No Wrong    Ev'rybody Knows I Love Somebody [5]    How Long Has This Been Going On?    Setting-Up Exercises    At the Ex-Kings' Club    The Goddesses of Crystal    The Ballet of the Flowers    Rosalie †    Beautiful Gypsy †    When Cadets Parade †    Follow the Dream †    I Forgot What I Wanted to Say †    You Know How it Is † Treasure Girl: Musical [5]    Skull and Bones    (I've Got a) Crush on You    I Don't Think I'll Fall in Love Today    Oh, So Nice    According to Mr. Grimes    Got a Rainbow    Feeling I'm Falling    Place in the Country    K-ra-zy for You    What Are We Here For?    Where's the Boy? Here's the Girl!    I Want to Marry a Marionette †    This Particular Party †    What Causes That? †    Treasure Island †    Dead Me Tell No Tales †    Good-Bye to the Old Love, Hello to the       New †    A-Hunting We Will Go † 1929 Show Girl [5,33]    Happy Birthday    My Sunday Fella    How Could I Forget Lolita?    Lolita (My Love)    Do What You Do!    Spain    One Man    So Are You!    I Must Be Home by Twelve O'Clock    Black and White    Harlem Serenade    An American in Paris (Blues Ballet)    Home Blues    Follow the Minstrel Band    Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away)    Feeling Sentimental †    Home Lovin' Gal/Man †    Adored One †    Tonight's the Night! †    I'm Just a Bundle of Sunshine †    At Mrs. Simpkin's Finishing School †    Someone's Always Calling a Rehearsal †    I Just Looked at You †    I'm Out For No Good Reason Tonight †    Minstrel Show †    Somebody Stole My Heart Away †    In the Mandarin's Orchid Garden [5] † 1930 Strike Up the Band: Musical (Revised) [5]    * Denotes numbers added or revised from 1927    Fletcher's American Chocolate Choral       Society Workers *    Seventeen and Twenty-One (I Mean to Say) *    A Typical Self-Made American    Soon *    A Typical Self-Made American    A Man of High Degree    The Unofficial Spokesman    Three Cheers for the Union!    This Could Go On for Years    If I Became President *    (What's the Use) Hangin' Around with You?*    He Knows Milk *    Strike Up the Band    In the Rattle of the Battle *    Military Dancing Drill    Mademoiselle from New Rochelle *    I've Got a Crush on You *    (How About a Boy) Like Me? *    I Want to Be a War Bride *    The Unofficial March of General Holmes *    Official Resume: First There Was Fletcher *    Ring a Ding Dong Bell (Ding Dong) *    Finale Girl Crazy: Musical [5]    Bidin' My Time    The Lonesome Cowboy    Could You Use Me?    Broncho Busters    Barbary Coast    Embraceable You    Goldfarb, That's I'm!    Sam and Delilah    I Got Rhythm    Land of the Gay Caballero    But Not for Me    Treat Me Rough    Boy! What Love Has Done to Me    (When It's) Cactus Time in Arizona    The Gambler of the West †    And I Have You †    You Can't Unscramble Scrambled Eggs † Nine-Fifteen Revue: Revue    Toddlin' Along [5] 1931 Delicious: Musical Film [5]    Delishious    Welcome to the Melting Pot    Somebody from Somewhere    Katinkitschka    You Started It    Dream Sequence    Blah, Blah, Blah    Rhapsody in Rivets (Manhattan Rhapsody)    Thanks to You †    Mischa, Yascha, Toscha, Sascha [21] † Of Thee I Sing: Musical [5]    Wintergreen for President    Who is the Lucky Girl to Be?    The Dimple on My Knee    Because, Because    As the Chairman of the Committee    How Beautiful    Never Was There a Girl So Fair    Some Girls Can Bake a Pie    Love is Sweeping the Country    Of Thee I Sing    (Here's) A Kiss for Cinderella    I Was the Most Beautiful Blossom    Hello, Good Morning    Who Cares? (So Long as You Care for Me)    Garcon, S'il vous plait    The Illegitimate Daughter    The Senatorial Roll Call    Jilted    We'll Impeach Him    I'm About to Be a Mother       (Who Could Ask for Anything More?)    Posterity is Just Around the Corner    Trumpter, Blow Your Golden Horn    On That Matter No One Budges    Call Me Whate'er You Will † 1932 Girl Crazy: Musical Film (Added Song)    You've Got What Gets Me [5] 1933 Till Then [5] Pardon My English: Musical [5]    In Three Quarter Time    Lorelei    Pardon My English    Dancing in the Streets    So What?    Isn't It a Pity    Drink, Drink, Drink    My Cousin in Milwaukee    Hail the Happy Couple    The Dresden Northwest Mounted    Luckiest Man in the World    What Wort of Wedding is This?    Tonight    Where You Go, I Go    I've Got to Be There    He's Not Himself    Fatherland, Mother of the Band †    Freud and Jung and Adler †    Together at Last †    Bauer's House †    Poor Michael, Poor Golo † Let 'Em Eat Cake: Musical [5]    Wintergreen for President    Tweedledee for President    Union Square    Down With Everyone That's Up    Shirts by the Millions    Comes the Revolution    Mine    Climb Up the Social Ladder    Cloistered from the Noisy City    What More Can a General Do    On and On and On    Double Dummy Drill    I've Brushed My Teeth    The General's Gone to a Party    All the Mothers of the Nation    Yes, He's a Bachelor    There's Something We're Worried About    What's the Proletariat    Let 'Em Eat Cake    Blue, Blue, Blue    Who's the Greatest    No Comprenez, No Capish, No Versteh!    Why Speak of Money?    No Better Way to Start a Case    Up and At 'Em! On to Victory    Oyez, Oyez, Oyez    Play Ball    When the Judges Doff the Ermine    That's What He Did    I Know a Foul Ball    Throttle Throttlebottom    A Hell of a Hole (A Hell of a Fix)    Down With Everyone Who's Up    It Isn't What You Did    Let 'Em Eat Caviar    Hang Throttlebottom in the Morning    First Lady and First Gent † 1935 Porgy and Bess: Musical/Opera [5,34]    Prelude - Catfish Row    Summertime    A Woman is a Sometime Thing    Street Cry (Honey Man)    They Pass By Singing    Crap Game Fugue (Oh Little Stars)    Crown and Robbins' Fight    Gone, Gone, Gone    Overflow    My Man's Gone Now    Leavin' 'fo' de Promis' Lan'    It Takes a Long Pull to Get There    I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'    Woman to Lady    Bess, You Is My Woman Now    Oh I Can't Sit Down    It Ain't Necessarily So    What You Want With Bess?    Time and Time Again    Street Cries (Strawberry Woman, Crab Man)    I Loves You, Porgy    Hurricane    Oh de Lawd Shake de Heaven    A Red Headed Woman    Oh, Doctor Jesus    Clara, Don't You Be Downhearted    There's a Boat That's Leavin' Soon for       New York    Oh Bess, Where's My Bess    I'm On My Way    Buzzard Song †    Lonesome Boy †    I Ain't Got No Shame †    Jazzbo Brown Blues †    I Hate's Yo' Struttin' Style †    Oh, Heavn'ly Father (Six Prayers) †    Occupational Humoresque † 1936 The King of Swing [35] Doubting Thomas [35] Strike Up the Band for UCLA [5] The Show is On: Musical    By Strauss [5] 1937 Shall We Dance: Musical Film [5]    Shall We Dance?    (I've Got) Beginner's Luck    Watch Your Step    Let's Call the Whole Thing Off    Walking the Dog (a.k.a. Promenade)    They Can't Take That Away From Me    Slap That Bass    They All Laughed    Wake Up, Brother, and Dance †    Hi-Ho! At Last † A Damsel in Distress: Musical Film [5]    A Foggy Day (In London Town)    I Can't Be Bothered Now    Put Me to the Test    Stiff Upper Lip    Nice Work if You Can Get It    Things Are Looking Up    The Jolly Tar and the Milkmaid    Sing of Spring    Pay Some Attention to Me † 1938 (Posth) Dawn of a New Day [5] (Song of the 1939     New York World's Fair) The Goldwyn Follies: Musical Film [5]    Love Is Here to Stay    I Was Doing All Right    Spring Again    Love Walked In    I Love to Rhyme    Just Another Rhumba †    Exposition: Idea for a Ballet † [5,36] 1946 (Posth) The Shocking Miss Pilgrim: Musical Film [5]    Changing My Tune    Stand Up and Fight    Aren't You Kind of Glad We Did?    The Back Bay Polka    One, Two, Three    Waltzing is Better Sitting Down    Demon Rum    For You, For Me, For Evermore    Sweet Packard    Welcome Song    Tour of the Town † 1964 (Posth) Kiss Me Stupid: Musical Film [5]    I'm a Poached Egg    All the Livelong Day (and the Long,       Long Night)    Sophia    1. w/Will Donaldson    2. w/Murray Roth    3. w/Harold Atteridge    4. w/Sigmund Romberg    5. w/Ira Gershwin    6. w/Irving Caesar    7. w/Lou Paley    8. w/Schuyler Greene    9. w/Edward B. Perkins    10. w/Buddy Gard (B.G.) DeSylva    11. w/Arthur J. Jackson    12. w/Michael E. Rourke    13. w/Alfred Bryan    14. w/Ned Wayburn    15. w/John Henry Mears    16. w/Fred Fischer    17. w/E. Ray Goetz    18. w/Harry Tierney    19. w/Joseph McCarthy    20. w/Richard Carle    21. w/Ira Gershwin as Arthur Francis    22. w/William Daly    23. w/A.E. Thomas    24. w/Brian Hooker    25. w/Clifford Grey    26. w/Jack Green    27. w/Ballard Macdonald    28. w/Desmond Carter    29. w/Herbert P. Stothart    30. w/Otto Harbach    31. w/Oscar Hammerstein II    32. w/Pelham Grenville (P.G.) Wodehouse    33. w/Gus Kahn    34. w/DuBose Heyward    35. w/Al Stillman    36. w/George Balanchine     † Dropped from or Unused in a Show

     Few composers of any century, much less the 20th century, were as productive or creative as George Gershwin, a true American treasure. While his semi-meteoric rise was not quite an overnight success, it was well deserved and was achieved with determination, talent, and little hesitation. Within a life span only a little longer than that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gershwin revolutionized and even codified the relationship between popular songs and the Broadway stage, carrying along with him his friends Irving Berlin and Cole Porter in the process. In fact, given the spread of styles he covered, it is hard to pigeonhole Gershwin's music into any predefined genre, suggesting in some cases that his style was a genre unto itself. His was also a similar story to some of his composer peers who came out of the immigrant neighborhoods to rise to the pinnacle of fame in the growing entertainment industry.

     George was the second of four children born to Russian immigrants Morris Gershovitz (arrived 1891) and Rose (Bruskin) Gershovitz (arrived 1892), who were married on July 21, 1895.

Morris and Rose Gershovitz in the mid 1890s

Also in the family were his older brother and eventual lyricist Isadore (12/6/1896), younger brother Arthur (3/14/1900), and younger sister Frances (12/6/1906), born exactly a decade after her oldest brother. Morris' brother Aaron had also immigrated around the same time and was living nearby. Most available sources claim that George was born as Jacob Gershovitz on September 26, 1898. There are a couple of official documents that challenge those points and explanations to support the likely circumstances.
     Gershwin's birth certificate (#14691) has a date of September 26 and the name Jacob Bruskin Gershwine, but with the correct parents listed so it is his. George's 1917 draft record claims a birth date of September 25, which is written in his own hand. Was he misinformed as a child or did the attending doctor write the wrong date as well as a misspelled last name? It could also be due to the Jewish tradition of not recognizing the new day until sunset, and George was born mid-day. What seems less of an error is that on the 1900 Census taken June 7, 1900, when he was less than 21 months old, he is clearly listed as George Gershvin (could be Gershwin), not Jacob Gershovitz or Gershwine. The same goes for his older brother Ira, shown as Israel Gershovitz on his birth certificate (#53973), but who was consistently referred to after his birth variously as Ysidore, Isidore or Isadore.
     One possible explanation of the variance goes to poor communication between the doctor or staff and the parents when the birth certificate was filled out. Another more viable explanation is that many American immigrant Jewish families had two different names for their children - one in Yiddish, and the other an Anglicized version. This may be the case with George whose Yiddish name may well have been Jacob, as much as Isadore's was Israel. However, it appears that George is the only name he ever knew or went by. On the family name: Isadore was born with the name Gershovitz. Therefore Morris or his brother Aaron simplified or Anglicized the family name some time between the births of their first two boys. On most available sources it appears variously as Gershvin or Gershwin throughout the early 1900s. In any case, he was never George Gershovitz.
     The Gershwin household was a mobile one, sometimes moving as many as three times in a year, as Morris evidently liked to live near his constantly changing place of business. When George was born he was said to have been in leather. By 1900 he was listed as a shoemaker, which may have been an offshoot of the leather business. He dabbled in other areas of clothing, retail, bookmaking, and even running a Turkish bath, as more of his immigrant peers were flooding the lower East Side of Manhattan and over into Brooklyn, the family bouncing back and forth between each borough. This instability may have affected George, even more so than his brother Izzy, as the youth did not fare well in school. While capable, he was distracted and showed little interest in sitting in class much less learning. In spite of his slight build, George was athletic and preferred to be out roller skating or playing at some other sport. It was clear that Izzy would be the studious one who would achieve the American dream. That is, if not for Max Rosenzweig.
     Maxie was one of George's younger school friends and at ten years old becoming a fine violinist as well (he had a fine career with the instrument as virtuoso Max Rosen).

A 1910 Knabe similar to what the Gershwin family purchased from George Hochman.

The family also had a piano (some sources report it was a player piano, but this is hard to verify), for which George quickly discovered his aptitude and learned to play a few popular ragtime melodies over a period of perhaps two years from 1909 to 1910. Then one day at the Gershwin household, it was decided that Izzy was to receive a piano and lessons for his 12th birthday, given the potential for his musical talent from the perspective of Rose. His parents bought a new Knabe upright piano from dealer George Hochman on time payments. After it was lifted up several floors and through a window into their flat, it is possible that Izzy reluctantly picked at it a bit, and then George sat down and amazed the family at what he already knew on the instrument. (In fact, it is likely that Rose had already heard him play at Max's house.) While both took lessons for a while, it was George who continued with the lessons while a relieved Izzy looked in other directions for something to fit his talents. Frances also received some musical training in voice at an early age. In general, Frances and Arthur were in many ways removed from their older siblings, and shared only a passing relationship according to some biographies. As of the 1910 Census the family is shown living in Manhattan with Morris running an unspecified business. The family also had a live-in servant, Ida Beckowitz, so business must have been good.
     School was tough enough on George. Being surrounded by ragtime and popular songs while taking lessons in classical music was even more frustrating. His first two teachers were Miss Green and an unnamed Hungarian band director. However, after more than two years George had outgrown their patience and skills, and needed something more. Having been playing in a few public locations, he was befriended by pianist Jack Miller who in turn introduced George to Charles Hambitzer. The instructor would become George's mentor over the next four or so years (he died in 1918), and would go beyond technique, giving Gershwin a new perspective on European composers including contemporaries such as Ravel and Debussy. He also encouraged George to attend symphonic concerts featuring piano, which must have given the boy a taste for the stage as well as some excitement about the scope of such works. Hambitzer further directed George to Edward Kilenyi for additional lessons in theory and composition as time and money permitted. Around the same time, determined to pursue a music career, George quit high school with his mother's blessing and understanding, and tried to find work either playing or working for a publisher. Sister Frances was also becoming adept at singing and dance, and actually may have preceded her older brother in earning money through music. However, she married very young and gave up music and dance for painting and motherhood.

     After searching around a bit, George managed to get hired by Mose Gumble as a song plugger at the publishing house of Jerome H. Remick for $15.00 per week. This meant that he would play new songs for potential customers, often producers or stage singers, in poorly insulated cubicles amidst a sea of other pianos. However, it did earn him some income, and it inspired George to write some as well. He also found some work arranging and playing piano rolls of ragtime and popular songs for Standard Music Rolls at Perfection Studios in East Orange, New Jersey. With another friend, Murray Roth, George composed When You Want ’Em, You Can’t Get ’Em (When You’ve Got ’Em, You Don’t Want ’Em), a clever ragtime tune with an unwieldy title. Gumble and others at Remick showed no interest, with Gumble having to admonish Gershwin, saying "You're here as a pianist, not a writer. We've got plenty of writers under contract." The pair ended up selling it to Harry Von Tilzer based on some urging by singer Sophie Tucker, with Roth accepting $15 up front, but George holding out for royalties. He eventually received a mere $5 from Von Tilzer after asking for at least something. George also committed to piano roll for Standard at one of his Saturday recording sessions, becoming only a moderate seller. But George Gershwin was now a song writer at only seventeen.
     In spite of the setbacks, Gershwin penned another tune with Roth, My Runaway Girl. It somehow caught the interest of composer Sigmund Romberg as it made the rounds, and was interpolated into the Passing Show of 1916, the first Gershwin tune to make it to the Broadway stage. As it turns out, Romberg had more interest in the composer and player than he did for the song, which more or less ended Roth's career, but started George's. Even better, Gershwin was employed as a rehearsal pianist for the show, and wrote the music for another tune, The Making of a Girl, with lyrics by Romberg and seasoned writer Harold Atteridge. He also made a step up in the piano roll business, working for Aeolian by late 1916. Over the next several years George would record over 100 piano rolls of popular tunes, including some of his own compositions. He was known to have worked under pseudonyms as well, including Fred Murtha and Bert Wynn.
     Hoping to make his way as a composer of any genre, perhaps even improving on that genre or successfully merging popular forms with the classical ones he had been learning from Hambitzer and Kilenyi, Gershwin teamed up with Will Donaldson, a somewhat older peer at Remick, for the rag Rialto Ripples. In reality, Donaldson may have applied his name to the piece, perhaps lightly arranging it, to give it more of a shot at publication. In fact, composer Felix Arndt, another mentor to George, may have had more influence on Rialto Ripples than anyone else. It was not immediately accepted, but by the time George got frustrated and either quit or was discharged from Remick in mid-March of 1917, it became the only Gershwin tune that the publisher took in. Ironically, Rialto Ripples was, in the short term, quite a sensation for Remick, but it was too late for them to capitalize on it and request more from George, who was now working as a rehearsal and performance pianist. One of the shows he worked for starting in July was Miss 1917 by Jerome Kern and Victor Herbert.
     By late 1917 George had worked out a few more tunes with another lyricist he met while making the rounds, Irving Caesar. Three years his senior, Irving already had some connections in the theater world which would soon pay off. But George found another writing partner as well, one Arthur Francis. They gave the partnership a try, and eventually found their stride, working together for the next 20 years. In truth, the name was a pseudonym from Ira Gershwin derived from the names of their younger siblings. It was supposedly to keep Ira's own identity and not capitalize on George's growing reputation, but in 1917 that was not fully realized yet. After Miss 1917 opened in November, George remained at the Century Theater as an organizer of and accompanist for a series of popular concerts they had each Sunday evening. Through this gig word of his talents both as a pianist and composer spread, and very soon in early 1918 he was offered a regular position as a staff pianist and composer by Max Dreyfus, a manager at T.B. Harms Publishing Company. This included a fairly decent weekly salary in exchange for rights on any future compositions he would produce, a forward looking move on the part of Dreyfus.
     On his 1918 draft record George is listed as an actor composer for the Nora Bayes Theatrical Company, and as being employed by the T.B. Harmes [sic] Publishing Company. For a short while he worked on the vaudeville stage as an accompanist for the more famous Bayes, as well as singer Louise Dresser. The listed address on the draft record is different than that of his parents. On Ira's draft record he is listed under the name Isidore, not as a lyricist however, but rather as an employee of his fathers at the St. Nicholas Bath. George lists his mother Rose as a reference and Ira lists his father Morris. There is a bittersweet irony in this as a few years later, around the time that George was receiving great acclaim for his symphonic works, Rose credited Ira for their overall success, a contention she held to the end of her life, and a frustration for the composing half of the Gershwin team. Indeed, one of their first songs written together, The Real American Folk Song is a Rag, was getting some notice in the music Ladies First, and There's Magic in the Air would find its way into Half Past Eight later in the year. But George was working with other lyricists as well, mostly in short term relationships. By the end of 1918 his songs would be in three Broadway shows. Still a fresh talent, even as a veteran at age 19, George Gershwin would not see his first real hit until the following year.

