Mary Angell and Her Associates at Imperial

July 2022 with updates 2024

Artis Wodehouse wrote on July 6, 2022: "I’ve searched the internet for information about Recordo Expression coding, and found the diagram pictured below. My reason for this search was to understand the coding on a Recordo roll of interest to me, the Bach selection by Mary Angell. Angell’s Recordo roll is a different coding system from the diagram pictured. I’m wondering if any experts in this group could direct me to an explanation of the Recordo coding seen on the Angell roll. The coding data doesn’t pirate notes from either side of my standard 88-note tracker bar, so it seems that the Recordo system of the Angell roll may have had additional holes in the tracker bar. On the other hand, the sustain track on the roll is positioned so as to trigger my sustain pedal."

My reply did not concern the details of the Recordo system but rather about Mary Angell:

I must say, it's somewhat unlikely that the dynamics used by Mary Angell are actually what went into the Recordo coding. In 1923, the Recordo company (the only part of the Imperial roll business that was not sold to QRS in January 1922) was still copyrighting their arrangements, as in:

As almost is always the case, the coding is explicitly credited to the busy McNair Ilgenfritz. One finds in a lot of examples that Imperial had Ilgenfritz code an already-released 88-note arrangement for various Cable Co. systems (the Solo Carola being the other well-known one). In such a case, it seems pretty unlikely that the pianist who recorded the original 88-note version was consulted by Ilgenfritz on the proper expression coding. The fact that Imperial attempted to copyright all of their arrangements after about spring of 1919, meaning that there are hundreds of entries like this in the catalog of copyright entries, means an extremely valuable look at the detailed way that a major roll company operated at the time is available.

Browsing through the Catalog of Copyright Entries will yield any amount of information you want about the operations of the Imperial Player Roll Co. in the 1919-1922 period. For more examples relevant to this discussion, here is another case where Mary Angell recorded the 88-note version of a classical composition on 513650, then McNair Ilgenfritz clearly was responsible for the expression coding on Solo Carola 74125:

Another example, Imperial 513690 is the 88-note version:

And the Ilgenfritz contribution, Imperial Automatic Electric (the original Recordo, as Andrew E. Barrett says) 65520. Also, they didn't say who made the coding for the Solo Carola version on 74046, but surely it's the ever-busy Ilgenfritz, too.

By the way, surely the hand-played instrumental series numbers, which start with "5" always end with "0", so the significant part of the number must be the figures between the five and the zero, so 513650 must really be roll number 1365 in the series. (Unless they actually always start with "51" - do they? If that's the case, then 513650 would actually only be number 365 in the series. Ignoring the initial five, what's the lowest number roll in that Imperial hand-played instrumental series with the green label that anyone knows of?)

Come to think of it, I think the oldest ones I've seen are five digit numbers like 52350 (just a made-up example, I don't have that, but I'm sort of remembering some like that), so they probably did just that. Started with 510 - that would be the first - then 520, . . .590, 5100, 5110, . . . 5990, 51000, 51010, 51020, . . . ., up to 59990, 510000, 510010, . . . ) Anybody ever seen 510?

Anyway, as evidence Mary Angell could do the editing, sometimes she's given as the player AND editor, as in this example:

Or sometimes she and Ilgenfritz seem to have switched roles (you should forgive the pun) and he plays and she edits him:

Mary Angell also sometimes is credited with editing classical rolls played by others, in these cases Paul Van Katwijk and Lillian Ammalee, who were both very definitely real pianists, very well documented:

In case you'd like to see some documentation of those last-mentioned pianists Paul Van Katwijk and Lillian Ammalee, here is some:

That is from the Des Moines Register in 1916 as you can see. Paul Van Katwijk was on the faculty at Drake in that Iowa city. Later he went to Austin,Texas where he seems to have spent the rest of his career. In that 1916 interview, he certainly has interesting things to say about Schoenberg's and Ornstein's music. He does not like it, in short.

