Charles Luckey Roberts - Nothin' 1958 (Superfast Harlem Stride Piano Synthesia)
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- Nothin' by Charles Luckey Roberts
Transcribed by Paul Marcorelles from @blueblackjazz
check out the transcription: blueblackjazz....
And of course check out his site for all available transcriptions: www.blueblackj...
Original recording: • Luckey Roberts - Nothin'
Wikipedia:
Charles Luckyth Roberts, better known as Luckey Roberts, was an American composer and stride pianist who worked in the jazz, ragtime, and blues styles.
Luckey Roberts was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was playing piano and acting professionally with traveling Negro minstrel shows in his childhood. He settled in New York City about 1910 and became one of the leading pianists in Harlem, and started publishing some of his original rags.
Roberts toured France and the UK with James Reese Europe during World War I, then returned to New York where he wrote music for various shows and recorded piano rolls.
With James P. Johnson, Roberts developed the stride piano style of playing about 1919.
Roberts' reach on the keyboard was unusually large (he could reach a fourteenth), leading to a rumor that he had the webbing between his fingers surgically cut, which those who knew him and saw him play live denounce as false; Roberts simply had naturally large hands with wide finger spread.
In the 1920s, Roberts teamed up with lyricist Alex C. Rogers and co-wrote three Broadway musicals, Go-Go (1923), Sharlee (1923) and My Magnolia (1926), the later which starred Adelaide Hall, a major black revue star.
Luckey Roberts noted compositions include "Junk Man Rag", "Moonlight Cocktail", "Pork and Beans", and "Railroad Blues". "Moonlight Cocktail" was recorded by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and was the best selling record in the United States for ten weeks in 1942.
An astute businessman, Roberts became a millionaire twice through real estate dealings. He died in New York City.
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The original title of this piece is “Park Avenue Polka”, which is also on the unpublished (or self published?) sheet music, a copy of which Tom Roberts has, I believe (I’ve not yet personally seen it). Besides this excellent transcription by Paul Marcorelles, the intro and A theme has been done beautifully by Riccardo Scivales (not sure whether he ever wrote out the rest), and also Tom Brier wrote out the whole thing by ear (Tom has absolute pitch) on commission for Adam Swanson which is how Adam learned it. I have a copy of Tom’s transcription and I believe it is exact or near exact to the recording (wrong notes and all) instead of “fixed”, so the person learning it can make up their own mind how it is supposed to go. However the sheet music that Tom Roberts has is reportedly beautifully written out by the composer and shows how it is actually supposed to go, at least at the time he wrote it out (minus any later elaborations).
Tom Roberts doesn't sell sheet music or midis right?
You’ll have to ask him. The Luckey Roberts project was probably 30 years ago and I believe it has fallen by the wayside. But there was a lot of stuff going on there, not to mention copyright. I’m sure he could more thoroughly elaborate on this if you message him privately and be mindful of what is kept in the private vs public sphere.
A great piece indeed. More important for me is Tom Brier getting back to his old self after that terrible episode in his innocent life. I pray for him from Chester ,England who plays Blues, Ragtime, Stride, Boogie Woogie and more. Mr Swanson too is brilliant. It would be nice to meet them one day.
Best wishes ,
Pete NJ.
@@itsRemcoI transcribed this by ear as well. The other transcription mentioned has several problems at the end of each phrase in the A strain particularly the ending right hand 10th which should be , from bottom to top C Gb Bb Eb
Andrew I transcribed this back in the late 90’s on the insistence of Leon Redbone. It wasn’t until several years later when I was working on creating his biography with his great granddaughter ( who was also my girlfriend at that time) that we recovered the hand written manuscript that Luckey had prepared for publication. Luckey’s hand writing was pretty terrible after his stroke and there are several examples of it that are now at Rutgers
Cutting contest ? I've love to be a room with Lucky Roberts, Willie " The Lion " Smith, Donald Lambert and Art Tatum ! What a way to spend an afternoon 😂😂❤❤!!
This just brilliant. What a man who is not as famous world wide at the time as the likes of Thomas Fats Waller.
I think this piece of music would have made him a winner in a Cutting contest.
This surely is a battle piece indeed!