     From this point on nearly every song that came from Gershwin would either find its way into a Broadway show, or be specifically composed as part of one. (Note that this does not include his famous instrumental works.) In 1919 various Gershwin songs found their way into three Broadway musicals, and he would write the scores for two others. La, La, Lucille, a show composed with prolific lyricist Buddy G. DeSylva and associate Arthur J. Jackson, would be his first full-fledged assignment. It ran for 104 performances, not bad for a first attempt. He was also charged with Morris Gest's Midnight Whirl, a revue comprised of Gershwin music to lyrics by DeSylva and John Henry Mears. It ran for a less impressive 68 performances before closing. But in the interim, George and Irving Caesar had dashed off a little ragtime song, supposedly in a mere 15 minutes, that was interpolated into the unimpressive Capitol Revue. A three part song titled Swanee, it did not go far until Caesar asked an acquaintance to give it a try. That acquaintance heard Gershwin's dynamic performance of it at a party and decided to give it a new home. Thus it was that Swanee was interpolated into the decidedly non-Southern show Sinbad by singer Al Jolson who ran with it and never stopped. To think that Jolie made George famous, and that at some point Gershwin's fame would handily eclipse that of the bombastic stage star. It was further a hit in London when injected into Jig Saw, and within a year George , also establishing a fan base for the composer in England. By the end of 1920, both Irving and George would be overwhelmed by a reported $10,000 each in performance and sales royalties. As it turned out, this would be his biggest song hit during his lifetime, and one of his biggest breaks. It was also featured in the first audio recording with Gershwin at the piano, albeit with the trio of famed banjoist Fred Van Eps. Given the nature of acoustic recording, the banjo dominated this track so Gershwin is difficult to hear, but glimpses of his genius are still present.
     Fortunately for fans with reproducing pianos and for future preservation, Gershwin also recorded some reproducing rolls starting in 1919 for both the Welte-Mignon and Duo-Art formats. His most celebrated series of rolls were still a few years off, but these demonstrated his forward thinking as a pianist brought up on ragtime and popular song, and advancing it through complex rhythms and chord progressions. Where Swanee was a fine example of a contemporary tune, George was already looking to advancing his classical training into new forms of music that in some cases forecast what was to com. Having lost Hambitzer as an instructor, George soon moved on to classical Rubin Goldmark, and for an alternate point of view, composer and music theory teacher Henry Cowell, known for some rather avant garde material. Even in advance of Zez Confrey's series of novelties of the 1920s, in 1919 George managed his Novelette in Fourths, which actually has some kinship with Confrey's Kitten on the Keys and My Pet, pieces that would emerge within two years. In pursuit of advancing the classical form, he also composed Lullaby for a string quartet, part of his training with Kilenyi.
     But in spite of his ambition to be the great American classical or jazz composer, Broadway was calling, literally. It was another George who would keep Gershwin busy for the next several years. George White hoped to compete with Florenz Ziegfeld by putting on his own revue, giving it the salacious and enticing title of George White's Scandals. The first edition was in 1920, running for 134 performances, featuring songs composed by Gershwin and Arthur Jackson. There were no big hits, but a lot of notice of this new force on the great white way. They would repeat the feat in 1921, with the memorable Drifting Along with the Tide outlasting most of the rest of the songs. Meanwhile in 1920, George had another nine tunes interpolated into four more musicals, which got him even more work in 1921. The 1920 Census showed that he was once again living with his parents, as was Ira. George was listed as a composer and Isadore as a lyric writer. Morris was in the restaurant business at that time.
     With Caesar and DeSylva he tried to recreate the success of Swanee with Swanee Rose (a.k.a.) Dixie Rose, but nothing happened with it. Slightly discouraged but moving forward, he teamed up with a cadre of young composers for The Broadway Whirl, and had pieces interpolated into or commissioned for no less than six other musicals. Among those requesting Gershwin's services was lyricist and producer E. Ray Goetz, who had high regard for the composer, and would work with him on a number of shows. Goetz and DeSylva replaced Jackson as the lyricists for 1922 edition of George White's Scandals, which ran 89 performances and yielded I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise. Another ambitious effort from that show ran only the first night before it was dropped. Titled Blue Monday it was a miniature opera co-composed with DeSylva, running around 25 minutes, with a format and plot that bears some similarity to the later Slaughter on Tenth Avenue by Richard Rodgers. There may be a variety of reasons why it was dropped, such as slowing down the second act of the show, or perhaps being too cerebral for the time. It generally demonstrates Gershwin's ambitions to move beyond mere popular music, but also shows that he needed a little more fine tuning in the execution of this form. The Blue Monday Blues from the work remained in the show. Another DeSylva/Gershwin piece included in The French Doll, Do It Again, would become another Gershwin standard over the next few years. Gershwin was also tapped for Our Nell with another trio of lyricist composers, which fell flat at 40 performances and yielded nothing memorable.
     The year 1923 was only a bit slower for the young composer, who may have taken pause after a few misfires in order to recharge and turn out better material. Fulfilling his agreement with White, Gershwin and DeSylva, with some help from Goetz, created a score for George White's Scandals of 1923, which improved over the previous year for a total of 168 performances. He also made contributions to The Dancing Girl and Little Miss Bluebird, both relatively successful productions. Earlier in the year Gershwin had met British lyricist Clifford Grey who asked him to collaborate on a new work for the London stage. George ended up visiting London and Paris for a while, becoming known to many there while he finished work on The Rainbow. Not a raging success, it still established his presence in the United Kingdom. At the end of the year, George and Buddy finished off Sweet Little Devil which played in 1924. In the meantime, the sometimes overworked Gershwin may have forgotten a meeting with one of his admirers, bandleader Paul Whiteman, who was impressed with much of what he had heard of Gershwin, particularly at a November 1, 1923 recital at Aeolian Hall where he performed with Canadian mezzo-soprano Eva Gauthier which featured some of his songs and those by contemporaries Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and Walter Donaldson. Whiteman was planning on a concert in the same venue for early 1924 that would feature some of the best available jazz music of that time in a formal setting, and asked George if he might contribute a symphonic work of some kind to be featured in the program. The understanding was that George agreed to do so, but it may have been a handshake commitment because it was evidently forgotten.

     Just after the New Year started in 1924, Ira pointed out a blurb in a New York newspaper to George, claiming he had agreed to write a Jazz Concerto for Whiteman's orchestra. With just five weeks left before the concert, it was clear to Ira that George hadn't even started on it yet, and given that the piece was already generating buzz in the press it became paramount that work get underway. The next day George was on his way to Boston and heard the rhythm of the train wheels, inspiring him towards at least one of the melodies in the concerto. Soon after this he improvised a placid and lush melody while playing at a party, and realized it was the main theme he had hoped for. So Gershwin quickly dashed off a two-piano score for the concerto, leaving some of the pages for his part of the piece blank. Whiteman handed it off to composer and arranger Ferde Grofé, who turned it into a score for the Whiteman orchestra.
     Thus it was that on February 12th, in a concert titled An Experiment in Modern Music, that featured works by Victor Herbert, Edward Elgar and Zez Confrey, a less than confident Gershwin took his seat at the piano near the end of the concert. The clarinet started on what would become a famous slide up to a high Bb, and the first performance of Rhapsody in Blue was underway. Gershwin himself ended up improvising in some sections of the score that he had not yet filled in, but the orchestra managed to stay in synch with him. At one point, by his own account, he started crying he was so moved by the experience - or perhaps intimidated - and came to his senses several pages later, not knowing how he had conducted that far. The final chords brought a standing ovation and noisy acclaim from an audience that included violinists Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifitz, conductor Leopold Stokowski, and composers Serge Rachmaninov and Igor Stravinsky. This was the moment that set in stone George Gershwin's place in American and world music history and development, and redefined him as a musician as well as composer. The critics weren't sure how to categorize the piece in their reviews, either as classical or jazz, or even a hybrid. But they could not ignore that it was popular with the general public, as well as with his peers.
     That was just the beginning of 1924. Soon after the concert Gershwin recorded an abridged version of the work with Whiteman's orchestra on an acoustic recording. He also embarked on his most ambitious Broadway shows to date. With DeSylva and Goetz, the trio wrote the annual score for George White's Scandals, lasting 196 performances. It would the last Scandals he would be directly involved in. Following that, George turned to Ira, with whom he had already composed several songs, for a purely Gershwin show. Lady Be Good was immensely successful, playing for 330 performances in its original run. Among the memorable tunes were the title song, Oh, Lady Be Good, and Fascinatin' Rhythm. The show opened in December and featured the brother/sister dance team of Fred and Adele Astaire, who had also been making a splash in London around that time. It also served as some evidence that perhaps Ira was the best possible fit as a lyricist for George's music. Even before Lady Be Good, the brothers had also co-composed the score for Primrose with British lyricist Desmond Carter, a show which like The Rainbow was produced exclusively for the London stage, and not performed in the United States until sixty-three years after its British debut.

