"Kitten On The Keys"- ZEZ CONFREY

Edison DD no.50898-L

Category:

Music

Tags:

• gramophone
• phonograph
• Zez
• Confrey
• Edison
• Diamond
• Disc

[McLellandPianoStudio]

who is playing this? I like the tempo and "nonchalant" character as opposed to all the modern players who go a break-neck speed. And, there IS a slight lilt, though not 'swing'. is this confrey playing?

[gramophoneshane]

It certainly is :)

[KawhackitaRag]

@McLellandPianoStudio [...]

The effect is (the first "da" being beat one of the first bar of the A theme):

DA-da-da-da-DA-da-DA-da-da-da-­DA-da-DA-da-da [etc.]

If you wrote just the accented notes, you would have a pattern of:

half note (beat one), quarter (beat three), quarter tied across the bar to beat one of the next bar, quarter on beat two, half on beat three, etc.

What Confrey is doing here is remarkably complex and also remarkably African. It is also very subtle.

[chaguanas]

This song is mentioned by Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's, in his book. Ray Kroc's former band-mate Harry Sosnick is featured Kitten on the Keys.

[number1muzicguy]

@McLellandPianoStudio Any idea where I can get this exact version on CD?

[McLellandPianoStudio]

@KawhackitaRag

Your description is wonderful! I usually can "copy" a style pretty well, but I have had a dickens of a time getting his timing down. Haven't. Now I see why!

[KawhackitaRag]

I like Kitten On the Keys a lot more (and most old "warhorse" tunes) when I hear it played by the composer himself. There is a certain magic there.

It is like playing a piano roll at the wrong speed, or adding the wrong dynamics... until I play it the proper way, it won't really "send" me or move me. A piano roll has to have a good arrangement to be banged out any old way and still be good.

Likewise, I've heard so many others bang this tune out without properly capturing its subtleties.

[KawhackitaRag]

I often think that Zez Confrey is misunderstood in books about ragtime and jazz, mainly because he was primarily a composer of pop and salon music, a pianist in vaudeville, and a piano roll arranger. He was not purely a jazz or ragtime artist or composer per se, nor can I see evidence that he tried to be one.

In fact, I believe he retired from performing altogether before the 1930s, although he does make an appearance in a 1930s short film.

[KawhackitaRag]

@McLellandPianoStudio And of course, there is also Confrey's use of the 3/8 pattern in the right hand superimposed over the 4/4 in the left hand, which was common in ragtime by then (Paul Sarebresole of New Orleans uses the device in his "Roustabout Rag" of 1897).

However, to his credit, Confrey makes the first two notes (of the groupings of three) two-note intervals, with the third a single note, setting up a natural accent pattern which is easier to hear and understand.

[KawhackitaRag]

@jetkirby111 that is awesome!

I am glad you are able to hear his recordings via Youtube!

[KawhackitaRag]

@McLellandPianoStudio I would call what Confrey is doing a hard swing... it is more than a light lilt to my ears. He also whacks the HELL out of the 3-over-8 pattern... he actually accents certain chosen notes or intervals agogically, not only playing them harder but also longer. [...]

[KawhackitaRag]

@McLellandPianoStudio Yes this is Confrey's own recording, or, rather, one of his recordings, since he made about six different piano solo versions of this in 1921, one each for Brunswick (which was the first audio recording of the tune), Arto, Paramount (the latter under the name "Jimmy O'Keefe"), Edison (this one), Emerson, and finally one (after three recording sessions) with his orchestra for Victor. He also made a piano roll of it for QRS, released in October, 1921.