100 year old piano, or close to it

[David Nereson]

pianotune05 wrote:

> I hear a 68 year old piano on an old recording of a Chicago Blues jazz 
> boogie woogie player, Albert Ammons.  The piano sounded out of tune.  
> I often comment to my wife how some pianos sound out of tune on 
> recordings, even in some of the 50s and 60s oldies I 've noticed out 
> of tuneness in their pianos as I listened.
> Marshall

    Many many records have out of tune pianos on them, especially in 
jazz and blues recordings, and some country-western.  I have recordings 
by the greats in those fields and the pianos are out of tune, even for 
the likes of Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Horace Silver, Fats Waller, Otis 
Spann, et al., ad nauseam.   A lot of them are live recordings in clubs 
where the club owner wouldn't spring for a piano tuner,  especially for  
"low-down" music like blues and jazz, and especially if the artist was 
black.  But some are in recording studios.  If it wasn't "classical," a 
lot of times they wouldn't bother to tune the piano.  
    Things became a little better, but only a little, as jazz began to 
get some respect.  And probably the artists started insisting on having 
an in-tune piano, at least if they had the clout to do so.  But even in 
the late 70's, I saw Keith Jarrett at the renowned Village Vanguard in 
New York and Keith had to come in early with his own tuning hammer to 
touch up the tuning because the cheap-ass owner wouldn't pay to have it 
done.
    It's not the recording -- the pianos sound out of tune because they 
ARE out of tune. 
    --David Nereson, RPT