     At some point in 1925, now flush with money and fame, George was able to move uptown to the upper West Side of Manhattan, providing a much more fashionable and comfortable home for his parents there as well. He also put his money to use engaging more in art, attempting to paint to a degree (Ira turned out to be a fairly accomplished oil canvas artist), and collecting a number of pieces of art as well. Being that Gershwin was in vogue, he was frequently invited to parties given within the theatrical or literary circles of New York, and was implored to play at virtually all of them. It has been said that sometimes it was a little hard to push George towards the piano, but once there he dominated the evening with his repertoire and repartee. George was also traveling a bit more in 1925, overseeing productions in England as well as visits to Paris. Among those that he developed a close social relationship with was Fred Astaire, with whom George would remain friends to the end of his life.
     While Gershwin had recorded countless rolls from the late 1910s on, most of them to date had been standard non-expression piano rolls with a few reproducing rolls done along the way. Duo-Art managed to get him exclusively in 1925, as announced in the February 7 edition of The Music Trade Review: "George Gershwin, the young American composer who leaped into sudden fame with his jazz-classic, the 'Rhapsody in Blue,' has recorded that composition for the Duo-Art. Gershwin has been known on Broadway for several years as a writer of popular song hits, and as a pianist of much ability. It was but a year ago, however, that his 'Rhapsody in Blue,' first performed by Paul Whiteman's Orchestra in Aeolian Hall, stamped him as something more than a jazz composer. He is now hailed as the one composer capable of translating the true spirit of American jazz into classic composition. In future he will record exclusively for the Duo-Art... The 'Rhapsody' is written for augmented jazz orchestra with solo piano. For the Duo-Art Gershwin has recorded his own arrangement of the work for piano alone, a clever combination of the brilliant and difficult solo part and the rich orchestration. The composition will be published in two rolls." Indeed, it required two passes at the very least to create the arranged rolls of the large-scope work. In recent times, many fine recordings of Rhapsody in Blue with Gershwin at the piano have been achieved by using edited versions of this fine roll set.
     The first musical of that year was Tell Me More co-written with Ira and Bud DeSylva. It fared moderately well on Broadway at 100 performances, but was also taken to London with three additional tunes composed with Desmond Carter, and did a little better there. Tip-Toes was next, lasting for an admirable 192 performances over half the year. Among the great tunes that came from it were Looking for a Boy, That Certain Feeling and Sweet and Low Down. With the unusual combination of Herbert Stothart, Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein Jr., Gershwin stepped a bit closer to classic theater with Song of the Flame. Even though it lasted into 1926 at 219 performances, he would not team with them again.
     George also had a lot on his plate, having been commissioned to write another symphonic work by conductor Walter Damrosch and the New York Symphony Orchestra, who had attended the premiere of Rhapsody in Blue. He spent most of the summer and early fall of 1925 focusing on the work. Still lacking some of the necessary theory and orchestration skills he needed, Gershwin hit the books to become self-taught in these to a degree. The experience also prompted to later seek out training from Wallingford Riegger and Henry Cowell to help fill out his musical knowledge base. Originally titled New York Concerto, it emerged in November as Concerto in F. Unlike Rhapsody in Blue, this was a full-fledged three section concerto, and it was orchestrated completely by Gershwin with a little advice from Damrosch dispensed during early run-throughs. Premiering at Carnegie Hall on December 3rd, it was well attended and well received by most. Stravinsky was there once again and thought the difficult work to be brilliant. Sergei Prokofiev had no use for it, making it clear that he did not like Gershwin's work at all. Some thought it to be too classical in the same vein as French impressionist Claude Debussy, and not more closely associated with American jazz. Just the same, it further cemented George's reputation as a contemporary American classicist at age 27, a worthy accomplishment. A lasting impression has been left by this piece, with one of the most ambitious and eclectic performances by Gershwin's admirer and slightly younger peer Oscar Levant, who performed the third movement (with himself shown on screen as all of the members of the orchestra) in the all-Gershwin MGM film An American in Paris.
     One happy event in Gershwin's life was an ongoing relationship with composer Kay Swift, who had met in 1925. This made Swift's husband Jimmy Warburg rather unhappy, but he tolerated it for a time trying to compete with Gershwin for her attention. In the end, their marriage collapsed. Kay was involved with Gershwin nearly to the end of his life. One rather blatant show of affection on George's part was naming his next show, Oh, Kay!, for her. With lyrics by Ira it opened in 1926 and turned out to be a very inspired and romantic turn for the brothers, running an impressive 256 performances, and yielding the lasting hit Someone to Watch Over Me. Surprisingly, in its original form that song was not the slow ballad we know today, but more of lilting swinging tune, performed on piano roll by George the same year in that manner. He would also contribute a couple of pieces to the London production of Lady Be Good, including the memorable I'd Rather Charleston.
     While in London, George met again up with Fred and Adele Astaire. Taking advantage of the advanced electronic recording technology in studios there, the trio recorded some tracks together. They represent some of the finest audio recordings of Gershwin's playing, as well as some of Fred's dancing. Yet George still pursued his desire to compose classically infused jazz pieces, still somewhat influenced by the French impressionists. Now taking some instruction in advanced composition, he penned a set of preludes that year, and by some reports was planning a series of etudes as well. Even though there may have been as many as six composed, George performed his Three Preludes for Piano in December of 1926 as part of a recital where he also accompanied contralto Marguerite d'Alvarez. Historians have further extrapolated that the unpublished pieces found in the archives titled Sleepless Nights and Novelette (restructured as Short Story may have also been intended as part of the prelude set.
     The next Gershwin musical would leave a sour taste in the mouth of many, including the Gershwin brothers. Teaming up with playwright George S. Kaufman, who had recently scored with the Marx Brothers' musicals The Cocoanuts (with Irving Berlin), he teamed with the Gershwins to write and produce the political satire Strike up the Band in early 1927. In spite of a fine score in which Ira took Kaufman's libretto and turned it into workable lyrics, the show did not make it to Broadway, closing in Philadelphia after only a few performances. While this somewhat expensive proposition was not too much of a burden for the brothers, the loss to them musically after the effort put into it was disheartening. One of the pieces included had already been dropped from a show in 1924. The Man I Love ended up being dropped once again, as was the entire show soon after. However, it has become one of the most enduring ballads composed in the 20th century, and sold very well on its own once it was heard on recordings. The show was simply set aside and they moved on to other projects. Among those was Funny Face, which at 244 performances was far from a disappointment for the brothers. Among the memorable pieces from that production was the enduring 'S Wonderful and the clever The Babbitt and the Bromide.
     While George had recorded Rhapsody in Blue with the Whiteman orchestra in 1924, it was an acoustic recording of only moderate quality. So in 1927 he joined the orchestra again for another take at an abbreviated version of the piece recorded electronically by Victor. However, even with the composer present and at the piano, Paul Whiteman had some issues with how the piece was to be interpreted and ended up leaving the session. In order to get a take while the musicians were still present, Nathan Shilkret, a staff conductor who was on hand that day, took over to finish the recording. In spite of this, Whiteman would still long be associated with the piece in two different guises. The original orchestration by Grofé was for jazz band, but a later orchestration had many string elements added, making the piece more symphonic in presentation. This later version would be included in the 1930 Whiteman movie, King of Jazz, with the piano in that interpretation played by the very capable novelty pianist Roy Bargy. While Gershwin did not perform in the film, he still performed at the premiere of the picture on May 2, 1930. Whiteman was not the only who capitalized on the work. It was incorporated into George White's Scandals of 1926 even though Gershwin was no longer composing for the leader, in Americana also in 1926, the musical Lucky in 1927, and George White's Musical Hall Varieties of 1932). It would eventually be utilized in a number of other movies as well, the most iconic being Woody Allen's Manhattan, and one of the finest renditions featured in the Disney Studio's Fantasia 2000, both of which starred New York City as their logical background, and even as the star. So it was that even by the late 1920s Rhapsody in Blue was deeply associated with Gershwin, New York, and Whiteman.
     The following year was quite eventful for the Gershwins as well. The brothers debuted two ambitious musicals that year - one a hit and one a near-miss. Rosalie was first, including some input from Sigmund Romberg and writer P.G. Wodehouse. While it did not yield any lasting hits, it ran for nearly a year at 335 performances, a worthy run even in those pre-Depression times. They followed this up with Treasure Girl, which lasted for a mere 68 performances before the final curtain. One nice piece came out of this, albeit as more of a jaunty dance tune than the ballad most are familiar with today. (I've Got a) Crush on You rose above the rest, and has been frequently recorded over the decades since. But after all this writing for Broadway, George needed a break, and had a desire to explore more of the fusion of jazz and classical forms, hoping to fuse them into something that would eclipse even his Rhapsody in Blue
     Part of 1928 found George Gershwin in Paris, France, where he sought new musical direction and training in composition. Among those that he approached were Nadia Boulanger and composer Maurice Ravel, both of who informed Gershwin that there was little they could do to assist him, in part because they respected the work he already had done and did not want to remove the jazz elements by infusing him with too many classical tenets. Ravel in particular was a big fan of George and found his symphonic jazz works intriguing. He was also clear on the point that George was much better paid for his works, and when asked to give Gershwin lessons, he evidently replied "How about you give me some lessons?" This was further reinforced with the quote, "Why be a second-rate Ravel, when you are a first-rate Gershwin?" In any case, while on this sojourn, George soaked in as much French influence as he could, and in the spring started on what would be perhaps his finest and second most famous orchestral work. Intended to musically portray the impressions of a visitor to Paris, it turned into a one movement symphonic poem, one of the first which Gershwin also worked to orchestrate with mixed results. At some point during the year Gershwin ended up frustrated with the music scene in Paris and returned home to finish the work. An American in Paris debuted in Carnegie Hall on December 13th with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Walter Damrosch. Containing representations of many emotions as well as tangible elements such as taxi horns, and a very wistful blues suggesting homesickness, it was instantly acclaimed as a masterpiece and has remained very popular since.
     Early in 1929 RCA Victor asked George to help with a recording of An American in Paris with their resident Victor Symphony Orchestra under Nathaniel Shilkret, who had previously conducted Rhapsody in Blue. Ultimately Gershwin had less influence on the outcome of the interpretation than Shilkret did, so his role in the process was minimized. He likely would not have been in the recording at all if not for the fact that nobody had seen to hiring a celesta player. So on that recording George is heard briefly on the short celesta solo. That summer, Gershwin made his debut as a conductor in an unusual outdoor concert at Lewisohn Stadium in New York where conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in both An American in Paris and both conducted and played the piano for the now familiar Rhapsody in Blue, for an audience of more than fifteen thousand people. An American in Paris would ultimately be interpreted in many ways, one of the most memorable being dancer Gene Kelly's ballet set to the piece in the 1952 film of the same name. That same movie would also feature the Levant performance of Concerto in F and a number of other Gershwin songs performed by the cast, closing with the vivacious and wistful tone poem from France.
     Given how much time the trip to France had taken, along with the work necessary to complete An American in Paris and attend the many early performances of it, there is no wonder that George and Ira only got one musical to Broadway in 1929. Show Girl got a relatively tepid response, making the best of 111 performances overall before the economic reality of the Wall Street crash started to settle in. It incorporated the blues section of An American in Paris for a short ballet. The finale of the show became a near-instant hit, and a song quickly adopted by singer and Gershwin fan Al Jolson. Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away) caught on quickly of its own accord, but it was not enough to keep the entire show alive beyond four months. The Great Depression was looming ahead and about to settle in. At this point in his life, it has been determined historically that George Gershwin was likely the wealthiest composer in the world, based on how many of his songs were generating royalties on a regular basis through performances and sheet music sales, in addition to his personal appearances. The Gershwin brothers would manage to hold on to that wealth during the lean years ahead, but they had to continue work for it, which they ultimately did to great acclaim.
     As of the 1930 Census George was shown still living in Manhattan along with his personal cook, Frank Diudl. Even though he was pretty much a confirmed bachelor by now, he still had some ongoing relationships, not just the one with Kay Swift, and was known for being the life of the party, something he at times reluctantly enjoyed, along with a good cigar. His exquisite playing, which was occasionally heard on radio by now, spoke volumes. There were many times when he was limited by the time capacity and sound quality of 78 rpm discs, so they don't always represent the dynamic or temporal nuances of his performances as well as the live radio or concert performances. But he was still in demand for other works. One of those, contracted in 1929, was a Jewish-themed opera that was given the working title of The Dybbuk. Although a contract was signed with the Metropolitan Opera, work on his other serious compositions, travel to Europe, and ultimately time spend in Hollywood superseded this obligation, and the opera, though allegedly started, was never completed.
     One of the projects was a resurrection of Strike Up the Band in 1930, this time with a revised libretto by Morrie Ryskind. In light of changes in the political climate in the previous three years as well as the subtle changes in the plot and song, this Band struck a chord with the public, and it survived 191 performances, pretty good considering the weakened economy. This was followed by finely crafted Girl Crazy, a smash in both New York and London, which ran for 272 performances and yielded a number of classic Gershwin/Gershwin hits. These included Bidin' My Time, Embraceable You, and the poignant But Not for Me. Adding to the workload, the Gershwin brothers were commissioned to compose their first film score for Delicious, and spent November 1930 to February 1931 in Hollywood, California. The film featured eight Gershwin songs, with two other pieces that didn't make the cut. One of those, Mischa, Yascha, Toscha, Sascha, was the only true ethnic comic song written by the brothers. During their occasional down time, George started on his second piano rhapsody, and the brothers also started on their next stellar work for Broadway.
     Of Thee I Sing was the best received Gershwin product since Rhapsody in Blue. It surpassed all others by running an amazing 441 performances from 1931 to 1932, deep into the Great Depression. A much needed parody of the presidency in advance of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt campaign and election, the musical generated more than just good buzz and reviews. Other than the title tune and Love is Sweeping the Country, many would be hard-pressed to name any tunes from this work, which was successful as a complete entity. In addition to the accolades, it was the first piece of American Theater Musical Comedy to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama, a significant achievement. A less impressive reception was given to his Second Rhapsody, which while completed in 1931 was not debuted until January 29th, 1932. Gershwin played for the event in Boston's Symphony Hall with the orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitsky, but the overall reception was tepid, as many were comparing it to his original Rhapsody in Blue. The new work was more classical and cerebral in content, which may have been part of the reason it was much less popular.
     In need of a break from the grind of composing musicals, Gershwin would take much of 1932 off to pursue other interests. Ira had already taken up painting like his younger sister, and George would follow in a fashion, but not with the same focus. Just after the Second Rhapsody premiere, George and some buddies took off for a vacation in Havana, Cuba. While there he heard many of the dance orchestras playing the indigenous island music and was most captivated by their rhythms and the use of percussion instruments. This gave him the inspiration for his Cuban Overture, which would be completed and orchestrated over the next several months. Another project released that year was a challenging set of eighteen song choruses transcribed by Gershwin in the way he typically played them at parties, one of the few direct insights into his performance style committed to paper.
     It was during this period George sought out more musical training. Still captivated by contemporary classical composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich, Darius Milhaud and Arnold Schoenberg, he reportedly encountered Schoenberg who had a similar response to that of Ravel, stating "I would only make you a bad Schoenberg, and you're such a good Gershwin already." One teacher who did take him on over the next three or more years was Russian composer and music theorist Joseph Schillinger. He was able to provide George with new tools to use in his approach to serious composition. That influence would appear over the next few years. Schillinger ultimately claimed to have been a large influence of the style of Porgy and Bess, but this was after Gershwin's death, so no support was available for this claim from the composer himself.
     After completing a new song for the film version of Girl Crazy, George set his sights on the first All-Gershwin Concert, which would debut his Cuban Overture completed a week before the event. Held on August 9th, 1932 at Lewisohn Stadium in New York with and attendance of around 18,000, it was, in his own words, "...the most exciting night I have ever had." Cuban Overture was well received, as were the arrangements of many of his most popular pieces to date. But he had already planted a seed in his head for something even greater in the near future. For moment, George was ready to get back into the swing of things with Ira, and they set their sights on 1933.
     Two musicals came from the Gershwin boys in 1933, but neither of them did particularly well, likely in part because of the continuing financial depression. The first was Pardon My English which ran for 43 performances and yielded no recognizable hits. Let 'Em Eat Cake, a cousin to Of Thee I Sing, did marginally better at 90 performances, but again with no standout tunes amongst the substantial amount of pieces within the production. George also made some appearances on radio shows, including one hosted by Rudy Vallee on which he performed the third movement of his Concerto in F and accompanied Vallee singing Gershwin tunes. As it turned out, radio would be of great assistance to George and Ira in their next grand endeavor.

     In 1926 George had read a novel by DuBose Heyward titled Porgy. It concerned the life of black residents of the real life "Catfish Row" in Charleston, South Carolina, and planted a seed for what would become a full-length opera. Late in 1933, George and Ira, along with Heyward, signed a contract the Theater Guild of New York to write and produce the opera for the stage. George had started composing the work in February of 1934 with several ideas based on authentic black music forms he had studied. In spite of the details in the book, on site research was required by the Gershwins as a matter of inspiration from the environment in which the story transpired. Money was also required to finance the composition and staging. So for a time, George hosted a radio program on CBS called Music by Gershwin on which he played not only his own works, but stellar arrangements of pieces by his peers. Over the summer, George and Ira stayed with Heyward near Charleston at Folly Beach absorbing local influences, particularly at gospel services in local black churches. They also studied a group called the Gullahs on nearby James Island, and they became influential in the development of the characters in their songs and their staging. DuBose and Ira both contributed lyrics which Gershwin set to a wide variety of musical styles, some of them intertwined with each other. By fall the brothers were back in New York City and George was back on the radio performing many of his more challenging works for the sponsors and the listening audience. Among his more interesting acquisitions at that time was the very first commercially available Hammond organ, making him the first owner of the instrument that would soon become a staple of everything from radio organists to rock and roll bands.
     The sheer volume of work required to refine what would become the self-described "folk opera" Porgy and Bess into the masterpiece that George strived for took up most of the fall and winter, with the task of orchestration progressing into early summer of 1935. It was beyond a labor of love for Gershwin, and he thoroughly believed in the quality of the end product, having at times said to be in wonder of how it turned out and how fortunate he was to have been the composer. The stage production was directed by Rouben Mamoulian with the rural stage sets by Sergei Soudeikine. The process of staging the elaborate show in Boston was fraught with problems that made for long running times in an already long opera. It opened on September 30, 1935, and in spite of critical acclaim following opening night it did not resound with an already depressed public. The production moved to New York for another premiere in the Avalon Theater, a Broadway venue and not an opera house, the latter of which may have served the show better. Gershwin supervised and played on recordings of arranged highlights of the work for RCA with the original cast members in mid October, including Lawrence Tibbitt as Porgy. They show that the opera would even undergo some more minor editing following this session.
     In context of the time, what was essentially a non-Broadway show with a nearly all-African-American cast written and produced by white composers that featured a somewhat depressing story about a crippled protagonist and his search for love, particularly depicting an environment that most who could afford to see the show had virtually no familiarity with, was a difficult sell for the public. Given the Schillinger influence and large scope, it was potentially overwhelming for many theater patrons, either in spite of or because of how advanced it was. It contained elements of classic opera mixed with dances and spirituals, plus advanced harmonic progressions and complex rhythms. Also present were tone rows, fugues, polytonal passages, the standard opera elements of recitatives and leitmotif choruses, and the intertwining of recurring musical themes. In terms of the story and staging, some saw it as casting a negative view on Black life in the South. Still, it yielded several memorable melodies including I Loves You Porgy, Bess You Is My Woman Now, and the effusive Summertime.
     Porgy and Bess ultimately closed in early 1936 after only 124 performances, having not earned the amount of money invested into it. While it was considered a marvel and a success for Gershwin, it was overall considered a financial failure. In the decades since, the collective efforts of Heyward and the Gershwins have been vindicated several times over. Porgy and Bess remains as a fine template of American Theater that would be later echoed in the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein or Lerner and Lowe in terms of story telling integrated with musical styles and content. It is both interesting and sad to note that George and DuBose discussed plans to write another opera which would be a sequel, Porgy in New York, but both men died before anything could be done on it. George did follow up the magnum opera with a suite of pieces from it, a work which Ira rediscovered in the late 1950s and released as Catfish Row.
     After some recovery time following Porgy and Bess, George and Ira signed with RKO Film Studios (perhaps at the insistence of George's friend Fred Astaire) in June to write the songs for the upcoming films Shall We Dance?, A Damsel in Distress and The Goldwyn Follies. This facilitated a move from their native New York, so in August the brothers and Ira's wife moved to Beverly Hills for the duration. Shall We Dance was the first of the released films, yielding the title song and They Can't Take That Away from Me as bona-fide hits for George and Fred. Even as the film was in production, George and Ira managed to write more songs for the other two films, as well as other tunes which would be used for a later production. They also were commissioned for a theme song to accompany the upcoming 1939 World's Fair in New York. In January of 1937, Gershwin performed in a special concert of his music with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra conducted by the French maestro Pierre Monteux, then returned to Los Angeles to continue his work.

     Early in the same year, George started to complain about blinding headaches which had likely started late in the previous year. He also noted that he smelled burning rubber on a regular basis. By late spring the recurrences were chronic, and even while he was still working on his final tunes, including Our Love Is Here to Stay, George collapsed while still at work on July 9 and fell into a coma. The diagnosis was that he had developed a type of cystic malignant brain tumor known as glioblastoma multiforme.

Promotional Poster for Shall We Dance, the film which earned Gershwin his posthumous Oscar.

To date the cause of this type of cancer is still unknown, yet some have insisted it was from a injury caused by a golf ball. In any case, the diagnosis came too late as this form of cancer is always fatal. Efforts to remove the tumor at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital could not stave off his death hours later on July 11. There is a persistent story that he briefly came out of the coma before dying, and according to a letter of Fred Astaire's revealed by Adele, Fred's name was one of the last things he said before he passed on. The 38-year-old musical prodigy that had led the direction of American theatrical and classical music for two decades was gone. The entire world from London's West End and Broadway's theater district to small town America was grief stricken from the premature loss. On July 15, after memorial services in New York and Hollywood, he was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery at Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
     One of the first public gestures was a memorial concert at the Hollywood Bowl on September 8 conducted by Otto Klemperer. Ira continued to finish polishing the remaining songs the brothers had worked on for The Goldwyn Follies. His former long-time love, Kay Swift, transcribed many of George's recordings and helped Ira with the completion and arrangement of some of the pieces. All of his estate was passed to his mother Rose, who benefited from his copyright income for the remainder of her life. Gershwin was awarded a posthumous 1937 Oscar for Best Song for They Can't Take That Away from Me. Some of the late songs that Ira and George had composed while in Beverly Hills were finally incorporated into the film The Shocking Miss Pilgrim in 1946. Even more songs from the archives were incorporated into the film Kiss Me Stupid in 1964, 27 years after his death.
     Ira survived George until 1983, composing many more fine works with the best of American music composers. The honors and accolades for both Gershwins have continued to pour in for decades, and many fine performances of Gershwin works have found their way into recorded media every time the technology advanced. While less appreciated in the United States for his classical and operatic works during his lifetime, George was well recognized by his European peers as a genius in these genres. As time has gone on, even his most eclectic works have become assimilated into the greater bodies of both musical theater and advanced American musical forms. In 2006 he was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame, one of a number of such organizations in which he has been recognized. There is a theater on Broadway named for him. The Library of Congress in Washington, DC, named a new prize for popular song after the composer and his brother in 2007. The first recipient of the George and Ira Gershwin award was another American treasure, Paul Simon. The amazing Stevie Wonder was also given the prize by President Barack Obama in February of 2009.
     The continually popular and instantly recognizable Rhapsody in Blue has lived on as one of the only Gershwin pieces licensed for advertising with United Airlines as of the late 1980s. This move in part, along with involvement of the Walt Disney Organization, helped spur long time popular musician and California congressman Sonny Bono to champion a copyright extension act in 1998, significantly increasing copyright protections for the works all American composers dating back to 1923. The elements of this were linked in the inclusion of total Americana elements such as illustrator Al Hirschfeld and the music Rhapsody in Blue in the 1999 Disney film Fantasia 2000 The word "Gershwinesque" has found its way into the musical vocabulary, which reinforces George's place in history as having created his own unique genre as well as the influence it has wielded since. The boy who started playing and writing ragtime as a basis for developing his own style ended up, in a lifetime about as long as the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, creating a new language American music that has since spread around the entire planet, and will outlive him by hundreds of lifetimes. We should be thankful we had him at all, even if it was not for long enough.

In addition to the author's own research of historical archives and conjectural input, a number of corroborating texts on Gershwin's life were used as a basis for this shortened biography. Two in particular are recommended as the most complete work on the composer: George Gershwin by Howard Pollack (2007) and George Gershwin by William Hyland (2003). The former provides a deep analysis of his music plus a number of great anecdotes concerning his personal life. The latter provides a different balance and a slightly different chronological formation. Both provide a rather exhaustive look at who George was and what drove him, as well as how he dealt with setbacks and successes.

