The revival of Billy Mayerl (1902–59) is now very much under way. Soon, as with the piano music of Satie, every record company is going to want its own version. One thing we can be sure of is that nobody is likely to play this music like the master himself. Every encouragement must be given to technically improved reissues on to CD of everything he ever played. Even so, he did not record all his large output and his old 78s are never likely to sound like modern CDs. So there is ample scope for new recordings which are faithful to the inimitable Mayerl style, without merely copying him.
These have largely been provided by Eric Parkin on Chandos in two volumes—''Marigold'' (6/88) and ''Bats in the Belfry'' (11/90), with a third volume forthcoming. There have been some encouraging comments about Susan Tomes's performances on Virgin (''Loose Elbows'', 2/90), but you have only to compare her performance of Bats in the Belfry with Mayerl's or Parkin's to see that the style is wrong. Too much rubato. Mayerl was brought up to play dance music and he never lost the beat: he also admired jazz pianists such as J. P. Johnson and Fats Waller. Who doesn't?
By these exacting criteria Peter Jacobs, the energetic advocate of so much British piano music, has to be judged. He has chosen a relaxed and only moderately demanding programme, including some of the lesser known sets of pieces, such as In my garden, which were designed for amateurs who found Mayerl's early snappy numbers too difficult. Jacobs is particularly sympathetic towards the English pastoral tradition in Mayerl, well represented here by the second of Three Contrasts called ''Pastoral'' (track 5) or the second of Three syncopated rambles called ''Printer's devil'' (track 19) which bring out the composer's natural and very personal English lyricism, quite close to John Ireland.
A piece like Mignonette (track 7) is decidedly catchy and is a reminder that Mayerl wrote musicals with some popular songs now almost entirely forgotten. In all these piano pieces we are made aware of the repetition techniques of popular music. Jacobs is not so secure in the trio of Mignonette (2'20'') where he loses the tenor melody. In all the rhythmic numbers, he gives too little attention to the left hand, which in this style must act as the rhythm section and be in charge. Occasionally he misses notes. Robots, the last track, seems an effort. And the recorded sound is far from ideal—close, with some overshooting in loud bits, and not without slight background noise. But this is still an attractive anthology adding some new items to the catalogue.'