And here's a photo of Lillian Ammalee (Smith) from when she was young. Evidently she was from California, probably Los Angeles. This is from the Chicago Tribune 5 Nov 1912, page 9.

One more, this one from the Los Angeles Evening Express, 23 January 1915, page 3:

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Note added 20240106:

Lillian Ammalee Smith (September 15, 1889-February 24, 1922) was born and raised in Los Angeles, daughter of native Californian Charles Smith (b. Benicia, CA, September 1856, died between 1900 and 1910, possibly 21 March 1906, Los Angeles) and Swiss-born Amelia (or Emilia) Smith (b. 1866). Lillian's mother was a music teacher, and Lillian reportedly spent 1908-1912 in Europe studying with Leschitizsky. Lillian went to England in 1918 and there contracted the Great Influenza, which she never quite recovered from.

From Lillian's passport application from August 1918. She sailed from New York September 1, 1918. She returned to New York on December 21, 1918, bound for home on Malvern Avenue in Los Angeles.

From the April 1922 Pacific Coast Musician. The date of her death of 24 February 1922 is from the Los Angeles County records.

The 1910 Census shows Lillian and her mother living at the address given in that obituary (which still stands in 2024, according to Zillow having been built in 1905.) Both are shown as music teachers, so Lillian's presence there in 1910 does not quite jibe with the newspaper reports from 1912-1913 of Lillian having spent the previous 4 years in study abroad. On the other hand, Lillian's 1918 passport application says that she had lived in Germany and Austria from 1902 to 1907 to study music, and in France from 1910-1912 for the same purpose.

-----------------(End of 2024 insert on Lillian Ammalee Smith)--------------------

Artis, I see your comment on one of your videos says

"Mary Angel [sic] was a Chicago-based pianist born ca. 1900 who made a number of excellent piano rolls for the Imperial Company. Contemporary press reports of the pre-1930 period praise her unmannered, straightforward performance style which made her well-suited to making piano rolls. She was a student of the famed teacher of Paderewski, Theodore Leschetitsky."

Can you provide some citations for these press reports? I must say, when I do a newspapers.com search, the only mentions I can turn up of a pianist of this name (Mary Angell - I bet you got "autocorrected" into "Angel" in your comment) are in, of course, Cable Co. advertising material. I recall having looked before, too, and I really never turned up anything, so naturally, I'm very interested!

Ok, now [July 2022] I looked a little more carefully, I found lots and lots of stuff about Mary Angell in newspapers. I'll put up a bunch more about it. Of course when I got into it, I found the clear digital footprints of my friend and colleague Rob Perry all over the stuff - he very clearly got there first a long time ago. In fact, once I saw the articles and census enumerations, I remembered that Rob and I had discussed Mary Angell and he had told me what he'd found, which he has not put up on his webpages at, for example, http://www.pianola.co.nz/public/index.php/web/artists/ . I think I will post some notes on my research webpages and perhaps that will spur some more activity on the Mary Angell front. I realize that not everybody is totally into this biographical/historical material so I should probably refrain from making 40 posts here; rather I should put them up elsewhere and just post a link to it here for those interested in pursuing it.

I will content myself with just one more here, this being a photo from The Music Trades, May 17, 1919, page 32, from an Imperial ad. The thing that I think will become abundantly clear is that Mary must have provided them with a pretty old photo to use! (You can also find this photo, clearly from the same kind of source, in the Billings Rollography, volume 3.)

I can't restrain myself from putting up another photo - this one is a full length one published in the Decatur (Illinois) Herald and Review, April 25, 1909, page 19. The point is simply that this is not a photo of a 9 year old girl, for sure!