David Wendel Guion (December 15, 1892 to October 17, 1981)
Compositions
1915/1917 Texas Fox Trot 1917 Hopi Indian Cradle Song [w/Louis     Untermeyer] 1918 Old Maid Blues [w/Web Maddox] Embers [1] The Ghostly Galley [2] Jubilee 1919 Prayer [w/Hermann Hagedorn] Little Pickaninny Kid [2] 1920 Return [1] 1921 Resurrection [2] 1922 Mary Alone: Mother of Christ [w/ Lucile Isbell     Stall] Southern Nights Waltzes Pickaninny Dance for Piano 1924 Waltz of Sorrow Li'l' Black Rose [2] 1923 Minuet for Pianoforte Crucifixion: At the Cry of the First Bird Howdy Do, Mis' Springtime [w/Ben     Gordon] Rag Crazy (Jazz Scherzo) 1925 Sail Away for the Rio Grande 1926 Alley Tunes: Three Scenes from     the South    Brudder Sinkiller and his Flock     of Sheep    The Lonesome Whistler    The Harmonica Player 1927 Valse Arabesque 1929 Five Imaginary Early Louisiana Songs     of Slavery [2] Cowboy's Meditation [w/Charle J.     Finger] Lonesome Song of the Plains [3] Shingandi (Ballet Primitive) Suzanne: Folk Opera [2]    In Galam    Mam'selle Marie    De Massus and' de Missus    To the Sun    Voodoo    De Voodo Man    De Voodo Gal 1930 The Scissors Grinder Please Shake Dem 'Simmons Down Negro Lament 1931 When You Go [1] The Bell Buoy [1] Wild Geese [3] 1932 Barcarolle Espanol Prairie Dusk 1933 Little Joe, the Wrangler	1934 Creole Juanita [2] Waltzing with You in My Arms [2] Mistah Jay-Bird 1936 Cavalcade of Texas My Cowboy Love Song [2] Texas, May I Never Wander [w/C.C.     Birchard] Country Jig 1937 Prairie Night Song [2] 1938 Sea Demons [w/Mars] 1939 This Night Can Never Come Again Spanish Boat 1940 One Day I Talked to God Last Night [4] 1942 Dark Rivers [2] At Close of Day Go Then Song of the Wind Nocturne in Blue The Voice of America [4] 1944 Song of Mexico [5] [w/Dave     Jillson] 1945 All of a Sudden [5] Too Deep for Tears 1946 God's Golden West 1947 And God Was There Patoral for the Piano 1948 Pinto [2] My Eternity [1] Unveil Your Eyes [w/Clark Harrington] 1952 Texas Suite The Hawk [w/Eric von der Goltz] 1955 Mary [2] 1959 As We, O Lord, Have Joined Our Hands:     Wedding Song [w/Arthur V. Boand] Unknown or Uncertain Creole-Creola A Heartbreak Life and Love Loss Love is Lord of All Mother Goose Suite My Own Laddie Praise God and I'm Satisfied Prayer During Battle Rabbit's Foot (Gettin' Over the Blues) Stacatto Concert Etude Wrong Livin'    1. w/Jessie B. Rittenhouse    2. w/Marie Wardall/Lussi    3. w/Grace Noll Crowell    4. w/John W. Bratton    5. w/Rusk Smith
Folk/Americana Arrangements
Two Darkey Songs (1918)    De Ol' Ark's a-Moverin    Greatest Miracle of All Darkey Spirituals (1918)    Some O' These Days    Poor Sinner    Jubilee    My Little Soul's Gwine A-Shine    Nobody Knows de Trouble I Sess    Swing Low, Sweet Chariot    Sinner, Don't Let Dis Harves' Pass    I Sees Lawd Jesus A-Comin'    Holy Bible    Little David    John de Bap-a-tist    You Jest Well Git Ready, You Gwine       A-Die    Satan's a Liar an' a Conjur Too    Hark, From de Tombs    Run, Mary, Run    Ol' Marse Adam Turkey in the Straw Concert     Transcription (1919) Shout Yo' Glory (1919) The Bold Vaquero (1920) Sheep and Goat Walkin' to the Pasture     (1922) Oh My Lawd, What Shall I Do? (1924)	Arkansas Traveler: Old Fiddler's     Breakdown (1929) Home on the Range (1908/1930) Texas Tunes (1930)    Roy Bean    All Day on the Prairie    McCaffie's Confession When the Work's All Done This Fall     (1931) O Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie     (1931) Ol' Paint (1933) What Shall We Do with a Drunken     Sailor? (1933) The Cowboy's Dream (1933) Ride, Cowboy, Ride (1934) Yellow Rose of Texas (1936) Chloe (Negro Wail) (1936) The Brazos Boat Song (1936) Carry Me Home to the Lone Prairie     [For Will Rogers] (1937) Lef' Away (Negro Wail) (1939) My Son (1940) Short'nin Bread (1941) Cross-Bearer (1942) Hand in Hand, Beloved (1944) Roll Along, Little Dogies (1947)

     David Guion (commonly pronounced guy-on) was born into a very large Texas family (five older siblings, two younger, and one deceased) when Texas was still very much the domain of cowboys, and not yet for oil and other commerce. His exposure to music early on came in part from African American servants employed by the family, and included a great body of spiritual works as well as American folk songs and cowboy tunes of Texas that were brought to him via the cowboys who worked for his father. John Isaac Guion II is listed as a lawyer in 1900 (his father was a governor of Mississippi at one point), but was later a judge, and a long-time rancher as well. David's mother, Matilda Armour Fentress Guion (some sources cite "Wendel Fentress" as Guion's middle names), was an accomplished singer and pianist.
     With a piano and pianist in the home, it did not take long for the parents to discover young David's musical propensity at age five. So they saw to it that he received an extensive musical education. In his teens, and perhaps before, David studied in San Angelo, Texas, with future musical and literary author Charles Finger. Starting at 14 he attended the Whipple Academy in Jacksonville, Illinois, then back to Texas at the Polytechnic College (now Texas Wesleyan University) in Fort Worth. After the 1912 death of his primary instructor at TPC, Wilbur MacDonald, Guion departed at age 19 to study in Vienna with Leopold Godowski at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Vienna, Austria. After a mere two years there, the political climate brought on by the beginning of The Great War (WWI) forced him to return home to Texas, where he started his musical career.
     Guion's first position was teaching piano and music at the Daniel Baker College (now Howard Payne University) in Brownwood, Texas. He also worked on composition as a sideline. In spite of his classical training, he knew that selling a viable composition at that time meant working in one of the popular idioms of the time. One of David's first publications was also one of the only ones in the ragtime idiom, although many of his later arrangements had the same roots that also gave birth to ragtime. Texas Fox Trot was radically different and more advanced than virtually any Texas ragtime for 1915 when it was composed, and actually most commercial ragtime from that time. With gentle yet percussive melodies it has stood on its own for a long time, and been the subject of many recorded interpretations, including a fine piano roll by artist Muriel Pollock the year after the piece was published in 1917.
     Texas Fox Trot gave David relatively quick notoriety in the music world. The Music Trade Review featured Guion and the piece in an article from November 23, 1918. "Mr. Guion is a young man who allows his music to speak for him, and that it does well. Recently Mr. Guion became inspired with the remarkable strains of what he very properly named 'The Texas Fox-Trot,' a composition published by M. Witmark & Sons that is meeting with very substantial success. 'The Texas Fox-Trot' is obviously the work of a musician, and yet it bubbles over with melody and action. It is unlike anything of its kind on the market. It shows clearly to what extent the fox-trot may be musically developed. Mr. Guion is an accomplished concert pianist as well as a graceful and original composer. His vocal numbers include some very striking songs, notably 'Embers' and 'The Ghostly Galley,' as well as an unusually interesting series of fourteen 'Darkey Spirituals,' collected and arranged by Mr. Guion with great patience and admirable results."
     His next composition was a fine song. Old Maid Blues, which saw proper service with singer Nora Bayes. It was also in 1918 that Guion turned to arrangements of tunes he had learned from the servants as a boy, but now in a studied and very musical manner. The introduction to a series of Darkey Spirituals for voice and piano, as noted above, reads in part: "Darkey 'spirituals' are plantation-songs which had their origin for the most part in the camp-meetings and revivals of other days. Spontaneous in their birth, they were never conceived with any direct plan or form, and not until lately have they been perpetuated in a way that enables them to appeal directly to lovers of folk-songs." It goes on to explain Guion's qualifications as having grown up with these tunes and the folklore around them. Published by the respected G. Schirmer Company, these soon became the standard baseline arrangements by which the tunes were known. Guion added to this library with many fine religious and spiritual tunes of his own, starting a long song-writing collaboration with Marie Wardall, who married in the 1920s becoming Marie Lussi.
     Perhaps the most important early adaptation of all for Guion came in 1919 when he penned a challenging concert arrangement of the Zip Coon tune, known by fiddlers as Turkey in the Straw. In spite of a long-known ragtime arrangement by Otto Bonnell, Guion's arrangement made the tune quite popular again, and set a new standard for revitalizing older material. In a 1925 notice for a concert of his Negro spiritual arragements in the San Antonio Express, fellow composer Percy Grainger was quoted as saying that: "David Guion is one of the greatest living composers in any country... His transcription of the popular folk song, 'Turkey in the Straw' is a kind of national anthem. His setting of it is a great cosmopolitan masterpiece worthy of rank with the Chopin Mazurkas and the Liszt Rhapsodies. Guion's work is close to the greatest classics of all time." Another quote from Musical America stated: "What Percy Grainger has done for some British and Irish folk tunes, Guion has done for this American 'Cowboys' and old fiddlers' breakdown, 'Turkey in the Straw.' David Guion is one of the cleverest composers in America today. His arrangements of Negro sprituals prove that."
     In 1920 Judge John Guion died. Having been on the board of directors at A&M College (now Texas A&M University) a hall was built and named in his honor. David was still listed as living in his parent's home in Ballinger, Texas. With the freedom of the income from his composing and arranging, he started pursuing broader interests, soon teaching at Southern University and other Dallas schools. By 1922 he was the dean of the Fairmount Conservatory of Music in Wichita, Kansas. He later taught at Chicago Musical College and in Estes Park, Colorado at a school there. While in Dallas he was married for a short period to Marian Ayers of Dallas in the 1920s. Among his more interesting but logical side interests was the rodeo. He was a fine rider, winning prizes at rodeos in Colorado and at the home of rodeo and frontier celebrations, Cheyenne, Wyoming. This may have worked as a two-way enhancement with his study and release of arrangements of cowboy songs as well. Another prize was first place in a piano composition contest stage in San Antonio in 1924.
     Guion rarely compromised on his arrangements. In an article in the January 2, 1926 edition of The Music Trade Review, which made note of a rare simplification of one of his piano scores, it was said first that, "Seldom does a publisher make such an important change in a song after it is achieving importance." As for the composer, they went on with his point of view: "David Guion, himself a prominent composer and masterly pianist, admits that he cannot write 'easy' things, and that he delights in finger twisting combination. So when he set Ben Gordon's daintly little 'Mis' Springtime' poem to music, he proceeded to give it a characteristically difficult piano part. It was a splendid setting, however, and the accompaiment appealed to professional pianists and accompanists as one of the chief artistic merits of the song. But when the song began to take real hold, as it did very soon after its publication, the publishers found that the accompaniment was much too difficult for the ordinary musician to manage, and that many singers who liked the number rejected it for that reason." In the end, this and a few other assorted Guion arrangements were released with a four stave accompaniment - the top two staves consisting of the original score and the bottom two with a simplified reduction.
     In 1929 Guion decided to move to the center of the publishing world, New York, where he formed a stronger association with the Schirmer organization. He soon found himself on stage at the Roxy Theater starring (as pianist) in a cowboy music show of his own concoction titled Prairie Echoes. In this show he was able to (re)introduce the public to an old cowboy piece he had first arranged in 1908 when he was but 15. Home on the Range quickly presented itself as a different kind of "standard" tune, easily sung and highly recognizable. It became the ultimate cowboy song almost instantly, spurring composers like George Gershwin (Bidin' My Time) and Cole Porter (Don't Fence Me In) to come up with their own cowboy songs to cash in on the vogue. Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, later President of the U.S., proclaimed it as a favorite of his. This led to a series of radio shows in the early 1930s featuring Guion and his orchestra playing some of his fine adaptations (including an orchestration of Texas Fox Trot) across the U.S. via network hookups. This set in motion the era of the singing cowboys, paving the way for Gene Autry and Roy Rogers in the popular media, and providing a clearer path for groups like Sons of the Pioneers to get radio airplay.
     During his New York period Guion was writing material of his own as well, including cowboy songs, his own spirituals, and even a folk-opera with Wardall called Suzanne, incorporating a theme of Voodoo, some elements of which were reminiscent of Scott Joplin's Treemonisha. Another important piece was Shingandi, considered to be American primitivism, and successfully performed in 1931 by Paul Whiteman with orchestrations by the esteemed Ferdé Grofe. In 1933 it got its first performance as a full ballet, choreographed by Theodore Kosloff. While in Manhattan Guion also wrote a series of clever and poignant pieces with lyricist Jessie B. Rittenhouse who had worked with years before. The stay in the Empire State was short-lived, as he moved back to Dallas in 1932.
     The next productive period of the mid 1930s led to a commissioned show in 1936 called Cavalcade of Texas, part of the state's centennial, and parent of a hit tune (in Texas), My Cowboy Love Song. Later in the year Guion's beloved mother died. He was left dispirited to a degree, and did not produce a large volume work after 1936. Income from Home on the Range and other endeavors allowed him to purchase an estate in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, which he named after the song. Among his most significant works during this time was the Texas Suite, an orchestrated collection of famous Texan tunes and some new entries, commissioned in 1950 for the Houston Symphony Orchestra and completed in 1952. Guion also maintained an active membership in ASCAP (which he had joined in 1927), the Texas Teacher's Association, and the Texas Teacher's Guild. In 1950, during a declaration in Texas of David Guion Week, Howard Payne University, where he had learned early on at its predecessor, gave him an honorary Doctorate of Music given his significant influence on young musicians in Texas colleges. Similar honors came from Southern Methodist University. In 1955 he received the honor of being named one of America's most significant folk music composers by the National Federation of Music Clubs. Pending construction of a dam near his house which condemned the property forced him to abandon his Home on the Range in 1965. He lived out his life in Dallas in his mother's home, highly regarded once again on his death in 1981.
     For ragtime musicians and fans David Guion's contribution should certainly extend beyond Texas Fox Trot, as he carried on the influence of pre-ragtime music forms by keeping them alive for future study. His link to these pieces, their rhythms, and their meanings, was almost direct given the environment he grew up with. His musical education allowed us a fairly accurate and scholarly look at these tunes as well. Some of the cowboy music also emerged from forms that shaped ragtime and musical forms of the 1920s and beyond. There is a permanent exhibit dedicated to Guion at the International Festival-Institute in Round Top, Texas for which a virtual web tour is available on their site.

William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 - March 28, 1958)
Compositions
1907 In the Cotton Fields of Dixie 1908 Mr. Crump [1] 1912 Memphis Blues 1913 Jogo Blues The Girl You Never Met [1] 1914 St. Louis Blues Yellow Dog [Rag] Blues 1915 Hesitating Blues Joe Turner Blues Shoeboot's Seranade 1916 Hail to the Spirit of Freedom Ole Miss Rag [w/Scott Joplin?] In the Land Where Cotton is King [1] 1917 Beale Street [Blues] Keep the Love Ties Binding     [w/J.P. Schofield] Thinking of Thee [1] The Hooking Cow Blues [w/Douglass     Williams] 1918 The Kaiser's Got The Blues [w/Dorner     Browne] 1919 Though We're Miles Apart [w/J. Russel     Robinson] 1920 Long Gone [2] The Rough Rocky Road 1921 Aunt Hagar's Children Blues [w/J.     Tim Brymn] Loveless Love	1922 John Henry Blues Southside Harlem Blues Aunt Hagar's Blues 1923 Sundown Blues Darktown Reveille [2] [w/Walter Hirsch] 1924 The Basement Blues Atlanta Blues The Chicago Gouge 1926 Golden Brown Blues [w/Langston     Hughes] 1929 Wall Street Blues [w/Margaret Gregory] 1932 Way Down South Where the Blues Began 1934 Opportunity 1935 Vesuvius [3] Friendless Blues [w/Mercedes Gilbert] 1937 East St. Louis Mozambique [w/Arthur Porter] I'm Tellin' You In Front (So You Won't     Feel Hurt Behind) [3] [w/Russell     Wooding] 1940 Black Patti [2] [w/Henry Troy] Remembered [w/Olive Lewis Handy &     Joe Jordan] Finis [3] 1951 The Big Stick Blues March [w/Charles L.     Cooke]    1. w/Harry Pace    2. w/Chris Smith    3. w/Andy Razaf

     Growing up in post-Civil War Alabama, the music of Black America and African heritage surrounded young Will Handy. He was born in a log cabin in Florence, Alabama, to Charles Bernard and Elizabeth Bewer Handy. Mr. Handy was the pastor of a small church near Florence, and had his son apprenticed in carpentry, shoemaking and plastering. After earning a little bit of money on the side, young Will brought home a guitar he had purchased, and his father immediately banned the "sinful thing" from the home. However, his parents were well enough off to get him music instruction, and after some failed organ lessons his first real instrument became the cornet. Much of his true musical desire and even his performance activities remained hidden from his parents.
     In his late teens Handy started touring the South with various troupes and shows. According to him, it was in 1892 in Mississippi that he had his first exposure to Delta Blues. Handy also obtained a teaching certificate in Birmingham, Alabama in 1892, and a teaching job in the same place. Poor wages, however, soon chased him off. His playing travels allowed him to perform at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He eventually took over one of the groups he traveled with in 1896, and built up a repertoire of light classics, cakewalks, and early rags. Most of their travels were in the Mississippi Delta area through the early 1900's. He was married around 1896 to Elizabeth V. Price, and they eventually had several children, including Lucille, Catherine, Elizabeth, William P. and Wyer. In 1900 he and Liz or Lizzie are shown in Alabama, and he lists his profession as musician. He had been traveling throughout the Midwest and South, and even to Cuba, but finally decided to stop the tiresome traveling for a while, settling with relatives back in Florence. This allowed him to teach music for a couple of years at the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. The family eventually migrated from Alabama to Mississippi where he taught for another six years, finally finding themselves in Memphis, Tennessee late in the decade.
     Although Handy called himself "the Father of the Blues," he did not invent the blues form. He was at least the third composer to use the term "blues" in a song title, preceded three weeks by Artie Matthews' arrangement of Baby Seals Blues. Handy's first blues piece was first put down in 1908 when he was commissioned to write a campaign song for the mayor of Memphis, Edward H. Crump. The song was published as Mr. Crump and went over well. When the blues was finally acknowledged as a publishable genre in 1912, Handy retooled the piece and published under the name Memphis Blues. This time it included "blue notes" (flatted thirds and sevenths) and a more definitive 12 bar blues section. The publication of this and other early pieces like the train oriented Yellow Dog Blues, started a veritable flood of blues-styled compositions. Mishandling of sales of the Memphis Blues also pushed him into publishing with a new partner, Harry H. Pace, and their firm stayed in business for eight years. (Pace would later leave to form Black Swan Records in 1920 in an effort to facilitate black artists recording black-composed pieces.)
     Handy's new fame put him in the forefront of blues presenters. His band made many recordings of his and other composers' compositions, and he even ran his own blues record label for a while. Even so, he occasionally criticized the format as being a "primitive music" that suffered from "disturbing monotony". But as long as the dollars kept rolling in, he kept on championing the genre. Handy's St. Louis Blues quickly became the standard by which other blues were measured, and his Beale Street Blues with mildly questionable lyrics was recorded by many early blues singers.
     By 1917, Handy, his wife and some of their children were living in Manhattan. On his WWI draft card he refers to himself as a music publisher. On the 1920 census he has changed this to music conductor. In 1924 Handy joined ASCAP, formed a decade before to help further the cause of music composers and artists. In 1926 he published his first book, Blues: An Anthology: Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs. This is considered the first analytical look at the genre, and a groundbreaking effort. In 1930, still in Manhattan, Handy listed himself as the manager of a music office, which could imply either publishing or theatrical, if not both. He had been involved with recording and consulting with early movie shorts that featured blues music, including the famous St. Louis Blues starring hard-living singer Bessie Smith.
     In the 1930's when the playing jobs started to disappear, W.C. Handy wrote his autobiography, Father of the Blues. Three other books also appeared, including a collection of Negro spirituals, Unsung Americans Sing (1944) including sketches of selected race musicians, and Negro Authors and Composers of the United States. On a 1938 Ripley's Believe It Or Not radio program, Handy's role was lauded as not only the father, but the inventor of the blues. This incensed one of it's listeners, Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton, who knew better. In a letter that was sent to Ripley and later read on the air, Morton made it clear that it was more likely that HE introduced the blues, not to mention, jazz, to the world, but stopped short of claiming invention rights. In truth, no one man invented the genre, but both certainly spread it throughout the world. While not the originator of the blues, Handy was certainly its most effective spokesperson, and continued to promote the music form and push for its inclusion in the early 1900s American music vernacular.
     In the 1940s the Handys moved to Harlem. Sadly, in 1943, he suffered a fall from a subway platform which resulted in blindness. To compound things, Lizzie died within a few years. He remarried in 1954 to Irma Louis Logan who had been his personal secretary, and who had personally helped him through many of the issues of blindness. In his 80th year in 1955 Handy suffered a debilitating stroke that confined him to a wheelchair. He finally died of acute bronchial pneumonia at 84 years old. That same year a movie of his life, St. Louis Blues, was released starring Nat King Cole as Handy, as well as many other prominent black musicians of the time. His legacy will forever remain with us on a daily basis, as the influence of his blues can be felt and heard in Gospel, Country, R&B, and Rock and Roll music, all truly American music forms.

