The Entertainer's Rag player piano roll

Entertainers Rag is from circa 1911 (or 1910 or 1912 depending upon your source) by Jay Roberts. It is great fun and pulls in all sorts of musical mayhem. Roberts, like fellow ragtime composers Joseph Northrup and Robert Hampton wrote only a few "power rags". The Entertainer's Rag was a million seller like Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag.

Wurlitzer used The Entertainer's Rag in their APP rolls for their orchestrions. The tempo suggestion on this roll is 70. I took it a bit faster than 70, but not as fast as the Wurlitzer APP rolls. One recorded source I listened to used a tempo about like this though it is slow to my ears used to the APP rolls.

I have no idea who recorded this roll. Similarly, there is little information as to the company that produced the roll! Only a logo with "8" on each side and a roll number of 66043 C appears on the roll with "The Emblem of Music Roll Perfection" If anyone has any further information on this roll or the company, please let me know.

"Autopiano" has answered: Your roll was made by the US Music company of Chicago. Mary E. "Mae" Brown arranged a lot of the ragtime rolls and she later became the head of the arranging department, so it's quite possible this is her work. At this time none of the US rolls were handplayed, they were all manually arranged. US was one of the very early music roll companies, and stuck around until about 1925 (from memory), when they were acquired by QRS.

Piano is a Beckwith "garden variety" player piano supposedly built in 1902 (according to serial number sequence) but more likely is from around early 1918.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Player-Piano
• AMICA
• MBSI
• Aeolian
• player
• organ
• ragtime
• Fox
• Trot
• Seeburg
• Nickelodeon
• Model
• Player
• Piano
• Prohibition
• Roaring
• 20's
• twenties
• speak
• easy
• blues

[kmish213]

It's like a ghost is getting a hundred percent on piano hero. I love this, How much do player pianos cost? I need one, I want to buy every piano roll i find and play it.

[Yaledmot]

@kmish213 Start scavaging antique and thrift stores. A friend of mine picked up a "starter" player piano for $100. Sometimes they play sometimes not. There are plenty of good resources out there on how to restore a player. The piano you heard in this video did not cost me anything. Was given to me--it had already been rebuilt but the tubing had rotted. A couple hundred feet of correct rubber tubing and instant player piano!

[nuclearthreat545]

What is this black magic???

[Yaledmot]

@nuclearthreat545 Yes, via black pneumatic cloth.

[rnrnrnaa]

i find it creepy that an old piano can just.... play by itself :|

[Yaledmot]

@rnrnrnaa There is a pneumatic ghost inside.

[FASHIONadrianaGIRL]

when I was young, I saw a piano player roll in a hotel, and I tought there was a ghost who was playing! O_O

[zooeyhall]

This is music you would have heard on the Titanic.

[VwErik88]

Great music!!! and a real piano sound in this too! :)

[nathantech77]

A touch of Dixie land

[er10b]

@Yaledmot which was rather sad for you - you didn't get to keep feeding the nickelodeon :(

[miket1m]

@Yaledmot Its beautiful.