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That is what I posted in July 2022. But I did find many articles and other material about Angell, some of which follow:

Mary B. Angell was the daughter of an engineer named William T. Angell and his wife Sarah E. Swinford. The family was enumerated in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, just across from the Texas border, in June 1880; Mary was listed as 1 year old in June 1880, and was born in Texas. William was born in Providence, Rhode Island 24 August 1848, according to his 1893 application to join the Sons of the American Revolution, although his tombstone in Rhode Island is inscribed 24 July 1848. William's older brother James (b. 1829) ended up as president of the University of Vermont, then University of Michigan, and served as a US ambassador several times. According to William's death notice in 1922, Mary had a sister named Eugenia, who was alive in 1900, according to the census enumeration in Chicago (Sarah is indicated as being mother of two children, both of whom were alive.) Sarah passed away in Chicago May 23, 1909, according to her tombstone near William's in Rhode Island, and also as shown in Chicago death listings. Also according to that tombstone, she was born November 25, 1844, though the Chicago death record says that she died at 62, which would mean that she was born about 1846.

St__Louis_Globe_Democrat_Sun__May_1_1898

Mary Angell marries Frederick William Scullin May 1898 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri) · 3 May 1898, Tue · Page 7).

Mary Angell Scullin in 1900 census - she was born in 1879!. Note that the Scullin family is living in the town of Brasher, New York, of which a small part is Helena, as mentioned in the following obituary of Frederick Scullin. Although the overwritten notations on the part of the enumeration sheet make it very difficult to make out unambiguously, I think it may give Scullin's first name as Frederick or some variation thereof, and for his wife I believe it has a dash to indicate the same last name as above (Scullin) and first names "Mary Angell". The sister-in-law living with them is named Eugenia Price, and the fact that she's given as single, and that she is 10 years older than Mary implies that Mary's mother was married once before so that Eugenia and Mary were half-sisters. Eugenia is an "artist". (Frederick's occupation is given as "Street Car", referring to his father's business back in St. Louis.) Note that the next four entries, two women and two men, are all hired hands that presumably run the family farm referred to in the obituary.

Indeed it appears that Sarah Swinford, born in Cass County Missouri, born 25 November 1846 according to her headstone (but in the 1850 census of September 19, she is said to be 5 years old, so more likely born 1844) married John J. Price in Jefferson, Texas on 5 March 1861. This first husband might be the Capt. J. J. Price who was killed in the burning of the steamer Henry A. Jones in Galveston Harbor on February 15, 1873, at least according to some contemporary sources; weirdly enough, apparently *another* Capt. John Price was said to have died in Galveston the same day (???) of an accidental shooting, leaving a wife and child to mourn him. I suppose Texas in 1873 was a dangerous place.

The_Galveston_Daily_News_Sun__Feb_16__1873

In any case, William T. Angell and Sarah Swinford married in about 1878, according to their enumeration in the 1900 census in Chicago. (The 1880 census did not list how long the present marriage had been or how many children the woman had had.) It is a little hard to understand where Sarah's first child, Eugenia, was in 1880 if she was 10 years old at the time, as she does not appear in the census enumeration with William, Sarah and 1-year-old Mary.

Death of Frederick Scullin St. Louis Post-Dispatch 19030523p10

The_St_Louis_Republic_Sun__May_24__1903

Frederick Scullin is buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.

It would appear that after her husband's death, Mary Angell moved back home to Chicago, where she appears already in 1904 as Miss Mary Angell (thus obviously eliminating the "circa 1900" birthdate that has appeared in some places on the internet for her.)

In 1904 Mary was listed on the faculty of the Chicago Conservatory of Music as a piano instructor. (Chicago_Tribune_Sun__Sep_11__1904)

She was apparently connected with the Cable Company of Chicago as early as 1905, as they seem to have put her on tour then. Knoxville, Tennessee.

(Knoxville_Sentinel_Tue__Mar_14__1905)

Mary was featured in the concert put on by the Cable company in Detroit on May 4th, advertised in the Detroit_Free_Press_Sun__Apr_30__1905.

The concert received a brief review the day after, not entirely positive (Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan) · 5 May 1905, Fri · Page 5).