Ethwell Idair (Eddy) Hanson (August 1, 1893 to February 22, 1986)
Compositions
1911 When the Evening Shades are Falling 1912 Home Coming Song 1916 Moon Maid 1917 Rattlesnake Rag Rattlesnake Rag Song 1920 Desertland: Oriental Fox Trot Oh Come With Me [1] My Love for You 1921 Sweet Southern Dream There'll Come a Time (When You'll Want     to Come Back to Me) Karma (Oh I Know You're Waiting) Golden Glow 1924 At the End of the Sunset Trail [2] Only a Weaver of Dreams Just Like the Dawn 1926 The Golden Melody (Love is a Golden     Melody That the Whole World Sings) My Dream of Love 1928 Will You Always Call Me Sweetheart? 1931 California Moon Make a Dream Come True for Me Dream Sweetheart of Mine In the Heart of the Rockies 1935 My Song of Love [3] 1936 That Little Shack by the Railroad Track 1941 Arleen 1942 Blue Lily, Mountain Belle If You Don't Want Me, Then Set Me Free [4]	1944 Only One Love 1946 Clark Street Rose 1947 The Windy City Polka 1949 Just One More Waltz (For Old Times Sake) 1951 The Wisconsin Waltz (State Song 2001) 1952 Rattlesnake Rag (Redone) [5] 1954 Wisconsin Wonderland You are My Only Only 1958 The Thunderbird: March 1969 Far Away Beyond the Sunset 1970 I Never Think of You (Oh, No) 1973 Angels with Broken Wings Unknown or Unpublished The Polish Piano Polka Solitude The Joy and the Pain of Love † True Love is Forever † American Love Song to Mary Margaret     McBride †† Chain O' Lakes Waltzes †† Untitled Concert Waltz †† Reason's "Out of Work" Song †† The World Needs a Heart Full of Love ††    1. w/O.P. McFerren    2. w/Ralph Waldo Emerson    3. w/Mabel Morefield McAssey    4. w/Ruth Frank    5. w/Louis F. Busch    †. ASCAP Listing    ††. Unpublished Manuscript
Selected Rollography
1924 Nobody Knows what a Red Head Mama Can Do [Capitol 1182/Supertone 5561] 1925 Who Takes Care of the Caretaker's Daughter [Capitol 1179/Supertone 5591] Ukulele Lady [Capitol 1184/Supertone 5593] Don't Bring Lulu [Capitol 1188/Supertone 5592] That Soothing Melody [Supertone 5556] My Kid [Supertone 5582] 1926 Stars are the Windows of Heaven: Marimba Waltz [Capitol 1580/Supertone 5778] Beside a Garden Wall [Capitol 1619/Supertone 5842] For My Sweetheart [Capitol 1620/Supertone 5829] 1927 Blame it on the Waltz [Capitol 1654/Supertone 5833] My Girl Has Eye Trouble [Capitol 1693/Supertone 5865] I Don't Mind Being Alone [Capitol 1695/Supertone 5871] How Could Red Riding Hood [Capitol 1696/Supertone 5870] When I First Met Mary [Capitol 1697/Supertone 5888]

     In a case of delayed but realized expectations, Eddy Hanson did not become known as a ragtime composer until 35 years after his first real rag. In the interim, he did pretty well for himself and cut a nice-sized swath through the Midwest via the airwaves. He was born Ethwell Hanson to August and Henrietta Hanson in New London, Wisconsin, right around the time that the 1893 Chicago Exposition was featuring some of the first ragtime heard publicly. August was a mechanical engineer whose family had immigrated from Denmark when he was eight years old, and Henrietta was a Wisconsin native. Over the next few years Ethwell would gain three sisters and brother, Nioleta (1897), Arleen (1899), Charlotte (1907) and Loyal (1903) respectively. At an early age the boy became entranced with the music that spewed forth from a neighbor's Edison Amberola, and after listening to a selection or two would run home and try to emulate the rhythms on pots and pans. It was obvious that a piano would help keep the kitchen ware in better working order, so one was obtained. August had some good sense of music, perhaps even some training from his youth, and was insistent that Ethwell learn the elements of proper rhythm and harmony, plus the exacting discipline to play cleanly. The family appears in the 1900 Census in Farmington, Wisconsin, with August listed as a stationery engineer.
     When Ethwell was eight, August arranged for a year of piano lessons for Eddy, paying 50 cents per week. He admitted later that he was a poor student, too busy composing his own music on the side to bother with the music the teacher was giving him. However, he kept at it even after the lessons ended. Obviously interested in playing the latest possible music, Eddy, as he preferred to be called, started learning rags and two steps. At twelve he was playing two steps and waltzes with a local orchestra in Farmington. He also found another love around this time, the organ. Eddy was fascinated with the workings of these multi-keyboard instruments and the number of sounds that could be coaxed from it. Even as a very talented and competent pianist, he would eventually be cherished for his work on theater organs. In the school band Eddy also took up the saxophone, which he would become quite adept at.
     Around the time his youngest sister was born, Eddy's mother Henrietta died. By early 1910 August had remarried to Katherine M. Hanson, who was only five years older than Eddy. In the 1910 Census the reconfigured family is still in Farmington with August as an engineer in the Wisconsin Veteran's Home. (The couple would divorce in the mid 1910s.) Eddy was attending Waupaca High School and was listed as a member of the high school paper, The Criterian. He also played more frequently at local dances, and was starting to perform for movies as well in local theaters several nights a week. Late in the year the family moved to Neenah, Wisconsin where they spent the next few years, then to Waupaca around 1915. Still composing, Eddy managed to get a song in print at age 17, and another one the following year. The second composition was the Home Coming Song, written for his senior class. Following high school he continued to play both piano and organ at various functions, most often in the Waupaca area movie houses. Hanson continued his education at the American Conservatory with Frank Van Dusen, and at Lawrence College (now Lawrence University) with Mason Slade. However, Eddy took on other work as well, perhaps to support his schooling. On his 1917 draft card, he shows as a self employed and his occupation as [looks like] farming for the town of Waupaca. (August Hanson also appears as a farmer in the 1920 Census in Waupaca.) But 1917 would be a breakout year for the 20 year old composer.
     Hanson had his first major publication with Rattlesnake Rag in song format through Forster Music Publishers in Chicago. He had also completed a piano rag version of the piece which currently resides as a manuscript in the University of Wisconsin in Madison, but it is unclear whether this instrumental was actually published at that time. Some version of it must have been in print since it ended up on a medley O-type roll before the year was out. In addition, Eddy's input was useful in the invention of the Bartola, a compact theater organ designed to fit in a theater pit. The keyboards and pedal boar were integrated within the access area of a piano, allowing a smaller footprint while accommodating many ranks of pipes and percussion, using newer electronic solenoids instead of the traditional pneumatics. It was produced by the newly formed Bartola Musical Instrument Company in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, founded by Dan Barton. The firm was later reformed into the Barton Organ Company, with Eddy playing their instruments off and on for many years.
     Eddy's talents accompanying movies got him a plum gig in the Navy, where he spent the remainder of World War One. He toured the country the help promote the sale of war bonds, but this time he was accompanying the actual stars of the movies, including Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. His saxophone playing was also noted, and late in the war Eddy was picked to be a saxophone soloist in one of the premiere 100 member bands of the veteran band master John Philip Sousa. The band toured the United States and Europe following the war, including some keyboard performances for British royalty. After his tour of duty with the Navy and the Sousa band were up, Hanson continued his music education in Chicago in 1919 at the Chicago College of Music, taking courses from Clarence Eddy among others. At some point he studied composition privately with the noted instructor Adolph Weidig. Chicago would become Eddy's home base for the next few decades, but he still stayed connected with Waupaca.
     Hanson's next break came in 1920. According to an article in the New York Clipper on March 31, Eddy was one of five hundred applicants picked in a search for a new song writing talent held by the Riviera Music Company in Chicago. The first piece of his they published became a bona-fide hit, even if it was typical of the fare at that time. Titled Desertland: An Oriental Fox Trot, it established him as a Chicago song writer. His contract assured that Riviera would publish at least four pieces a year from Hanson's pen, which they did for at least the first two years. Later in the year Eddy was a guest back in Waupaca for the opening of the grand $100,000 Palace Opera House on October 6, 1920. According to the Waupaca newspaper, "The music was furnished by a Waupaca orchestra, including Ethwell Hanson, who presided at the pipe organ, one of the best that may be obtained... Too much can not be said in praise of the music by the local orchestra and by Ethwell Hanson on the grand pipe organ." To top that off, he became the manager of the composing staff of Riviera.
     While working his way through his extended education course, Hanson became very adept at the pipe organ, of which there were many beautiful and varied examples in 1920s Chicago. A new child of the now viable entertainment industry emerged at this same time, and looking for content, they turned to Eddy for everything from popular ragtime tunes to poignant ballads. As it turns out, pipe organs registered very well on early microphones, so in 1923 the theory that this would draw in listeners was put to the test on one of the earliest radio stations in the country. Thus Eddy Hanson launched his career as a radio organist on station clear channel WDAP (now WGN) in Chicago. He achieved new notoriety, even though at that time most radios consisted of crystal sets, and few had speakers. New stations started popping up like Iowa popcorn, and Eddy was also invited to play on WBBM and WLS. He found a long term home in 1924 on WCFL, an NBC affiliate, working there on and off from 1924 through 1948. That same year he wrote what would become a great radio hit for cowboy singer Gene Autry. At the End of the Sunset Trail, composed on a poetic passage by Ralph Waldo Emerson, was a best seller on both records and in sheet music, and spread the name of Eddy Hanson across the country. But this was only part time work in the beginning, as Chicago movie goers still wanted accompaniments to the otherwise silent movies.
     In 1925 the famous organist Jess Crawford was lured to the center of film production to play for the movie palaces in Los Angeles. Organs run on compressed air and abhor a vacuum, so Hanson readily stepped in to continue where Crawford left off. For the next three years he reigned at both the Uptown Theater and Tivoli Theater in Chicago for both films and live shows. On the side he was working as an arranger for publisher Harold Rossiter in Chicago, with many credited arrangments in his name. Then Al Jolson and the "talkies" came along to spoil things for theater musicians all over the country. As for Eddy, he simply put his energies back into radio, being very much in demand for his talents throughout the Midwest. In 1930 he adopted a recent song composed by Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II and Herbert Stothart for his own them. If A Wish Could Make It So was frequently heard at the beginning of his fifteen to thirty minute broadcasts. During his years on the air he accompanied such stars as Gene Autry, Grace Wilson, Lulu Belle and Scotty, Kate Smith, Red Skelton and megaphone crooner Rudy Vallee. He also was the first organist to play the Amos 'n Andy Theme Song, Perfect Song, on the radio, and provided theme and background music at times for Myrt and Marge, Helen Trent and the wildly popular Fibber McGee and Molly. Eddy was quoted as saying, "I worked on them five hours each day, and sometimes had four 15-minute programs a day dedicated to organ music."
     From late 1924 to 1927, Eddy also did some piano roll recordings for the Capitol Roll label (not affiliated with Capitol Records which was founded in 1942), most of which were re-released a few years later under the Sears and Roebuck Supertone label. These performances helped to reestablish his skills as a pianist and arranger as well, and some can still be heard via YouTube videos with a little searching. He is said to have also recorded 88-note rolls for QRS, U.S. Rolls, and Imperial, although some of these may also be re-releases of the Capitol sessions.
     Other than those lasting examples of his early performances, Hanson was so busy with radio that he did little recording to disc. It should be considered that early electronic recording was not entirely up to the demands of the massive theater pipe organs with forty or more ranks of timbres and percussion instruments.

Eddy Hanson seated at a magnificent four manual theater organ.

With less work available at the movies, Eddy branched out into supper clubs, often seen playing the piano with one hand and the organ with the other, using the organ pedals as well. Many remember his personality as being quite "dapper and colorful," and his general demeanor as very engaging. As for his own attitude, he wrote in his later years, "I never count the years or talk about death or disease. I never have had a headache in my entire life - can eat anything, drink anything, any time of the day, and sleep nine or ten hours a night. `As a man thinketh so he is.' I'm the healthiest man in the world!" Even with all that sleep he was busy. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Midwest listings are found for Eddy's shows on the new medium of television.
     The 1950s also bore some healthy fruit for Hanson. At the beginning of the decade he joined ASCAP. Then in 1951 Eddy composed The Wisconsin Waltz. While quickly taken up by his home state, it took fifty years for them to officially adopt it as the state waltz in 2001. The piece achieved a fond notoriety in the interim. Then in 1952, one of Eddie's musical peers, Capitol Records A&R man Lou Busch, who had been recording for two years as Joe "Fingers" Carr, approached Eddy about reconfiguring his Rattlesnake Rag for a Honky-Tonk piano recording. The arrangement was strong enough to earn a co-composing credit for Busch, and the single containing Rattlesnake Rag became instant popular fodder for jukeboxes all around the country. Busch's arrangement was also released in sheet music form, racking up fairly decent sales considering the dated genre it represented. Eddy even played it again from time to time in his live performances. Rattlesnake Rag enjoyed another short surge when the 1917 piano roll version was featured in a party scene in the movie Reds under the direction of star Warren Beatty.
     After spending much of the 1950s in a variety of performance venues in Chicago and Midwest, Hanson retired to Waupaca in the early 1960s, playing locally on and off throughout the 1960s, and recording a few albums on Rollo Records based in Appleton, Wisconsin and run by his friend Al Rollow. Eddy also performed and recorded with Appleton bandleader Lawrence Duchow. Around 1969 he started his own record label, Kobar, and set forth on a series of vinyl discs featuring his performances of old and new favorites on majestic theater pipe organs. Hanson was also seen performing weekend evenings as Simpson's Supper Club in Waupaca. In his role as master organist he became master teacher as well, taking on advanced students for lessons. In the 1970s he was regarded as the oldest master organist still alive, and still active giving concerts and seminars on organ performance. After another decade of successes and accolades, Eddy was honored as a special member of 1980 AMICA (Automatic Musical Instrument Collector's Association) for his earlier piano roll work.
     In April of 1984 Eddy moved into the Wisconsin Veteran's Home in King, Wisconsin, the very organization for which his father had worked more than 70 years earlier. The master organist died there at the age of 92 in 1986. He was fondly remembered by many from the Midwest at the services that followed. Hanson was buried in the Lakeside Memorial Cemetery in his beloved Waupaca, marking the end of an era of popular organists.

     Some of the information on Hanson was retrieved from Wisconsin State Archives, and from an article by Alf E. Werolin in the June, 1980 AMICA newsletter. The rest was researched from music archives, radio archives, newspaper listings and public records by the author.

