"It Must Be Someone Like You" played by Joseph Samuels' Music Makers

It Must Be Someone Like You (Frost - Straight - Bargy)
Joseph Samuels' Music Makers
Pathé Actuelle 020631
(78 rpm record)
The almost completely unknown Joseph Samuels in one his earlier recordings. Two of the composers of this tune (Charley Straight and Roy Bargy) were phenomenal pianists who made piano roll arrangements for QRS piano roll company, and wrote a number of excellent piano rags, some quite virtuosic.
Johnson & Shirley (American Dance Bands on Record and Film 1915 - 1942) give the following personnel:
Joseph Samuels (clarinet, bass sax, violin, director?); Jules Levy Jr., or Julie Berkin and possibly Hymie Farberman (trumpet); possibly Ephraim Hannaford (trombone); possibly Guy Shrigley (tenor & alto sax); Larry Briers (piano); unknown banjo, brass bass, and drums.
Recorded in New York, c. August 1921.
Images from discogs.com, archive.org, and Wikipedia. Noise reduced by using Vinyl Studio software.

[@rjtwigg1]

A good tune with a good orchestra. I have a 1921 recording of this with the Benson Orchestra of Chicago, Roy Bargy. The recording has usual surface noise, but it's clear. A rare recording. Joseph Samuels always had a good orchestra.

[@MatthewDLDavidson]

@@rjtwigg1 thanks for the positive comments. I agree with you on all counts! 🙂 and yes, the Benson/Bargy group was outstanding!

[@KawhackitaRag]

Hi thanks for sharing! Regarding Straight and Bargy and rolls: Straight indeed was a QRS house pianist from 1914 to 1917 when he left to become recording director at the rival Imperial Music Roll Co. in Chicago. Straight's earliest rolls were mostly QRS Autograph instrumental rolls and mostly in the 100,000 series. These include pop songs, some rags (mostly fox-trot rags) composed by others, and some of his own rags (many of which were never originally published). Some of his Autograph rolls of songs were also issued in Word roll editions starting in 1916 (notably "Pretty Baby" which was the first official QRS Word roll, number 100). Straight's work with Imperial dates from 1917-1921, and includes mostly Word rolls, and some instrumental rolls, including several more of his original compositions. He also played duets at Imperial with various other pianists including Roy Bargy, Jack Clyde, Burt Franklin, Arnold Johnson, and probably others. At the end of 1921, the QRS company bought out Imperial, mainly to put a major rival out of business (I *think*). QRS kept the "Imperial" label going through 1938 or so as a subsidiary brand, although now made with arrangements by them, probably since the "Imperial" label had by then garnered such a strong and loyal following among roll buyers in the general public. Some of the Imperial real pianist names were retained by QRS for a couple years, mainly during their "X5000" series era for QRS made "Imperial" rolls. These included Bob Alden, Jack Clyde, Burt Franklin, and George Stanley. I am not sure whether Straight's name appeared on a QRS-made Imperial roll. However it has been demonstrated that at least some of these QRS-made Imperial rolls, had nothing to do with the pianist names used and no relevance to their earlier styles: Indeed, several known c. 1922-1925 QRS-made "Imperial" rolls are demonstrably the work of QRS artists like Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Victor Arden, Max Kortlander, etc etc. By about 1926, QRS made Imperial rolls were in the 6000s and now had a zero-prefix, so 06000. By this era, the brand started losing its distinct identity with distinct arrangements, and conforming more and more to the official QRS arrangement of the same tune, but often with fewer verses or choruses to save paper. By the late 20s or early 30s, they were the same. Also, in his 1962 interview, J. Lawrence Cook reported that QRS used a different reduction gear on the perforator for Imperial rolls, to pull the paper through at a different rate to save paper (and hence make the rolls cheaper). After the stock market crash, the budget-priced Imperial rolls far outsold their pricier QRS equivalents during the Depression years. Indeed, QRS-branded rolls from about 1930-1942 (in their 5000s and 6000s series) are all very rare today and are among the rarest of all QRS word rolls. Enough about Imperial: By 1922 Straight was leading his own dance band in Chicago, and I think this profoundly changed his piano style, which (IMO) seemed to be unchanged from 1912 to 1917 or so, when he started 'modernizing' probably thanks to his constant exposure (as recording director) to more highly schooled and classically trained pianists at Imperial like Bargy, Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, Mary Angell, McNair Ilgenfritz, etc etc. No doubt these artists helped expand Straight's horizons, and his song arrangements get progressively more adventurous in the late 'teens. However I detect an even more profound break in his style from 1921 to 1924, when he again made some rolls, for U. S. Music and then a couple for QRS as a guest pianist. (He then made a few more in 1926 again as a guest pianist, and probably in their Chicago studio). By 1924-1926, Straight's piano style had changed profoundly and greatly modernized from what he played before. I firmly believe it was his work leading a dance band and constantly writing arrangements for the band, which led him to modernize in ways he never had to before, due to influence from listening to so many other arrangements/arrangers, and especially horn players. An outstanding example of Straight's later era style is his roll of "(You Forgot to) Remember" which is posted on Bruce Newman's channel (DuoArtOrgan).

[@MatthewDLDavidson]

@@KawhackitaRag Thanks for your kind words and amazing input/information!

[@KawhackitaRag]

Regarding Bargy's rolls: Roy Bargy was reportedly hired by Imperial right after the WWI armistice (he had been leading a band at a camp in the Southern USA I believe, having gone into training only a short while before the war was over). Apparently his talents were legendary already by that time despite having made no known recordings. He made his first Imperial rolls in the Summer or Fall of 1919 and they were issued in the Fall. Pretty soon he became a mainstay pianist at Imperial, both solo and in duet (usually with Straight). Also in 1919 he got to make a record with Straight (and Paul Biese on sax) for Emerson records, as "The Imperial Three". This showcases how Straight and Bargy actually sounded playing in duet, and their arrangements on this record are very musically adventurous. Bargy remained with Imperial until late 1921 when QRS bought them out. Bargy is not known to have ever made any rolls at all for QRS on any label. However he was already leading a dance band in Chicago by that time, thanks to booking agent Edgar Benson ("The Benson Orchestra of Chicago"). Thus he was occupied with band work after the buy-out and didn't get to make more rolls until about 1927-28, when he was hired by Paul Whiteman for his orchestra, and also signed a contract with the American Piano Co. to make Ampico reproducing piano rolls. I think they only ended up issuing 6 rolls of his (whether due to a hectic performing / touring schedule with Whiteman, or what, I'm not sure), which is unfortunate because IMO they are excellent. These include the instrumentals "Pianoflage", "Ruffenreddy", and "Flapperette", and the songs "Just Another Day Wasted Away", "My Ohio Home", and "Chlo-e". Reportedly, Bargy recorded several other performances for Ampico which remained unissued, but the masters for at least one or two of them (more?) apparently still exist with Keystone Music Rolls (Richard Groman) in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, who have the Ampico roll perforators. I would certainly love to hear whatever Bargy performances he has that have never been commercially issued!

[@MatthewDLDavidson]

@@KawhackitaRag Thanks for this excellent contribution, much appreciated!