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| 25 new of 256 responses total. |
remmers
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response 169 of 256:
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Mar 29 03:10 UTC 2000 |
Tomorrow I'm off for the Tom Turpin Ragtime Festival in Savannah,
Georgia. This will be the fifth annual Turpin Festival and the fourth
that I've attended. I've heard it will also be the last -- the person
who runs it isn't planning to do it any more.
One purpose of this year's festival is to honor "Ragtime" Bob Darch,
whose 80th birthday is this year and who has been active in researching,
performing, composing, and promoting ragtime music since the early
1950's, essentially before anyone else was doing it. His contributions
to the genre have been immense.
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remmers
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response 170 of 256:
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Apr 4 00:19 UTC 2000 |
Had a great time at the Tom Turpin Festival in Savannah.
Headliners were Mimi Blais, John Arpin, Sue Keller, Dick
Zimmerman, Dick Kroeckel, Terry Parrish, Terry Waldo, Steve
Spracklin, and Bob Darch. The only one I'd never seen before
was Spracklin, who turned out to be a Mississippi river boat
cruise director who plays excellent ragtime in a strong
rhythmic style.
I learned a lot that I didn't know about "Ragtime Bob" Darch,
whose 80th birthday the festival celebrated. Over the last 50
years, Darch has probably done more than anyone alive to
promote and preserve ragtime. Back in the 1950's and 1960's,
he traveled all over the country, seeking out rare sheet music
and inteviewing all the oldtimers he could find from the
ragtime era who were still alive, supporting himself by playing
piano in saloons. In particular, he was instrumental in
rescuing Joseph Lamb (composer of "Ragtime Nightingale") from
obscurity and bringing Eubie Blake back into the public eye and
to the concert stage. Darch is himself a composer, having
written over 150 rag instrumentals and songs. He's still in
pretty good shape and performed at several of the festival
concerts.
Another thing I didn't know about Darch was that he had eight
children. (!) A sizeable number of them showed up with their
families, which meant that a significant portion of the
attendees at the special Darch dinner were, in fact, Darches.
Regarding Lamb in particular -- he dropped out of the music
business around 1920 but continued to compose. When Darch
found him in the late 1950's, it turned out that he had dozens
of unpublished manuscripts lying around the house, some of
which were among the finest music he ever wrote. A few were
subsequently published, in a now out-of-print folio called
"Ragtime Treasures". Most have not been, however. Darch
brought a stack of unpublished Lamb sheet music with him to the
festival, and I had an opportunity to look through it. Lamb's
daughter, Patricial Lamb Conn, was at the festival and will be
sending me a few things that I requested -- "Spanish Fly", "Joe
Lamb's Old Rag", and "Chasing the Chippies".
My friend Nan Bostick from California was at the festival to
present a seminar on Detroit ragtime. It turns out that
Detroit was an important center of ragtime playing and
publishing. She and I did a couple of two-piano numbers at
after-hours: Charles Daniels' "Louisiana" and Harry P. Guy's
"Pearl of the Harem." I also played Joplin's "Peacherine Rag"
and "The Entertainer" with another amateur pianist, John Yates,
from Toronto. I also did a few solo numbers at after-hours. I
find that the more I perform in front of audiences, the more
comfortable it gets for me.
Another friend who showed up was music collector Audrey Van
Dyke, who gifted me with yet another stack of Xeroxed rare
sheet music. Audrey is also an excellent ragtime piano player,
and a fine interpreter of Scott Joplin. She's not comfortable
playing in front of people though. When the audience had
cleared out after one of the concerts, she and I took over the
piano and took turns playing some pieces.
This is in all likelihood the last Savannah Festival. Ann
Steele, the organizer and director, has moved to New York City
and is now a full-time theatrical agent, leaving her no time
for ragtime festival organizing in distant cities. I'll miss
it. Top quality entertainment, yet relatively small, with
plenty of opportunity for audience members to meet and talk
with the performers.
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omni
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response 171 of 256:
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Apr 4 05:37 UTC 2000 |
I would like to meet Zimmerman one of these days. I have one of his CD's
and it is fantastic. Remmers is no slouch either, I just wish he made a few
CD's as well.
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remmers
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response 172 of 256:
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Apr 18 01:07 UTC 2000 |
Spent last Friday and Saturday at the Zehnders Ragtime Festival, held
at Zehnders Restaurant in Frankenmuth, Michigan. This is an annual
event that I've attended for four years now. It expanded somewhat in
length and scope this year, starting with a Wednesday evening concert
and concluding with a Sunday brunch, but due to work obligations and
the fact that I didn't try to get tickets until the Saturday and Sunday
concerts were sold out, I attended only two days of the festival.
