[Dixielandjazz] Lost artefacts

[John Farrell]

Hans Koert wondered :


"I wonder how it is possible that this record could hide itself for such a
 long time, while No. 2 is in nearly every Durium collection."

There must be quite a number of items which, although their existence has
been proved, continue to defy discovery. For many years I have been hunting
for the Fats Waller piano roll of West Indies Blues, released in the early
1920s on the Standard Play-A-Roll label. It is in no known collection, none
of my serious piano roll collector friends has ever seen a copy of it.

There are also several Morton piano rolls still missing, in recent years two
of them turned up but where are the others?

Joplin's score of his opera "A Guest Of Honor" has never been found.

I remember passing through Hannibal, Missouri some years ago with an
American friend. We scoured all the junk shops there finding some
interesting things including an original piano roll of  Magnetic Rag. A
couple of years later the Mississippi burst its banks and my friend sent me
a photograph which showed that most of Hannibal had been submerged in the
disaster so perhaps events such as this might explain why so much historical
stuff in our area of interest has disappeared over the years.

John Farrell
stridepiano at tesco.net
http://homepages.tesco.net/~stridepiano/midifiles.htm