James Price Johnson (February 1, 1894 - November 17, 1955)
Compositions
c.1914 Carolina Shout (c.1914/1921) Steeplechase Rag     (as Over The Bars in 1936) Twilight Rag c.1916 The Mule Walk 1917 Daintiness Rag Caprice Rag Fascination: Fox Trot Innovation: One Step Monkey Hunch Mama's Blues (aka Mama and Poppa     Blues) [1] Stop It (aka Stop It, Joe) [1] Boys of Uncle Sam [1] 1918/1921 Eccentricity: Waltz 1921 Harlem Strut It Takes Love to Cure the Heart's Disease Keep Off The Grass 1922 Ivy, Cling to Me [w/Jones & Rogers] 1923 Toddlin' (Toddlin' Home) Scouting Around After Hours Weeping Blues Worried and Lonesome Blues Runnin' Wild: Musical [3]    Open Your Heart    Gingerbrown    Red Caps Cappers    Old Fashioned Love    Keep Movin'    Charleston (The Original)    Roustabouts    Log Cabin Days    Ghost Recitative    Pay Day on the Levee    Swanee River    Song Birds Quartette    Ghost Ensemble    Love Bug    Juba Dance    Jazz Your Troubles Away 1924 Jungle Nymphs You Just Can't Have No One Man By     Yourself [w/Mercedes Gilbert] 1925 Mistah Jim [3] Everybody's Doin' the Charleston Now [3]     [w/Elmore White] 1926 Jingles If I Could Be With You One Hour     Tonight [4] Lock and Key [4] I Need Lovin' [4] Sweet Mistreater [4] Harlem Choc'late Babies on Parade [4] Alabama Stomp [4] She's the Hottest Gal in Tennessee [4] Scalin' the Blues You for Me, Me for You [3] 1927 Snowy Morning Blues Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody Ebony Dreams 1928 From Keep Shufflin': Musical    Give Me the Sunshine [4,5]    'Sippi [4,5]    On the Levee [4] 1929 Don't Cry Baby [w/Stella Unger & Saul     Bernie] Feeling Blue Riffs Modernistic (You've Got to Be) You Don't Understand [w/Clarence     Williams & Spencer Williams] Messin' Around: Musical [2]    Harlem Town    Skiddle-De-Scow    Get Away from My Window    Your Love is All I Crave    Shout On    I Don't Love Nobody but You    Roustabouts    Mississippi    Circus Days    Spirituals    Tapcopation    Sorry (That I Strayed Away from You)    Put Your Mind Right On It    Whirlwind    Messin' Around 1930 Slippery Hips [6] A Porter's Love Song to a Chambermaid [6] 1931 Harlem Hotcha [6] Stop That Dog [6] Sugar Hill: Musical [7]    Noisy Neighbors    Yes, I Love You, Honey    Hanging Around Yo' Dore    Hot Harlem    Boston	1931 (Cont)    Fate Misunderstood Me    What Have I Done?    Hot Rhythm    Fooling Around With Love    Rumbola    Somethings Going to Happen to Me       and You    Moving Day 1932 I Was So Weak, Love Was So Strong [6] Ain't-cha Got Music? [6] My Headache [6] Yours, All Yours [6] Harlem Symphony    April in Harlem 1934 High Brown Spanish in My Eyes [w/Enric Madriguera] 1935 Whisper Sweet [6] (from Sugar Hill?) c.1934-1938 Concerto Jazz-a-mine Symphony in Brown Spirit of America (String quartet) 1938 De Organizer (A One Act Opera)     [w/Langston Hughes]    Hungry Blues The Dreamy Kid (A One Act Opera)     [completed by James Dapogny c.2002] 1939 A-Flat Dream Lonesome Reverie Policy Kings: Musical [w/Louis Douglass]    Court House Scene    Deed I Do Blues    Dewey Blues    Harlem Number Man    Harlem Woogie    Havin' a Ball    I'm Gonna Hit the Number Today    To Do What We Like    Walking My Baby Back Home    You, You, You 1940 Blueberry Rhyme 1941 Uncle Sammy, Here I Am [8]     [w/Clarence Williams] 1942 Boogie Woogie Stride Impressions 1943 Gut Stomp [w/Willie "The Lion" Smith] Carolina Balmoral Jersey Sweet There's No Two Ways About Love     [w/Ted Koehler & Irving Mills] Jimmy Johnson's Boogie Woogie    Boogie Dreams    Boogie Woogie Runaway    Thinkin' About Home    Twelfth Avenue    Walkin' the Bass (aka J.P. Boogie) 1944 Blues for Fats Theme in Two Voices Just Before Daybreak April in Harlem [arr. Domenico Savino] 1945 Reflections (< 1945) Poem of Love (< 1945) Jungle Drums 1946 The Toy Piper Improvization on Deep River How Could You Put Me Down [w/Willie     "The Lion" Smith & Mitchell Parrish] 1949 Sugar Hill: Musical [8]    Apple Jack    Love Don't Need a Referee    You're My Rose    I've Got to Be Lovely for Harry    You Can't Lose a Broken Heart    Until You Are Caught    Faraway Love    My Sweet Hunk o' Trash    Caught    What Kind of Tune Did Nero Play    Bad Bill Jones    I Don't Want Any Labor in My Job    That Was Then    Mister Dumbell and Mr. Tough    Sepia Fashion Plate    Busy Body    Keep 'em Gussing    Peace, Sister, Peace    Smiln' Through My Tears    Chivaree    Sender    We're Going to Blitz the Ritzes    1. w/William Farrell    2. w/Perry Bradford    3. w/Cecil Mack    4. w/Henry Creamer    5. w/Con Conrad    6. w/Andy Razaf    7. w/Jo Trent    8. w/Flournoy E. Miller

     Often referred to as the "Father of Stride Piano," James P. Johnson was the dominant figure who in the late 1910s and 1920s helped to evolve ragtime into a more ambitious form of composition and performance combined with elements of jazz. Some sources, even those from his own lifetime, show an 1891 birth date. However, Census and draft records are consistent in stating 1894 as his year of birth, as is his birth certificate. Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey to William and Josephine Johnson, his earliest musical training was given by his mother when he was barely able to reach the keyboard. She was able to show him melodies and simple chords of the current music that she knew of, mostly ragtime and early blues pieces, which he quickly memorized. By 1900 she had remarried to Perry Thompson and they lived in a house full of people in New Brunswick. In 1902 the family moved to Jersey City where Jimmy frequently heard early ragtime strains coming from venues throughout the town. At the age of nine he surpassed his mother's ability to teach him and was sent to local instructor Bruto Giannini. The teacher instilled a great deal of musical discipline in young Jimmy through the insistence that a regiment of scales and certain classical pieces be followed. This also gave Johnson an appreciation for classical works that would surface in his later compositions. To his great credit, Giannini did not discourage Jimmy's propensities to play ragtime and blues, but did make sure that his fingerings and technique were correct.
     The family moved to New York around 1908, and Jimmy soon found musical employment when not in school, working his way up the musician's food chain from brothels and bars to respectable restaurants and private parties. He continued his passion for ragtime, learning in particular the works of Scott Joplin who was living in New York by then. Jimmie's first professional engagement was reportedly at Coney Island when he was around 18, although some sources claim he was also working in brothels by that time. His subsequent work in vaudeville gave him a wider audience and an early following that allowed him the luxury of a reputation. What he lacked in stage presence he had plenty in terms of playing ability. With that, he was able to collect a band of talented peers to improve the quality of the music he played. It was around the time of The Great War (WWI) that he and his colleagues were hired for a couple of touring shows which went to England and Europe (although no Passport application is found at this time). Still, most people appreciated him largely for his innovative techniques when playing the latest ragtime hits of the day.
     Johnson stood out during the cutting contests that were still common in the mid 1910s by employing unusual tricks, many picked up by listening carefully to other pianists and improving on what they did. One of the more important developments in this technique came when he started recording piano rolls in 1917. Arrangers of rolls did whatever they could to make their work stand out, which often meant trying to create more sound than the notes on the printed page would produce. This meant adding tenths in the left hand, using lower octaves and higher chords, and developing tricky patterned runs in the right hand. One offshoot of this was Novelty Piano, of which Zez Confrey led the pack. Johnson stuck to more basic expanded techniques that were grounded in rhythm rather than tricks. Among his unique signatures are the backwards tenth, where the higher note of the left hand tenth is sounded before the beat, and the lower note on the beat. In total he made fifty-four rolls, more than any other stride pianist. His 1917 draft card shows him simply as a piano player. It also shows him as married, although it appears from other records he actually married singer Lillie M. Johnson the following year. The couple was shown in Toledo, Ohio in early 1920, on tour with a vaudeville troupe.
     It was through some piano rolls and records cut in 1921 and 1922 that Johnson established himself as a stride pianist and composer. These included the ambitious Harlem Strut and the benchmark Carolina Shout, which was considered a test piece for lesser pianists to prove their abilities. Even though he had done an earlier take of it in 1918, the 1921 Carolina Shout clearly shed off much of the square ragtime feel and had much of the stride swing, forecasting the coming piano style. A young disciple of Johnson, Thomas "Fats" Waller, was among those (including Edward "Duke" Ellington) who would sit in front of a player piano pumping Carolina Shout at a very slow tempo and learning the piece note by note. Waller soon caught Johnson's attention and became the heir apparent to the Stride Piano throne. The two of them reigned at Harlem rent parties, events with an admission to help one of their neighbors to pay their rent, as well as on piano rolls. A 1921 Passport application curiously states his purpose for travel to England and France as the "study of music." Whether this was intended through observation or direct instruction is unclear. In any case, no confirmation of actual travel is seen until April and May of 1923 when he returned from what appears to be trips to London, touring with a subset of the show Plantation Days which was incorporated into a British show.
     The prolific Waller did not record quite as early as Johnson, who made a number of recordings in the 1920s, some under the name of Jimmy Johnson, although his friends called him James. The audio recordings of his piano solos are often as good as or better than the piano rolls, largely because they convey dynamics that rolls don't capture. The band work is less structured, and the natural swing in Johnson's hands was a stark contrast to many of the "straight-playing" musicians sometimes thrust upon him by the studio who was looking to produce more jazz band recordings. Some of his best work was as an accompanist for blues maven Bessie Smith and working with the band of Perry Bradford However, his greatest hit came from an opportunity to write the music for a 1923 production called Runnin' Wild, a show that yielded several hits but none bigger than the famous Charleston, a piece that defined the sound of the 1920s. Johnson joined ASCAP in 1926, twelve years after it was founded.
     After several years in jazz, Johnson felt he needed to expand his horizons. Inspired by the works of composers George Gershwin and Ferdé Grofé, he started combining jazz and classical music, also calling on Negro folk music and spirituals at times for effect. Among his best known symphonic works are Yamekraw - A Negro Rhapsody, a mix spirituals and folk pieces compiled/composed in 1927 and Symphony Harlem from 1932. Also in 1928 he contributed some songs to and helped to direct Keep Shufflin', largely a collaborative effort of many Harlem musicians trying to follow the success of the earlier Shuffle Along. Another less successful show the following year was Messin' Around composed with Perry Bradford, which in spite of the novelty of a women's boxing match each night with different results each time, did not do very well in two short runs. One more musical was attempted during the Great Depression, Sugar Hill composed with Jo Trent, which barely made it through a week of shows at the end of 1931. Sadly, many of these works were truly appreciated in his lifetime, having seen their first serious recordings or new productions in the 1990s.
     The 1930 Census shows James as a pianist employed in "private musicals," still with his wife Lillie, and now with James Jr. and daughter Arceola added to the family in 1926 and 1928 respectively. He continued to contribute to stage and direct musicals throughout the 1930s for income, as well as making two film appearances. Johnson even experimented with light blues opera in 1938 composing De Organizer, a socially relevant opera about labor organization with a libretto by Langston Hughes. It had one performance in 1940, then disappeared for nearly 60 years until some of the parts were unearthed and reconstructed with the help of researcher/performer James Dapogny in the early 2000s. It was also in the late 1930s through 1940 that Johnson suffered a series of partial strokes that set him back for a short time. He was recording again by 1942 and did some works on V-Discs which were used to entertain the troops overseas. His 1942 draft record shows him as self-employed and living in Jamaica, Queens, New York. Johnson was greatly affected by the death of his star pupil, Fats Waller, in December of 1943, and recorded a blues for his friend three days later. Although he remained musically active through the rest of the decade, it was largely as an ambassador of sorts and no major works came from that time. His last major works involved a musical called Meet Miss Jones at an experimental theater in the Harlem Elks Lodge in 1947, followed a newly written production of Sugar Hill in Los Angeles in 1949, 18 years after the first one had debuted, both with librettos and music by Flournoy Miller. Neither production was met with much enthusiasm or success by the public or the critics. In 1951, Johnson suffered a debilitating full stroke that would leave him bedridden through the next four years until his death. By that time, as incredible as it seems, few outside of the music world knew who he was. Fortunately has fame has grown slowly in the decades since.

     Thanks to historian/performer Bob Pinsker, who has done extensive research on Johnson as well as created many great transcriptions of his pieces, for forwarding corrected information on a few pieces, plus other titles not found in most lists or libraries. The list here is not complete, but with Bob's help it is fairly comprehensive.

Maximilian J. (Max) Kortlander (September 1, 1890 to October 11, 1961)
Compositions
1917 The Ragtime Sailor Man [1] Chicken Pranks [2] 1918 Shimmie Shoes † Look Out for the Melody Moon Drop Me Down in Dixieland [1] Blue Moon [2] Why Shouldn’t Old King Solomon Get the     Blues 1919 Along the Moonlit Way Bigamous Blues Some Day You’ll Know Tell Me (Tell Me Why) [1] 1920 As We Live and Love We Learn Blue Clover Man Sweet Bells of San Jose [1] Any Time, Any Day, Any Where [3] Hot Tamale Mollie [3] Like We Used to Be [18] 1921 Sleepy Eyes All the Time [1] In Santa Barbara [28] I’ve Lost My Heart to the Meanest Gal in     Town [4] Bebe-D (Sing Love's Alphabet with     Me) [5,6,7] The Sun Will Soon Be Shining [29] 1922 Eeny Meeny Chinee Mo † Hunting the Ball (Rag) † Bygones [4,14] Whose Heart Are You Breaking     To-Night? [8] Pleasant Dreams [8] Whenever You’re Lonesome (Just Telephone     Me) [8] The Flirt [8] Arithmetic Blues [8,27] Too Many Kisses Mean Too Many     Tears [8,9,10] Red Moon: Waltz [11] Red Moon: Waltz Song [11,12,13] 1923 Deuces Wild † Let’s Try It † Red Clover Some Winter’s Night Gee, I’ll Miss You When You’re Gone [1] Tantalizin’ Mamma [30,31] Keeps On a Rainin' (Papa, He Can't Make No     Time) [15] 1924 Hottentot Trot Rose of Old Madrid I Hate to Think What Would Happen to Me [8] Silver Screen: Waltz [8] Rain Drops: Novelette [8] Steps: A Modern Progression [8] New Orleans Fizz: Diminished Syncopation [8] Buck Shots [8] Flower of Spain: A Gold Medal Tango [8] Black'n Blue: A Finger Confusion [8] Home! For the Rest of My Life [8] Tosti's Good Bye [8] Butter Fingers: A Soft Spread [8] I’m a Good Gal, But I’m a Thousand Miles     From Home [15] Lover’s Waltz [13,16]	1926 Ain’t I Got Rosie [8,17] Trying to Keep Away From You [18] Scatter Your Smiles [8] 1927 Whatever You Say [Uncertain] I’m Longing for My Old Gal Sal [19] What Are We Waiting For [32] 1928 Felix the Cat [9] Always in My Dreams, Never in My Arms [20] 1929 She’s My Girl (Oh What a Difference That     Makes) Why Do You Give Your Smiles to Someone     Else (And All Your Tears to Me?) [8,33] 1933 Lullaby Lady (From Lullaby Lane) [21,22] Moonlight Down in Lover’s Lane [23,24] 1935 Underneath the Stars in Waikiki [23,24] If You Love Me, Say So [25] 1937 I’m the One Who Loves You [26] 1940 Something to Live For [19] Unknown or Unpublished Funeral Rag † Jazzamine † Li’l Joe † Honey Lu Lu (Honolulu Girl) † Land of Nod [Uncertain] †    1. w/J. Will Callahan    2. w/Lee S. Roberts    3. w/Louis Weslyn    4. w/Darl Mac Boyle    5. w/A.S. Brooks    6. w/Billy James    7. w/A.V. Hendrick    8. w/Pete Wendling    9. w/Alfred Bryan    10. w/W.H. Sandefur    11. w/Henri de Martini    12. w/Lew Brown    13. w/John Traver    14. w/Harry Alpert    15. w/Spencer Williams    16. w/Jack Yellen    17. w/Harold Potter    18. w/J. Russel Robinson    19. w/Joseph M. Davis    20. w/Lou Herscher    21. w/Howard Johnson    22. w/James S. Rule    23. w/George B. Pitman    24. w/Bartley Costello    25. w/Paul Denniker    26. w/Lanny Grey    27. w/Edgar Leslie    28. w/William Jones    29. w/? Squire    30. w/Alex Gerber    31. w/Preston Johnson    32. w/Ray Klages    33. w/Irving Bibo    †. Piano Roll

     Max Kortlander was a composer on a roll. In fact, on several rolls.His role with rolls was truly instrumental in the history of automated and hand-played music of the 1920s to 1950s. Max was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan to Joseph Kortlander and Elizabeth M. (Boxheimer) Kortlander. He was one of seven children, including older sisters Marguerite (1887) and Lois (1889), younger sister Dorothy (1892), and brother Herman (1900). Two other children died at an early age. John (1895) is listed in the 1900 Census, but not in subsequent records. Joseph was a wholesale liquor merchant, in business with his brothers William, Theodore and George, all part of a well regarded family in Grand Rapids.
     From an early age it was clear that Max had a degree of natural music talent. In a house where there were reportedly four grand pianos, as his mother and her sisters were also musically inclined and even taught piano, it was hard to avoid. According to Herman, they were all Mason and Hamlin pianos, and were in the family for many decades. Elizabeth was more than just Max's first piano teacher, adding composition to the home curriculm once he had gains some playing skill. Max was encouraged to write at least two simple songs every day. He reportedly did not enjoy the technical aspects of learning piano, but relished the compositional part. Also, even though his mother and sisters were trained in the classical music styles of the 18th and 19th centuries, Max preferred to look ahead, listening to and trying to emulate the latest popular song and ragtime styles. By the time he was in his early teens, his skills were considerable enough that he was able to play around Grand Rapids in select venues to earn some cash as well as hone his performance skills.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

     Some of the information on Kortlander was retrieved from... The rest was researched from music archives, radio archives, newspaper listings and public records by the author.