Featured performers this year were Bob Milne, Jeff Barnhart, Martin
Jaeger, and the Etcetera String Band. All were familiar to me except
Jaeger, who comes to ragtime from a classical background and who heads
the music department at an institute in Switzerland.
I got in early Friday morning, a good hour before the first festival event
of the day. I noticed that Zehnder's lounge was unoccupied and contained
a piano, so I killed time by playing for about an hour, to an audience
consisting of a few Zehnders staff who wandered in from time to time.
At 10:30 there was a seminar on string bands in ragtime, featuring
the Etcetera String Band, a three-man group out of Kansas city that
features a banjo, a mandolin, and a guitar. They're superb musicians
with an encyclopedaic knowledge of the history of their instruments.
One interesting point brought out in the seminar was that although
ragtime is today thought of primarily as piano solo music, during
the ragtime era (roughly 1898 to 1918) it was commonly played by all
sorts of ensembles, ranging from small mandolin groups to full sized
concert bands and orchestras.
Following lunch in a restaurant with overpoweringly Bavarian decor
but highly American food, I attended the second seminar of the day,
on ragtime piano playing styles. Milne, Barnhart, and Jaeger --
all of whom have very different approaches to ragtime music --
held forth and gave demonstrations.
Friday evening's dinner concert was quite interesting and at times
ranged outside the boundaries of what is normally considered ragtime.
Jaeger did a selection of Gershwin pieces, including an impressive
rendition of Rhapsody in Blue in Gershwin's original arrangement
for piano solo. Before that, I had only heard the piece performed
in the familiar "concerto" format with orchestral accompaniment.
I learned something that I hadn't known -- the orchestral
arrangement is not by Gershwin but rather Ferde Grofe' (of "Grand
Canyon Suite" fame) who at the time was the arranger for Paul
Whiteman's band, which premiered the piece. In any case, the
solo piano version is much more difficult for the piano player,
since it includes various orchestral effects that in the standard
version are played by an actual orchestra.
Also in the Friday night concert, the Etcetera String Band played
a few delightful selections of Caribbean music -- a Haitian
"marange" (sp?) and some other things. Since ragtime was
greatly influenced by folk music of the Caribbean, I didn't feel
that this was out of place at all.
Following the concert there was the usual "afterglow" session in
Zehnders Tap Room, in which any performers who aren't too tired,
plus anybody else who feels like it, plays. Jeff Barnhart did
a nice set with washboard player Mike Schwimmer, following which
the Etcetera band and Bob Milne did a few tunes. When they
were ready to pack it in, I and another person played a couple of
numbers. We closed the bar around 1 a.m.
Saturday started with three hours of silent movies to live piano
accompaniment. I sat through the first hour -- a couple of
Charlie Chaplin shorts from circa 1912 -- then took off to have
a shopping moment at Birch Run, a mega-size outlet mall a few
miles from Frankenmuth. Returned to Frankenmuth for a "meet the
artists" session later in the afternoon, held at the food court
in Zehnders basement. Each of the piano players played a set
and chatted with anybody who felt like chatting with them. At
the end of it there were a few minutes left over. Barnhart
invited me to play, so I did a couple of Charlie Johnson tunes,
"Barber Pole Rag" and "Snookums". These were well-received.
Being sans tickets for any further events, I then headed back
to Ann Arbor.
Although I didn't attend the whole thing, I thought this was the
best Frankenmuth festival I've been to so far. It was also the
best attended -- in past years I wouldn't have had trouble getting
tickets when I did. I'd say this bodes well for the health of
ragtime.
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remmers
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response 173 of 256:
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Apr 20 10:31 UTC 2000 |
By the way, Martin Jaeger also composes rags. At Frankenmuth
I picked up a folio of three of them: "Welcome Rag", "Baroque
Rag", and "China Rag". The first two are especially delightful
and not too difficult technically, so maybe I'll learn to play
them someday. Jaeger's classical background show -- "Baroque
Rag" is based on the J.S. Bach chorale "Sanctify Us by Thy
Goodness".
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remmers
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response 174 of 256:
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May 5 12:12 UTC 2000 |
Last night I went to a run-through of the piece I'll be
performing in the ballet recital, so that the girls could
try it out with live piano and I could see how it had been
choreographed. Pretty cute, especially the part at the
end where the girls all run around the piano.