Angell appeared in recitals as far flung as Minneapolis and Birmingham Alabama at this time. (The_Birmingham_Age_Herald_Sun__Feb_11__1906)

The Cable Company ran a large ad in The Shreveport [LA] Times of June 16, 1907 that featured a somewhat romanticized drawing of Mary Angell and included her endorsement of Mason and Hamlin pianos. Cable had bought a controlling interest in Mason and Hamlin in 1904, and sold the company to the American Piano Company (makers of the AMPICO) in 1924.

But look closely at the artist's signature at the lower left of Mary's portrait - it is Eugenia Price, Mary's (half) sister, who had been listed as an artist in the 1900 census! To date I have been unable to trace Eugenia Price after this.

Looks as though the Cable Company sent Mary on a tour of the south in 1908. Here she is appearing in Birmingham on her way to Knoxville, Atlanta and other points south. (The_Birmingham_Age_Herald_Sun__Nov_1__1908)

The review of the recital in Birmingham in 1908 was fairly positive. (The_Birmingham_Age_Herald_Sat__Nov_7__1908)

19081108p3_7_Chicago_Inter_Ocean___probably_Mary_Angell_s_first_concert_after_returning_from_Europe

19090319p12 MolineDaily Dispatch - Angell program listed

19090425p19 Decatur IL Herald and Review - about Mary Angell

Angell has an uncle 19100119p8 Chicago Tribune

Mary Angell on the program 1910 Chicago Tribune 19100211p8

Mary Angell hosts - Moline, Il. Dispatch 19101004p2

Angell-19110415p6 Moline Il Dispatch

19120323p6 Rock Island Argus - another Angell program listing

Angell plays Moline 19120321p7 Rock Island Argus

At least according to The Daily Times of Davenport, Iowa on March 21, 1912, Mary Angell sang as well as playing the piano.

The_Daily_Times_Thu__Mar_21__1912_.jpg

By 1915, Mary was playing in "comparison concerts" to market reproducing piano systems, in this case Cable's Solo-Carola system. (The_Evansville (IN)_Courier_Thu__Nov_25__1915)

Mary's father dies in Chicago on New Year's Day 1922. Mary and her (half-) sister Eugenia are mentioned. Despite what it says about the place of internment being Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago, his grave is back home in Rhode Island, at Swan Point Cemetery, along with that of his wife Sarah Swinford Angell (Mary's mother).

[Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) · 2 Jan 1922, Mon · Page 31]

At some point in the 1920s, Mary Angell moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. One might speculate that after her father died at the beginning of 1922 and coincidentally QRS bought out the 88-note roll business of Imperial at the same time, there was much less keeping Mary in Chicago. When Mason and Hamlin was sold by Cable to the American Piano Company in 1924, it seems Mary's affiliation with the Mason and Hamlin meant that she was employed occasionally by AMPICO in the marketing of that system. In 1924-1925, Mary appeared in several AMPICO 'comparison concerts' in the Los Angeles area, clearly a standard marketing technique for the company, complete with the signature moment described in the following article that involves the artist suddenly raising their hands from the keyboard "with a smile" as the instrument plays uninterruptedly. One imagines the gasp of the audience.

Los_Angeles_Evening_Express_Wed__Dec_10__1924

AMPICO_ad_in The_Bulletin (Los Angeles)_Thu__Jan_8__1925

Angell moves from LA to Santa Maria, CA -- LA Times 25 October 1926 p 24

Santa Maria Times (Santa Maria, California) · 9 Aug 1927, Tue · Page 1

The above notice of Mary moving her studio in Santa Maria, CA in August 1927 is apparently the last we hear of her. By 1935, she is a memory in Santa Maria. In a retrospective of the radio station KSMR, by then defunct, it is mentioned that she was the official studio pianist for a time: "She was considered by all her knew her as a real artist." But "she later connected herself with a traveling organization and left the valley", which might have happened in late 1927. (The_Santa_Maria_Daily_Times_Fri__May_24__1935.)

So far I have not been able to find anything about Mary Angell after she left Santa Maria, California.