Both Fats Waller and Duke Ellington learned to play Carolina Shout by watching this player piano roll. This roll version is a little longer than the 78 RPM record that JPJ made about the same time. You can compare the two by listening to the 78 at Red Hot Jazz.com
Good point - this I cannot account for. The JRM acoustic recordings from only 2 years later also do not have this problem. It would seem that certain high frequencies showed up on recordings with an "out-of-tune" sound. I'm still fairly certain that is the case here, but I could definitely be wrong.
ragtimemax 1 year ago
OK then how come the piano on Jimmy Blythe's recordings of "Chicago Stomp" and "Armour Ave. Struggle" sounds in-tune, given that it's also an acoustic recording, from only three years later? (1924).
KawhackitaRag 1 year ago
Actually, the "out-of-tune" sound on some records like the 1921 Carolina Shout seems to be an artifact of the medium rather than the piano it was recorded on; this can be tested by taking a modern piano recording, and setting the sample rate to about 3000 Hz! And to "AeolianHall1" - thanks for your postings! Many of them are among my all-time favourite rolls!
ragtimemax 1 year ago
My only beef at all is that your piano is a bit out-of-tune, but then again, so is the piano Johnson had to play on his 1921 audio recording!
KawhackitaRag 1 year ago
Thanks for posting this historically important piano roll! I hope lots of people get to see and hear it!
KawhackitaRag 1 year ago