The recital is Saturday, May 13 at Mercy High School in the
northwest Detroit suburbs, Middlebelt Road at 11 Mile. Start
time is 7:30pm. Tickets $7 at the door, $3.50 for children.
(My spot is about 5 minutes out of a 90-minute program.)
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remmers
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response 175 of 256:
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May 10 11:40 UTC 2000 |
I'll be in period costume, more or less, for the ballet recital:
black vest, red bow tie, red garters on the sleeves, and a straw
hat with black band.
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happyboy
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response 176 of 256:
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May 10 11:41 UTC 2000 |
you're gonna put parliament funkadelic on yore straw hat!?
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remmers
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response 177 of 256:
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May 10 18:05 UTC 2000 |
Would that be authentic for the time period (circa 1910)?
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orinoco
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response 178 of 256:
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May 10 20:34 UTC 2000 |
Nahh....for an early 1900s black band, you'd need a banjo group or some
dixieland musicians. Which is a pity, because George Clinton could have
really stirred things up in 1910, I suspect.
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happyboy
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response 179 of 256:
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May 11 16:38 UTC 2000 |
john could just don *blackface*
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mary
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response 180 of 256:
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May 11 20:46 UTC 2000 |
It wouldn't work with his reddish hair and complexion.
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remmers
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response 181 of 256:
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May 12 00:45 UTC 2000 |
Not to mention other problems with the blackface concept in this
day and age.
Dress rehearsal is tomorrow night. I'll let y'all know how the
costume goes over.
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happyboy
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response 182 of 256:
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May 13 15:21 UTC 2000 |
tell 'em it's a period piece.
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remmers
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response 183 of 256:
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May 13 16:00 UTC 2000 |
Actually, I heard a surprising story the other day about "Porgy
and Bess". Apparently it was originally contemplated to have
Jerome Kern write the score, rather than Gershwin, and cast Al
Jolson -- in blackface -- as Porgy. Sheesh!
Dress rehearsal went well, and in particular, my period costume
was a hit. Mercy High School's auditorium is a huge, cavernous
place, with an enormous stage. The piano is an excellent Yamaha
grand with a crisp, light touch that I like a lot. On account
of the auditorium's size and accoustics, however, they're
amplifying the piano. Performance is tonight.
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remmers
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response 184 of 256:
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May 15 14:56 UTC 2000 |
The performance Saturday night went well. My number opened the
second half. House lights went down, I walked onto the stage in
period costume, sat down at the piano - which was set up stage
left - and commenced to play George Botsford's "Black and White
Rag". The six ballerinas - appropriately in black and white
costumes - emerged from the wings and proceeded to do the dance
that Karen had choreographed, ending up with them running around
the piano during the final section of the piece. When it was
over I stood up and we formed a line, holding hands, and took
a bow. Then the lights were blacked out and we all exited the
stage.
I watched the rest of the recital from the wings. It was really
quite impressive. A number of dance pieces, strung together via
the Cinderella story. Various music styles, ranging from classical
to Disney showtunes to jazz. Dancers ranged in age from low
single digits to adult. Impressive costumes. Mary saw it all
from an audience perspective; so I'll let her comment on that.
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mary
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response 185 of 256:
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May 15 22:01 UTC 2000 |
This was a wonderful evening. Just charming. The sets, costumes,
choreography, and range of expertise went far beyond what I expected for a
dance recital. I can understand why she does this only every other year.
The dancers ranged in age from 4 years old to EMU alumni.
John's piece was especially well received. It was the only dance done to
live music and that added a whole lot. Plus, he had more advanced dancers
doing some pretty sophisticated moves.
Anyhow, I'll look forward to attending the next one two years from now.
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remmers
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response 186 of 256:
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May 29 22:03 UTC 2000 |
On Wednesday I'm off to the annual Scott Joplin Festival in
Sedalia, Missouri. It's the biggest of the ragtime festivals
and arguably the best. Headliners this year include Scott
Kirby, Morten Larsen, Butch Thompson (of Prairie Home
Companion), Terry Waldo, Bob Milne, Trebor and Virginia
Tichenor, Richard Zimmerman (back after a three-year absence),
Jeff Barnhart, Reginald Robinson, and others. Most of whom
you've probably never, or barely, heard of. But trust me,
they're great.
This year they're re-instating the "tent" -- an open-air
facility where anybody can sign up and play, to an almost
guaranteed large audience. They didn't have it last year,
and lots of people missed it, including me.
Unlike last year's double-length festival -- celebration of
the 100th anniversary of the publication of Joplin's "Maple
Leaf Rag" -- this year's festival runs the normal four days.
