| In Memoriam Del Roper
Born in Lufkin, Texas, Roper was the eldest of four children. Substituting for his church organist at age seven, his first musical experience was improvised and unexpected. The family moved to Denver, Colorado when Roper was twelve. He began playing snare drum in the Denver Post Boys Marching Band. Around this time, he became fascinated with the xylophone. He purchased an old Deagan xylophone without resonators from a music store for eighteen dollars. Two years later, he started taking lessons from a percussionist who played with theater orchestras showing silent films. Roper then purchased a three-octave Leedy marimba from his teacher and soon was engaged in lessons with Walter Light. Light introduced Roper to classical violin repertoire and encouraged him to arrange and/or transcribe such repertoire for marimba. By 1925, the family moved to Pasadena, California. It was at this time Roper purchased a five-octave Deagan marimba, which had been used in a circus, and taught his two sisters to play. The Roper Marimba Trio played at churches, clubs and parks, and performed several times on KFVD radio in Los Angeles. During one such radio program, Roper met the bassist for Xavier Cugat's Latin band, who encouraged Roper to join the musicians union in order to secure recording session work. Roper did several recording sessions through the years. One of his more interesting recording sessions occurred around 1952 at Paramount Studios for the movie The Ten Commandments. Roper's featured cymbal crash can still be heard today. In the early 1930s, Roper played drums, vibes and marimba with Don Ricardo's Orchestra in Lake Tahoe and Catalina Island as well as at the Cal-Neva Lodge. As a newlywed, Roper joined the Eddie Le Baron Latin Orchestra in 1936. Roper and his wife Betty moved to New York, where Le Baron's orchestra had an engagement at the Waldorf-Astoria. This engagement, as well as a three-year stint at the Rainbow Room, kept the Ropers busy in New York. Roper also took lessons from George Hamilton Green during this time. Additionally, he became interested in the carillon. He frequented Riverside Church on Sundays to hear the "world's largest carillon." In 1940, Roper returned to Pasadena. He continued to do studio sessions, played concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, toured with Xavier Cugat, and recorded with Bing Crosby. In his spare time, he was building the "monster," an instrument combining a marimba, vibraphone and bass marimba. Roper utilized an organ pedal board for bass notes, operated by electric solenoids striking the undersides of the bass marimba bars. The "monster" was completed in approximately 1946, and Roper played it at Catalina Island and at the La Golondrina Cafe in Los Angeles for several years. During the late 1940s, Roper met and formed a partnership with Lowell Montz. Together they built custom marimbas under the company name Dello, a combination of their names. These instruments included a bass marimba built for Earl Hatch's studio. Additionally, they patented what Roper called "equasonic" tone bars for the marimba featuring graduated metal-to-rosewood bars for increased length of resonance (i.e., a metal-and-wood bar sandwich). Roper also started working for Maas-Rowe Carillons as a music engineer in 1950. His innovations and ingenuity helped develop a "symphonic carillon" with superior temperament. By 1969, Roper retired from Maas-Rowe; however, his musical inventions and/or "experiments" did not stop. He built several more instruments, including two bass marimbas one of which was used at PASIC '78 in Tempe, Arizona as part of Steve Traugh's Supercussion Orchestra. "Del's calling was the marimba, a calling that enabled him to raise a family," said friend and fellow musician Alex Galvan of Roper's passing. "Our calling is one of remembrance for a gentle man who made an impact on many with his instruments, music and personage." |
Percussionist, composer/arranger and inventor Del Roper died Friday, January 2, 2004, at his California home. He was 98. 