Gil Lieby (Gilbert Lieberknecht) (November 7, 1931 - April 27, 2008)
Compositions
1959 Deer Park Rag 1960 South Omaha Rag Spring Lake Rag Waterloo Rag Glenwood Rag 1961 Rainbow Rag Water Ski Rag South 16th Street Rag 1962 Happy Chic Rag Bowler's Rag 1963 Market Street Rag Silver Hawks Rag Hopping Rag 1964 The Trophy Rag Little Guys The Kite Cable Car Rag The Carter Laker 1966 Goldenrod Rag Shoes 'n' Rice Nebraska Centennial Rag 1967 White and Green Rag Yosemite Rag Gas Lamp Rag 1969 The Gate Raggin' Up Fremont Street 1969 Aksarben Downs Rag 1970 Katrina Rag Traintown Blues Carondalet Rag 1971 Treasure Island Rag Li'l' White Fuzzy Rag Swingbridge Blues A Ragtime Oddity	1972 Lost Music Rag Li'l' Ruthie Waltz Frustration Rag Ski-daddler's March 1973 Tom-Tom Rag Florentine Heritage Anathema Blues 1974 Suntime Frolics 1978 Pine Needles Rug Rags on Parade 1980 Chaddy Pat March of the Mini Rats 1984 Perris Wheels 1985 Hendy's Stairs Resurrection 1987 Goodbye MaMa Lost Fuzzies Umpquight Moments 1988 Crisstomp Good News on Zero Street 1990 Silicon Flame 1991 Three Sisters 1994 Fresno Frolics [1,2] 1997 Moods in Heiding 1998 Washboard Blues 2000 Sutter Creek Strut    1. w/Kathi Backus    2. w/Henry Lieberknecht       (aka Don Henry)

     Born in San Mateo, California in 1931 to first generation American Henry Lieberknecht and his Austrian born second wife Roberta Lieberknecht, Gilbert Lieberknecht was destined to be a musician and composer. His parents played the zither and were performing artists in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1930s. Gil's father, a printer by trade, performed and composed under the professional name of "Don Henry." He had a son, George W. Lieberknecht, from a previous marriage to Ada M. Lieberknecht, but George does not appear to have lived in the same household as his half brother. Henry met Roberta in 1925 in Berkeley, with the zither as their main common interest. At the end of the year she had to return to her current home of Switzerland as her visa was expiring. Henry was about to take on another job in Reno, Nevada, but instead sold his car so he could get to New York and intercept Roberta before she sailed. Once he found her there, Henry surprised her with a proposal and she accepted. She still had to go back to Europe, but three months later came to the United States for good as Henry's wife. After five years they had their only child.
     The family moved several times in Gil's first two years, staying mostly around the San Francisco Bay area. Roberta decided to take on piano teaching to supplement the family income during the Great Depression, and had a piano shipped from Switzerland for that purpose. Given the mix of musical interests between his parents Gilbert spent his childhood immersed in traditional Austrian folk music and American jazz, and studied classical piano for a number of years, initially with his mother. He was born with gift of perfect pitch, which could sometimes be a curse as well, but also suffered from bronchitis. After a move north to San Anselmo in Marin County, California to improve his health, Gil took lessons with Leslie Covey. Since he felt he worked better on Mr. Covey's grand piano, his parents somehow found a way to bring a McPhail grand into their house in 1940. During the next several years he took lessons from Mr. Covey, as well as a Mr. Siefort and Mr. Bauer. Even though there was much in the way of popular music available, Roberta and Henry insisted he remain embedded in classical works, of which Frederic Chopin was one of his favorites.
     In June 1946, Roberta died at 54 after a long battle with cancer. After the tragic and untimely death of his mother, Gil and his father took an extended vacation, which included a visit to relatives in Henry's native Omaha. When they returned to California, they moved first to Los Angeles where Henry married the private nurse that had cared for Roberta to the end. The marriage lasted only a short time, and father and son then moved briefly to San Antonio, Texas. In late 1947, they finally settled in Omaha, Nebraska where Henry had been born in 1879, a city rich in Bohemian culture and tradition. Henry settled back in to the printing business. While Gil's lessons had ceased before Roberta's death, he continued to play, particularly at special programs at school, but was not a part of standard musical activities like orchestra, band or choir. After high school he held a couple of jobs until he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1952 during the Korean conflict. It was over before he was out of basic training, so Gil ended up staying in the U.S. until he was discharged in 1954 after his standard two years of service. At that time he became part of the door to door Fuller Brush work force in Omaha, and within two years had become the top company salesman in the city. But another force had already started to creep in to his life.
     While still playing the piano, the classics were getting less attention. Henry referred to his late wife in chastising Gil on this point - "What would your mother say?" But he persisted on following this direction. According to Gil, at the age of 23, "...in 1955, I got caught up in the Crazy Otto craze." [Whether this refers to American Johnny Maddox or German Fritz Schulz-Reichel is unclear.] He also listened to Del Wood and Lou Busch a.k.a. Joe "Fingers" Carr. "I started playing ragtime in 1959, after hearing [the late] Bob Darch [who was performing nightly at the classic Fontanelle Hotel opened in 1915]. By 1960, I was composing my own ragtime". The first rag he presented to Bob, Deer Park Rag, was reportedly based on Wood's hit recording of Down Yonder. It fell with a thud to Bob's ears, who said it wasn't terrible, "It's Horrible." Darch still encouraged him to continue to try, even giving him a copy of Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag to learn, the final blow that hooked him on the genre. Gil's following composition was South Omaha Rag in 1960.
     From that point on, Lieby ultimately composed more than 60 ragtime, novelty and stride piano pieces. One of his first moves towards a more musically structured life in 1960 was to obtain a job in a music store selling pianos and organs. Through the advice of his employer, Roger Critchett, Gil learned more about the art of composition and was able to correct many of his shortcomings in short order. His dedication to ragtime performance and writing increased. When Darch returned to Omaha in 1964 he heard Gil's Spring Lake Rag and Trophy Rag, which prompted Bob, who thought they were good works, to instill in Gil the need to copyright his works, which he did so from that point on. Most of his compositions document an important event or location in his life. Katrina Rag, composed in 1965 and copyrighted a few years later, had its origins at an early rendition of the St. Louis Ragtime Festival. It is a commemoration of his meeting life-long friend and sometimes co-composer, Kathi Backus of Santa Barbara, California. Another piece from the following year was the Goldenrod Rag, which referred to the Goldenrod Showboat, built in 1909 and restored in the early 1960s through the efforts of Dave Jasen and Trebor Tichenor, and which plied the waters of the Mississippi River in the St. Louis area for three decades. This was the very boat that inspired Edna Furber to write Showboat. Many ragtime festivals were also hosted on this celebrated ship, a registered National Historic Landmark, which in spite of another restoration sadly became a relic and was partially dismantled by 2006. By the late 1960s, Gil was making his living as a truck driver, but still delighting many with his ragtime renditions, particularly of his own compositions.
     In 1971 Gil was driving a Star Route mail truck when a briefcase containing all of his music manuscripts to that time was stolen from the truck. There were no other copies, so he learned a painful lesson in that loss, reflected in Lost Music Rag. Continuing to compose, he came out with pieces like Lil White Fuzzy Rag, which exemplified his love for cats. His pure devotion to his pets is also found in Little Guys. Lost Fuzzies was written as a memorial to his beloved pets when all were tragically lost in a house fire in January of 1985. He also lost family pictures, ragtime records and two pianos. Surprisingly, his manuscripts survived the fire even though they were in a cardboard suitcase over the center of the blaze. A contrasting work, Good News On Zero Street was a joyous account of the building of a new church he was associated with. Composed in tribute to his dear mother Roberta, Goodbye Mama, lamented her untimely death and the deep and the indescribable sadness felt in the heart of a fourteen year old boy, a pain which remained for decades. One of his more interesting works was Anathema Blues. Gil was staying at a lodge with a piano of questionable integrity that had several non-functioning notes, particularly in the bass, and rose to the challenge by writing an unusual low-bass driven work that utilized the notes that actually did work. Fresno Frolics was based on a theme by Gil's father Henry, which is used as the final section of the piece. The most popular of his compositions was the Carter Laker, recorded and performed by many ragtime artists.
     Then came a miracle. In May 1985, four months after he had lost almost everything, Gil received a telephone call. The briefcase with the music stolen in 1971 had been found. A man hired in 1983 to clean out the rental house of a prison-bound criminal had located it in the basement, taken it home, and forgotten about it for two years. In perspective, had the man returned the music any earlier, it potentially could have been lost in the fire. Gil felt that there was some special reason that his music survived several potential catastrophes. As an implementation of a better backup system, from that point on he mailed a copy of each new composition to Kathi Backus. Kathi has preserved copies of everything Gil has composed. Another friend, Burns Davis of Nebraska, also was frequently sent back-up copies of Gil’s compositions.
     More than just a ragtime-playing truck-driving cat-loving kind of guy, Gil also enjoyed water skiing, often serving as a boat driver for competitions or exhibitions. He was a member of the board of the Carter Lake Water Ski Club in Iowa for nearly a decade, part of the time as Vice President and one year as President, for which he composed the Carter Laker. Among his supporters were David and Jeannie Wright, co-founders of the Cascade Ragtime Society in Oregon. He met them in 1983 at one of the first annual incarnations of the modern day Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival held in Sedalia, Missouri. David took quickly to Gil's music, playing and promoting it wherever he could. In 1987 Gil played for the Cascade Ragtime Society during which his performances were recorded. Gil composed Umpquight Moments that year in honor of the couple.
     In 1995, Iowa native ragtime performer Marty Mincer recorded an album of many of Gil's works at the composer's behest, featuring the Goldenrod Rag as the title cut, the only such complete album that exists to date. Others who have since recorded some of his pieces include Brian Keenan, Keith Taylor, Bill Edwards, the inimitable West Coast ragtimer Tom Brier, and Sister Jean and Paul Huling (a.k.a. Laundry Fat). Within a decade, Gil would be retired from truck driving and still living in Omaha, attending local ragtime events whenever he could. He also managed to travel out to the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival for many years, and wrote a number of pieces commemorating the festival, including the popular Sutter Creek Strut. His final public performance outside of Omaha was at Sutter Creek in August of 2005. Gil Lieby spent his last year in poor health due to Parkinson's disease, but still had a healthy sense of humor and his passion for ragtime remained. He died peacefully in his father's home town of Omaha. The collection of works he left behind also speak to his passions and his life in a biographical manner, and through artists like Kathi Backus, Marty Mincer and Tom Brier will remain so for many years.

     I would like to add a personal note of thanks to my friend and ragtime performer Nan Bostick who provided some of the details found in this biography in addition to my research and conversations with Gil, and to playing partner and performer Marty Mincer who provided some of the dates and a couple of anecdotes.

Paul Curtis Lingle (December 3, 1902 - October 30, 1962)

Known Compositions

Dance of the Witch Hazels (c.1947) Black and Blue Rag (c.1948)

Collective Discography

Studio Recordings Maple Leaf Rag [Good Time Jazz unknown] (1952) Louisiana Rag/Sister Kate [Good Time Jazz 88 7"] (1953) Paul Lingle at the Piano [Good Time Jazz GTJ-13 10"] (1953) They Tore My Playhouse Down [Good Time Jazz L-12025 12"] (1956)     (This is repackaged from the first album adding Burt Bales cuts) Live Recordings on LP Dance of the Witch Hazels at the Jug Club [Euphonic ESR-1217] (1951) The Legend of Lingle [Euphonic ESR-1219] (1951) Final Curtain: Encore Coda & Rest [Euphonic ESR-1227] (1947-1951)

     Paul Lingle was one of the benchmark performers of ragtime on the Barbary Coast (Northern California) during the first revival of traditional jazz and ragtime in the 1940s and 1950s, yet he left surprisingly little behind in terms of legacy, all of it of the best possible quality and pianistic passion. He was born in Denver, Colorado, at the beginning of the ragtime era, to Ohio native cigar maker Curtis R. Lingle, and his wife, Michigan native Cora M. Lingle. Paul was the youngest of four out of five surviving children, including his older brother Roy, born in Nebraska in September, 1887, and sister Della, born in Michigan in March, 1890. At the time of Paul's birth the Lingle family lived at 5046 W. 36th Avenue in Denver.
     Taking to the piano at around five or six years of age, Paul actually had the benefit of listening and learning from great pianists of the ragtime era who passed through Denver when his dad, a fine cornetist, played with them. Much of his training was classical, of course, and he kept some of those pieces, such as the works of Chopin and Liszt, under his fingers throughout his life.

Paul Lingle at the piano in 1915, age 12.

As of the 1910 Census Curtis had gone into music full time, listing himself as an orchestra musician. Four years later, Paul started traveling with his father at age 12, largely on the Chatauqua Vaudeville circuit, a program designed to bring all types of culture to small town America, from 1915 to 1917. Paul later noted that this was the time in which he took a great interest in the rags of the famous composers of that era, including Scott Joplin and W.C. Handy.
     However, the composer/performer that influenced Paul the most was "Jelly Roll" Morton, who was making a name for himself on the west coast during that period. Lingle also attended the 1915 World's Fair in San Francisco with his father, where the New York dynamo Mike Bernard and local Oakland whiz kid Jay Roberts performed. Near the end of the fair he encountered Morton's live performances for the first time and was hooked. Something Paul also learned while on the road was that musicians without a familiar name only get paid for playing what's in style, so he made sure to always adapt. He continued on his own after World War One, and in spite of his love for ragtime, quickly learned that jazz was taking over, so simply shifted his style a bit.
     By 1919 Lingle had moved to California where he would spend the next three decades. He started working in some of the mining areas of Central and Southern California. In 1920, Paul is shown in San Bernardino in Southern California as a pianist/musician, at the slightly inflated age of 19, and on his own. That same year found him at the Del Mar club up in San Francisco. During that stint he availed himself of the opportunity as often as he could to hear Joseph "King" Oliver and his New Orleans jazz band playing at the Pagoda Ballroom on Market Street. After drifting around several venues in California, Paul settled in Los Angeles for a while, playing with the Oaks Tavern Players, a small orchestra managed by Oaks Tavern owner Frank Relter. Paul finally worked started his own group in 1925 at Mike Lyman's Tent Café in Los Angeles that featured Larry Shields of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band on clarinet. The following year found him at Balboa Island with the orchestra of Jimmy Grier, a clarinetist who had recently left Gus Arnheim's orchestra, in a group that included trombonist Glenn Miller. In 1928 Paul was back in San Francisco fronting his own small band at Fior D'Italia, but he also worked on some ocean cruise lines from time to time over the next decade as indicated by ship's manifests, preferring cruises to the Orient and back.
     Paul's propensity for ragtime rhythms and his work in both Southern and Northern California got Lingle an invitation to come to Warner Brothers Studios to perform behind none other than Al Jolson in a couple of his early films, including The Singing Fool (sometimes referred to as Sonny Boy in 1928 and Mammy in 1930. There are rumors that he had also played for the single live dialog scene in The Jazz Singer but that was actually his colleague Bert Fisk. Lingle seems to have favored the Barbary Coast over Los Angeles, and commented later that he felt that Hollywood was becoming too commercial and wasn't fun anymore." By mid 1930 he was a Bay Area resident. Paul was living in San Francisco with his singer wife of at around three years, Bertha "Betty" Lingle (of Russian parentage), listed as a musician who was employed "anywhere." This was essentially true as Lingle was seen virtually everywhere in the Bay Area for the next 22 years.
     During the 1930s Lingle became a regular with trumpeter Al Zohn's jazz band, and was soon frequently employed by many radio stations either for background or foreground piano, primarily as a staff pianist at KPO. Most of what he played was contemporary to the time, but he would break out in a rag or two with his heavy left-hand keeping a steady thumping rhythm, one of the few players who continued to do so during the largely ragtime-deficit decade. In order to supplement the playing work during the lean years of the Great Depression, Paul also took up piano tuning as a trade, some weeks preferring that to the rigors of late night performance. Just the same, associates say that he could drink with the best of them and still play flawlessly. One story concerns when he was rooming with another musician in an apartment with Murphy-bed variations that stored under a nook in the wall. He evidently came home plastered, so a couple of the guys there pushed his bed into its nook and locked it up for the night. When he woke with a hangover to find solid wood only a couple of inches from his face, he evidently shouted out "Oh my God! They've buried me alive!"
     Another fine Lingle story that could be about any number of pianists, including his associate Burt Bales, was about an odd noise. When he was doing one of his regular shows at KPO a disturbing noise kept coming over the speakers in addition to the piano. The engineers apparently took apart and reassembled much of the electronic pathway to find the offending noise, in the end someone discovered it by standing in the studio as Lingle performed. It was Paul who was humming - somewhat out of tune - as he played. This comes across clearly in some of the rare recordings left behind. Paul was also known to be moody with effervescent highs and depressive lows, often taking visible offense if the listening audience simply didn't seem to appreciate what he was playing. Lingle was, perhaps (unsubstantiated but representative), a victim of mild bi-polar disorder.
     By 1940 Lingle was actually tuning much more than playing, having moved down south from the Bay Area to Santa Cruz. He felt that tuning was a much more profitable and respectable profession. This was the time when trumpeter Lu Watters, who had worked with Lingle several times in the 1930s, and fellow ragtime pianist Wally Rose were building up a head of steam for what would be come the great traditional jazz revival of the 1940s. They formed the Yerba Buena Jazz Band in 1939 or 1940, and Paul had been part of the original core of that group until Watters chose Rose to replace him. The group started making recordings in late 1941 and early 1942.
     World War II interrupted any normalcy that was to be had, and they would not fully reassemble until 1946. During the war when Rose was off in the United States Navy, as much of the group as possible was performing locally using Burt Bales and Forrest Brown as fill-in pianists. Lingle and Watters, both very strong-headed and uncompromising, were often at odds, and ended up not speaking for several years. Bob Helm postulated that it was because Paul, being primarily a solo pianist, might have tried to control the tempo and dynamics of a tune from his position at the keyboard. Otherwise there would have potentially been recordings of Lingle with the group. Moving back to the Bay Area from Santa Cruz in late 1943, he worked for a while at a 24 hour bar in Richmond, California, near the Kaiser ship yards. In 1943 and 1944 jazz historian Rudi Blesh held a series of concerts and seminars at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Lingle played in ensembles for several of those concerts. According to trombonist Bill Bardin, Paul had a method of accenting chords that involved a brief rise from the bench so he could throw most of his body weight behind the crashing chord. It was not used often, but made its point when exercised.
     War time gigs were not always plentiful, but musicians were necessary for both civilian and military morale, especially in Oakland and San Francisco were both the Navy and Marines had bases. One of the places with which he fronted small ensembles to orchestras was the Broadway Dancing Academy in Oakland. It was literally a grind and referred to either as a "dime jig" or a "grind." The work was tedious and grueling, where the band played 90 to 120 second tunes for the dime-a-dance crowd, sometimes playing as many as 200 a night. His core ensemble consisted of himself, Bill Bardin on trombone, Al Zohn on trumpet, and Ellis Horne on clarinet. Paul had to pick the repetoire, set the tempo, and play almost the entire time, certainly more than anybody else. However, Bardin was of the opinion that Paul held the position because he could play however he wanted with dictation from the management. He was always there with his trusty tuning hammer and a case full of lead sheets. After a long time on the gig, Paul had a falling out with Ellis and the ensemble started to crumble from that time. He eventually left the grueling dance work for a new gig Oakland's Jug Club.
     That Lingle truly loved the material of the ragtime era and just beyond was quite clear. On V-J Day in 1945, Lingle told his wife Betty, "I'm glad the war is over." She was a little surprised he even knew of the event since Paul was often in his own world. "Why, Paul?" she asked. "Because now I can play 'Japanese Sandman' again."
     As the post-war traditional jazz revival grew, so did Lingle's reputation for his highly original ragtime and Jelly Roll Morton interpretations. He again became a fixture in San Francisco and a hot ticket in the clubs, usually as a solo performer. Evidently he was in demand based on his reputation, as blues guitarist Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter) had asked him to be his accompanist while performing in town, and cornetist Bunk Johnson befriended Lingle, teaching him many of the old New Orleans tunes he had been playing for so many years. Pauls range was also extraordinary, as he could play at a whisper one moment then break strings or hammers the next (it's a good thing he was a piano technician!). While he had often been hard to find by his fans, Paul found steady gigs for fairly long periods at the Jug Club in Oakland and, in 1949, the Paper Doll club on Union Street in San Francisco, a place that he said catered to "all three sexes." At some point in the early 1950s Paul and Betty were divorced.
     The one thing his fans were not able to find were recordings of the legendary Lingle at their local record store. While he felt all right live and in a radio studio, Paul shied away from the traditional recording studios for a long time. He told people that he just did not feel he was ready to record anything for posterity. However, in addition to a few surviving radio show transcriptions, some friends and fans managed to make some wire recordings and early magnetic tape recordings of Lingle in action from 1947 to 1951. While hardly under the best of conditions, and with dropouts and background noise limiting the fidelity, they still captured his range well. The best of these were made by an associate, Charles Campbell, in 1951 at the Jug Club. In order to get past Lingle's paranoia of recording equipment, Campbell let Lingle know simply that he would be recording, but did not say when. On the night he got the bulk of his tapes, Campbell and recordist Stan Page made sure the equipment was fairly well hidden so as to not throw Paul off. The fare from that session was mostly ragtime, which had recently come back into national vogue through the widespread popularity of Lou Busch at Capitol Records, and includes pieces not likely recorded in years, such as Good Gravy Rag and Pastime Rag #3. Also included were two of his own compositions, Black and Blue Rag and Dance of the Witch Hazels, the latter which incorporates elements of another Barbary Coast pianist's work, Jay Robert's Entertainer's Rag. Through the diligence of Paul Affeldt and his Euphonic label, most of these tracks were released from the 1970s to the 1990s on three albums, and many are still available on CD, even if out of print.
     The person who first brought the Yerba Buena Jazz Band to the public through recordings on Watter's West Coast Jazz label, Lester Koenig, now had his own record company in 1951, Good Time Jazz. Koenig had hoped for over a decade to get Lingle into a studio just so something more "professional" could be released of his work. He was offered the Jug Club tapes but preferred to have the studio recordings. After some persistence on Lester's part, Lingle finally relented and came down to Hollywood in February of 1952. He recorded at least eleven cuts during three sessions at Radio Recorders, essentially the primary studio of Capitol Records, from February 11-13. Eight of these tracks were released on Good Time Jazz GTJ-13 in 1953 and two on a single. The remaining cut, Maple Leaf Rag, would surface many years later. By 1953, however, Lingle, who had long held the theory that as one gets older they simply should go to a warmer climate, had picked up his belongings and escaped the mainland to Hawaii where he would spend his remaining years.
     Although Paul's original intent was to resume life as a piano tuner, he soon remarried, opened a small piano instruction studio, and eventually worked with bands entertaining tourists in Honolulu throughout the rest of the 1950s. Years of alcohol consumption, reportedly heavy at time, finally caught up with the dynamic pianist. Paul Lingle died just short of his 60th birthday in 1962. Thanks to Koenig, and following his initial efforts, others who have released the various nightclub recordings, transcriptions and private acetates, his legacy remains with us. Virtually any ragtime pianist who got their start in the 1950s and 1960s, including the author, will cite Paul Lingle as one of their primary influences; if not for style, at least for content and passion - all that from a few stories and ten storied cuts on vinyl.

