Novelty piano
Novelty Piano is a genre of piano music that was popular during the 1920's.
A successor to ragtime and an outgrowth of the piano roll music of the teens, novelty piano can be considered a pianistic cousin of jazz, which appeared around the same time. Its originators were mostly piano roll artists from the Chicago area, where two of the largest piano roll companies, QRS and Imperial, had their headquarters. It is distinct from stride piano, which was developed in New York at about the same time.
The first precusors to novelty piano works were published in the years leading up to 1920, including Felix Arndt's 1915 "Nola" as well as George Cobb's 1918 "Russian Rag".
Novelty piano came to the attention of the public in 1921 with the appearance of Zez Confrey's "Kitten on the Keys". The popularity of this piece quickly led to other Confrey works including "Dizzy Fingers" and "Greenwich Witch", and inspired other artists to issue their own novelty pieces. The style remained popular through the end of the decade, at which time big bands were on the rise, player pianos were in decline, and the popularity of jazz continued unabated. Novelty piano slowly succumbed to, or was absorbed into, the new orchestral styles as the piano moved off center stage and took a support role.
Though novelty piano has structural and stylistic similarities to the earlier ragtime form, there are also distinct differences. Ragtime was generally sold in the form of sheet music, so it was important to keep it simple enough to be played by the competent amateur. By 1920, though, two new technologies had appeared which allowed the general public to hear music as performed by skilled musicians: the "hand-played" piano roll and the phonograph record. Novelty piano was developed as a vehicle to showcase the talents of these professionals, and was thus more often sold in the form of recordings and piano rolls than as sheet music. It was a new turbo-charged piano form, shorn of hackneyed Victorian-era stylings, infused with chromatic piano roll flourishes, and influenced by the "modernistic" sounds of the art-deco twenties.
Prominent artists in the novelty piano genre include Zez Confrey, Charley Straight, Roy Bargy, Victor Arden, Pete Wendling, Max Kortlander, and Billy Mayerl.