Have you see my AI variant video of "Nothin'"?:
ua-cam.com/video/MDdCtzXFMwM/v-deo.html
I’m surprised there aren’t more comments yet on this masterpiece. It’s one of the most difficult rags of all time.
There will be an AI video of this 🔥
I am still working on it so haven’t posted it yet. I play it, but poorly. It usually kills both my hands after I play it and then I can’t play for a while afterwards, although much of this is certainly due to my poor and wrong piano technique as I wasn’t a very good piano student and a headache to my teachers.
@@andrewbarrett1537 I used to be like that as well 😂
Sick
This is pretty catchy
Bonjour ça c'est du stride et du pur !
Woooow that one is great!
I did not know it until now, it is really a masterpiece.
This is "one of those compositions" hahah
It's really a piano battle piece
@@itsRemco hahah yea. But I NEVER EVER would battle luckey
@@itsRemco this piece sounds like something I would hear in a mario game.
@@matleo7988 Almost every Ragtime-like syncopation could be used as Mario music hahhah
Look for Jelly Roll Morton - 8bit music and you'll see 😂
@@itsRemco have you done "Honey babe" by jelly roll Morton, if yes send me a description because I did what you told me check jelly roll Morton 8-bit and I found that song, please send me a description of that but piano please 🙏♥️🙏♥️🙏♥️🙏♥️🙏♥️🙏♥️🙏♥️🙏♥️🙏
It is my personal contention that, after making the 1958 recording and probably being personally dissatisfied with the recording (wrong notes, etc although it’s BRILLIANT and probably no other living pianist in 1958 could play it as well), I imagine when the recording engineer asked Mr. Roberts what the piece was titled, he derisively said “Nothin’ “ due to being unhappy with his performance! Otherwise he may have given them the correct title. Little did he realize that is what they would title it on the album(!!!) (Unless he knew all along and it was some kind of joke). I’m not even certain whether he initially knew they would put it out on the album or not. I have a lot of questions about this. The above is my speculation. From what I understand this piece was originally intended to be used in a musical or stage show by Luckey Roberts written in the 1940s or 1950s, although he claimed the rag itself was composed in 1908, and it could well be that old, although of course rhythmically it is very advanced.
I made a midi file piano roll of this at the same session that produced Spanish Fandango . I know this piece inside out and I wonder why the transcriber added the extra notes at the end of each phrase in the B strain? There are also different bass notes and I wonder if his version of from an alternate take which supposedly was issued on Goodtime Jazz
Super, like James p Johnson and fats waller
Here is the original recording which is unbeatable. Note the wrong notes. Luckey Roberts recorded this in 1958 after (several years before this), having one of his hands shattered in a car crash, and having one or more strokes. If this is him not at his best, then it is awe-inspiring to imagine him in his prime in the ‘teens and ‘twenties when he directly inspired James P. Johnson, Roy Bargy, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, and Matthew “Sugar” Underwood. In fact, one need not imagine since he made 5 piano rolls and a handful of vocal accompaniment audio recordings at this time, demonstrating his easy (for him!) virtuosity.
ua-cam.com/video/3OYENetpEHA/v-deo.html
Thanks for your time writing all that!
Killer tune. Trying to learn this right now but the right hand chromatic ornaments are impossible at this speed, hahaha
Good luck bro, this one is a real challenge hahah
The fast chromatic single-note runs are not to be fingered like in normal piano technique, but instead are played by sliding the fingers from the black keys to the white keys, all the way up. I made a video explaining this which is shown in the group "Ragtime, Novelty and Stride Piano" on Facebook.
@@andrewbarrett1537 Indeed they are! I learned this a while later and now I can play the tune fairly well. Regardless, thanks for the comment!
And the type of "run", so the intro directly at the beginning, from 0:04 to 0:06 has as the biggest interval a 14th. So if we believe what people told about him in the documentary he could play that with one hand 😳😂
When you have claws instead of hands yeah 😂
I understand that in various places during the 1958 session (not necessarily here), he plays 11ths straight on, so no doubt.
*I also have been reading more of the James Drake interviews of (pianist, conductor, composer) Walter "Gus" Haenschen, and in one place Mr. Haenschen mentions that Luckey Roberts had the largest hands / widest hand span of any pianist he had ever met.