     If you want to hear Paul Lingle's dynamic playing, please consider the following two fine CD Recordings:

They Tore My Playhouse Down      Paul Lingle Live at the Jug Club

     Some of the information contained within this biography came from liner notes by Robert Helm, Charles Campbell, Paul Affeldt and Lester Koenig, and a couple of stories related by historian Richard Zimmerman. The remaining information was researched by the author from accounts found in periodicals of the time and other public records.

Joseph William Mayerl (May 31, 1902 to March 25, 1959)
Compositions
1919 Egyptian Suite    Souvenir    Song of the Desert    Patrol of the Camels 1924 Georgie Porgie [w/Paul Gee] 1925 The Jazz Master Eskimo Shivers Jazzaristrix The Jazz Mistress Virginia Creeper All-of-a-Twist 1926 Loose Elbows Antiquary Jack-in-the-Box Sleepy Piano 1927 Puppets Suite:    Golliwog    Judy    Punch Hollyhock Chopsticks Marigold 100 Syncopated Breaks 1928 Three Miniatures:    Cobweb    The Muffin Man    Clockwork Pastoral Sketches:    A Legend    Lovers' Lane    A Village Festival Robots Honky Tonk 1929 What Care I [1] Jasmine Wistaria Legends of King Arthur:    Prelude    Merlin, the Wizard    The Sword Excalibur    Lady of the Lake    Guinevere    The Passing of King Arthur Three Contrasts    The Ladybird    Pastorale    Fiddle Dance 1930 Ev'ry Hour of the Day [1] It Must Be You [1] Three Dances in Syncopation    English Dance    Cricket Dance    Harmonica Dance Three Japanese Pictures    Almond Blossom    A Temple in Kyoto    Cherry Dance 1931 Pastorale Exotique Honeysuckle Mignonette) Oriental Scallywag Six Studies in Syncopation    (Book 1)    (Book 2)    (Book 3) 1932 Autumn Crocus White Heather Carminetta Penny Whistle Weeping Willow 1933 Canaries' Serenade Musical Moments:    Beside a Rustic Bridge    Little Lady from Spain    May Morning    Many Years Ago    My Party Frock    Air de Ballet Four Aces Suite    Ace of Clubs    Ace of Diamonds    Ace of Hearts    Ace of Spades Three Syncopated Rambles    The Junior Apprentice    Printer's Devil    6 a.m. - The Milkman	1934 Siberian Lament The Joker Nimble-Fingered Gentleman Stepping Tones    Fascinating Ditty    Hop-o'-my-Thumb 1935 Orange Blossom Bats in the Belfry Green Tulips Mistletoe Twenty to One (Musical)    I'm At Your Service    I'm Going To Be Good    How Do You Like Your Eggs Fried? 1936 Shallow Waters Over She Goes [w/Stanley Lupino] I Breathe on Windows [1] [w/Desmond     Carter] 1937 Aquarium Suite    Willow Moss    Moorish Idol    Fantail    Whirligig 1938 From a Spanish Lattice Song of the Fir Tree Railroad Rhythm Song of the Fir-Tree Parade of the Sandwich-Board Men Sweet William 1939 The Harp of the Winds 1940 Leprechaun's Leap Insect Oddities    Wedding of an Ant    Ladybird Lullaby    Praying Mantis    Beetle in the Bottle 1943 Fireside Fusiliers 1945 April's Fool Minuet for Pamela Evening Primrose 1946 In My Garden: Autumntime    Misty Lawn    Amber Leaves    Hollyberry In My Garden - Wintertime    Christmas Rose    The First Snowdrop    Evergreen 1947 In My Garden - Springtime    Cherry Blossom    Carpet of Yellow    April Showers In My Garden: Summertime    Meadowsweet    Japonica    Alpine Bluebell Romanesque 1948 These Precious Things [w/Howard     Alexander] The Big Top    Ringmaster    Clowning    Entry of the Trick Cyclists    Dancing Horse    Trapeze 1951 Postman's Knock Capvinella (for Violin and Piano) 1952 Beguine Impromptu Look Lively 1954 Crystal Clear 1955 Jill All Alone Filigree 1956 Minuet by Candlelight Waltz for a Lonely Heart 1957 Funny Peculiar Maids of Honour Sussex Downs Vienna Story 1959 Theme from Majestic Interlude    1. w/Frank Eyton

     England's crown jewel of novelty and syncopated piano compositions, Billy Mayerl, was born in 1902 on London's West End. He took to the piano at a very early age, and by the time he was seven he was advanced enough to be studying at the Trinity College of Music. For all of the tenet of theory and harmony they taught him, his added ingredients of syncopation and musical wit surpassed those studies in short order. His earliest paying gigs included playing piano at the usual dances of the 1910s as well as accompanying silent movies in London and beyond. His wit translated particularly well to the movies, in which even with the piano, certain aspects of the scenario can be enhanced with the proper background. Not being in structured groups, when he was outside of the traditional schooling, allowed Billy the chance to play around with his own ideas and get audience reaction and feedback at the same time.
     By the time Mayerl was 20 he was the resident pianist for a Southampton hotel. It was there that British bandleader and saxophonist Bert Ralton first heard him, and instantly sought to hire him for his Havana Band (Cuban music had been gaining in popularity throughout the late 1910s) at London's Savoy Hotel. Allowed to more or less be himself within the bounds of the music, Mayerl instantly brought a new level of musicianship and whimsy to the band. Even though he had been classically trained, Billy was quickly gaining a grasp on the popular music repertoire as well as the novelties that were coming out of new school of composition in the U.S., making him an audience favorite. From 1923 to 1926 Mayerl was a featured soloist with the band in the earliest years of the BBC, a time when most people were listening with crystal sets or early ether-tube radios. Having steady work made it easier for him to start composing his own works, and subsequently record them as well. It was during this period that he met and married another pianist, Jill Bernini (who would later help inspire him to work out duet arrangements as well). It was with the band that Mayerl tipped his hat to the talented George Gershwin, who along with Fred and Adele Astaire was becoming a frequent American fixture in London, by playing for the first British performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue on October 28, 1925.
     In 1926 Mayerl left the Havana band to pursue a solo career in recording and composition. While maintaining a schedule with the BBC, he also toured the UK performing in venues of all sizes, taking time off to create increasingly complex syncopations for publication. Among these were his signature tune, Marigold, and the fascinating Chopsticks (not the kiddies' waltz by any stretch). In the late 1920s, working with a couple librettists, Billy also helped write a few musical comedies combining clever musical riffs with often less than clever lyrics. More importantly, he started publishing not just his own works, but some transcriptions of other composer's pieces he had recorded, helping set new standards for interpretation and performance, much as Fats Waller and Art Tatum were doing in the 1930s. One interesting publication consisted of nothing but 100 syncopated breaks, the patterns used during non-melodic portions of a performance, giving out some major secrets of performance while making some money off of other pianists as well.
     In the 1930s, Mayerl established a correspondence course for instruction in piano and composition, a virtual college of sorts, which did very well in spite of the world-wide depression. An increasing number of his compositions were in the form of suites, related pastiches that formed an overall picture of something. The most famous of these was his Four Aces Suite, which was published for both two and four hands. In response to one of the titles bestowed upon him by admiring music critics, he also composed The Nimble Fingered Gentleman, which would be associated with him throughout his career. The run of good fortune ended in 1940 as the UK became a victim of Nazi aggression, limiting opportunities for Mayerl's line of work. He spent the war primarily in London, although publishing very little during this time, and mostly recording when conditions allowed.
     Once peace had been reestablished, Billy renewed his ties with radio, a medium that had gained a larger following just before and throughout the war. He also jumped hemispheres bringing his music briefly to the US, then on to Australia and New Zealand. One of his most interesting late works comes from right after the war, four suites of three pieces each titled In My Garden, his contribution to the legacy of pieces about the four seasons. During the 1950s he made limited appearances, but still put out new publications from time to time. Billy Mayerl (a heavy smoker for many years) finally met his demise from a heart attack in 1959. His novelties remain popular into the 21st century, being rediscovered by a new generation of ragtime and stride pianists.

Ferdinand Joseph Lamothe "Jelly Roll" Morton (September 20, 1890 - July 10, 1941)
Compositions
c.1910s Bert Williams The Naked Dance Buddy Bolden's Blues[?] Winin' Boy Blues 1915 [Original] Jelly Roll Blues [Chicago     Blues] Superior Rag 1918 Frog-I-More Rag [Froggie Moore]     [Sweetheart o' Mine] c.1920s The Perfect Rag [Sporting House Rag] Don't You Leave Me Here Mushmouth Shuffle Good Old New York 1923 Grandpa's Spells Wolverine Blues [The Wolverines] Kansas City Stomp The Pearls Mr. Jelly Lord Big Foot Ham [Big Fat Ham]     [Ham and Eggs] 1924 King Porter Stomp Mama'nita 1925 New Orleans Blues [New Orleans Joys] Milenberg Joys London [Cafe] Blues     [Shoe Shiner's Drag] Midnight Mama [Tom Cat Blues] Shreveport Stomp 1926 State and Madison Sidewalk Blues Billy Goat Stomp Black Bottom Stomp [Queen of Spades] Chicago Breakdown [Stratford Hunch] Dead Man Blues The Chant Fat Meat and Greens Cannon Ball Blues 1927 Jungle Blues Wild Man Blues Hyena Stomp 1928 Buffalo Blues [Mister Joe] Boogaboo Low Gravy	1928 (Cont) Georgia Swing Deep Creek Blues Red Hot Pepper 1929 Burnin' the Iceberg Seattle Hunch Pretty Lil Turtle Twist Fussy Mabel Freakish Sweet Peter Each Day Little Lawrence New Orleans Bump Smilin' the Blues Away c.1930s Jazz Jamboree Michigan Water Blues The Finger Breaker [Finger Buster] The Crave Creepy Feeling Mamacita Bucktown Blues Dirty, Dirty, Dirty Anamule Dance Spanish Swat 1930 If Someone Would Only Love Me My Little Dixie Home That's Like it Ought to Be Burning' the Iceberg Pontchatrain [Blues] I'm Looking for a Little Bluebird That'll Never Do Strokin' Away Oil Well Dixie Knows Primrose Stomp Crazy Chords Harmony Blues Load of Coal 1931 [Fat] Frances Pep Fickle Fay Creep 1932 Gambling Jack 1936 My Home is In a Southern Town 1938 Sweet Substitute Mamie's Blues

     The self-proclaimed inventor of Jazz and Stomp music, Morton grew up in the right environment to absorb a variety of musical influences: New Orleans, Louisiana. Born out of wedlock (the date is disputed as the baptismal record shows October 20), he eventually adopted for his own a variation of his stepfathers name, Mouton. Considered a true Creole, he was a mulatto, which created its own set of difficulties, as the darker communities did not always accept light skinned blacks, yet they were still too black for the white communities. Ferdinand got past this by communicating through music. He learned guitar at age 7, and piano at 10. In his teens, Morton became one of the most renowned pianists in Storyville, the red light district of New Orleans.
     In 1904, Morton traveled to St. Louis to play at the Lewis and Clark Exposition, likely on the Pike, and to absorb local musical influences. There was a contest there that he says he demurred from due to the presence of Tony Jackson playing there. However, from this point on, he lived the ultimate itinerant pianist's life, traveling from town to town, carousing with local women, hustling in pool halls, and taking in the culture wherever he went. Morton's style was unique and emulated by many pianists, although rarely duplicated. It had a bounce to it, and he used many chord inversions instead of expected chord placements. His music was also more instrumental in nature, as he played and recorded with many groups, and was able to imitate various instruments in his playing. Among the most influential stops in his travels were extended stays in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the San Diego/Tijuana area. At the latter, he took in a lot of the Mexican and Latin influences, and wrote a series of "Spanish tinge" pieces. A ladies man to the end, he also married at least once during this time, and later had a common-law marriage that lasted to the end of his life.
     "Jelly Roll" spent several years out on the west coast, playing from Los Angeles up through the Barbary Coast area around San Francisco, including an appearance near the end of the 1915 Worlds Fair in the Bay Area. In 1917 Morton registered for the draft in Los Angeles, yet he gave a Chicago address and listed an employer in San Francisco. During this period he may have finally been based in Chicago, as many of his peers would be within the next two to three years, but still traveling in the west. In the 1920's, Morton spent a great deal of time in Chicago where he did a lot of recording with his own band, the Red Hot Peppers. Their recordings were legendary and quickly became best sellers in the Victor catalog. He also absorbed a lot of blues influence during this stay, and wrote many of his finest blues pieces while in Chicago, and later in New York. One of his more important positions while in Chicago was as a composer and staff arranger for the Melrose Brothers Music Company, which was responsible for putting many of the early traditional jazz works into print. By the mid 1930's, Morton had moved from New York to Washington, D.C., where he was all but forgotten in the wake of the swing era.
     Morton worked in and may have had some ownership in a downtown Washington D.C. bar, where he was fortuitously rediscovered by historian Alan Lomax in 1938. With the help of the Library of Congress, Lomax took Morton to an auditorium in Washington to do a series of recordings of Morton's music and stories of his life, from which he derived the first printed biography of the jazz master, albeit with many holes and misinformation. Jelly Roll was so encouraged by this interest that he went back to New York, ignoring his failing health and advice from his friends, and attempted a comeback through some recording sessions. He even joined ASCAP in 1939, very late in his career.
     Morton's movements of this time period are largely known through a series of passionate letters to his second wife. In late 1940, his health deteriorating, he went to Los Angeles in an attempt to regain some of it. He reportedly had a short stay at the house of his brother-in-law through his first wife, another stride pianist, Ollie "Dink" Johnson, then was admitted to Los Angeles County General Hospital where he died. However, the extraordinary legacy of piano rolls, recordings and publications left behind remain among the finest artifacts of the ragtime and jazz eras to this day.
     It should be noted that "Jelly Roll" Morton was unique among all of his peers. He carefully constructed his works and was meticulous about the development of his pieces, largely through his knowledge of other instruments, which helped him to create band-like arrangements for solo piano. A lot of the materiel he left us was not recorded or notated until after the Library of Congress recordings in 1938. So it is hard to pinpoint original composition dates. He also seemed to reuse a lot of his tunes with slightly different developments under different titles. There are probably many more tunes that we may never know about, but what was left behind certainly whets the appetite for traditional jazz fans to hear more.

     This is only an overview of Morton's life, peripheral to ragtime in many respects. For a much more complete look at this piano great's life and music, please spend some time at Mike Meddings' extraordinary site, www.doctorjazz.co.uk.