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Choice Of Tunes For Rolls
By Art Reblitz

P. M. Keast was an editor of coin-operated rolls for QRS (1917-1921),
then for the Clark Orchestra Roll Co. (1921-1924), and finally for
Capitol (1924-1930).  I corresponded with him in 1969, and then
interviewed him (with Dave Junchen, Dave Ramey and Tom Sprague) in
December 1970.  Transcriptions of what we learned appear on p. 721-722
of Dave Bowers' "Encyclopedia," and on p.132-135 of  "Treasures of
Mechanical Music," by me and Dave Bowers.

Mr. Keast said this regarding the selection of tunes for coin-operated
music rolls (quoted from "Treasures of Mechanical Music"):

    "When I was working at Clark, I used to come into Seeburg once a
    month and meet Mr. Kazecki for a music selection conference. He had
    charge of that program.  We would make up the content of the rolls,
    and then I'd go back and we'd work them out.  I don't remember any
    instance of a publisher bringing us sheet music like they bring it
    to a band leader to have a new song plugged.  We never put anything
    on the rolls that wasn't already reasonably popular. Ten songs per
    roll was a limited number, and when Mr. Kazecki and I made up the
    list we chose the ten that we thought were the most popular and
    would 'sell' on a coin-operated machine. That's the name of the
    game, I guess."

Art Reblitz


(Message sent Wed 15 Jun 2005, 13:10:13 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.)

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