Still, they'll be packing in around eight formal concerts,
plus other events in various open-air venues, plus the usual
afterglow sessions in the Best Western ballroom, which tend
to run to 3 or 4 am (a real test of my stamina, since I tend
to be a morning person).
I'll let you know if anything exciting happens. I'm sure it
will.
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remmers
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response 187 of 256:
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Jun 9 03:52 UTC 2000 |
Don't know when (if ever) I'll get around to writing a
halfway complete summary of this year's Scott Joplin Festival.
I got in a reasonable amount of playing -- sets on three
consecutive days in "the tent", plus open piano at after
hours. I personally felt that my playing was a lot more
solid this year than last, and I got a number of favorable
comments. Got in some two-piano playing -- with Nan
Bostick from CA, and Gale Foehner from St. Louis. The
latter is an old-timer who's a great improvisor; we did an
impromptu rendition of Botsford's "Black and White Rag",
with me playing mostly by the notes and Foehner providing
embellishments.
There were dozens of fine musicians at the festival; I'll
just mention a few things that I thought were extra special:
o Tony Caramia's master class. Caramia, besides being a
ragtime player, is a professor of piano pedagogy at
the Eastman School of Music. He conducted a master
class (basically, a lesson that's open to the public)
featuring half a dozen or so younger performers, ranging
in age from 11 to 19. These kids' talent and interest
in ragtime make me hopeful for the future of the genre.
Highlight of the class was a *kickass* rendition of
Joplin's "Magnetic Rag" by 11-year-old Emily Sprague,
rendered with an assurance and a collection of embellish-
ments that you'd expect only from much older and more
experienced performers.
o The "Ragtime Revelations" concert. This event features
both new performing talent and new and newly-discovered
music. Most of the kids from the master class played, as
did John Petley, an excellent player from the Washington
D.C. area whom I'd heard before; this was his first year
in Sedalia as a "featured performer". The winning pieces
in the original composition contest were also performed.
Of the several concerts present each year at this festival,
"Ragtime Revelations" is always one of my favorites -- it's
guaranteed that I'll hear something new and different, and
experience fresh talent.
o Reginald Robinson. He is one of the most amazing new talents
to appear on the ragtime scene in years. He's a young
African-American from inner city Chicago, and as such does
not fit the demographic profile of the typical contemporary
ragtime player, almost all of whom are white and middle-
class. In the past, Robinson has played music of Joplin,
Lamb, and other composers of the ragtime era, but nowadays
he is mostly into composing and performing his own music --
rags, marches, and other forms current in the ragtime era.
He is a wonderful composer and an astounding performer. If
ragtime music ever re-attains the popularity it deserves,
you will hear of him. His piece "The 19th Galaxy" is not
to be missed.
o Elite Syncopation. A ragtime ensemble consisting of piano,
clarinet, violin, cello, and string bass. Beautiful sound.
Their rendition of Charles Johnson's folksy "Hen Cackle Rag"
was a delight. I purchased their CD, and so can hear them
again anytime I want.
o The "Ragtime Music Hall" concert. This is the last formal
concert of the festival and is always special. This year the
emcee was Butch Thompson (of Garrison Keillor's "Prairie
Home Companion" radio show) and feature the Butch Thompson
Trio and a number of other performers. As the grand finale,
all two dozen or so musicians in the concert came on-stage
to do the Joplin/Marshall "Swipesy Cakewalk", which being
exactly 100 years old was the "theme song" of this year's
festival.
Enough for now. More later, maybe.
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remmers
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response 188 of 256:
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Dec 9 13:18 UTC 2000 |
The 28th annual Ragtime Bash is this Sunday, December 10, at the
Unitarian Church in Ann Arbor, 4001 Ann Arbor-Saline Road. Start
time is 7:30pm, but arrive early -- seating is first-come-first-
served, and the event always sells out. (I try to get there an
hour in advance.)
This year's lineup: boogie pianists Mark "Mr. B" Braun and Bob
Seely; ragtimers Bob Milne and Mike Montgomery; pianist/vocalist
Kerry Price; jazz pianist James Dapogny with vocalist Susan
Chastain. They're all great.
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remmers
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response 189 of 256:
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Dec 9 13:18 UTC 2000 |
Addendum to the above: Tickets are $15 at the door, $10 for
students and seniors.
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remmers
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response 190 of 256:
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Dec 9 14:13 UTC 2000 |
While I'm here, I'll give a brief report on the 2000 West Coast
Ragtime Festival, held in Sacramento CA the weekend before
Thanksgiving. The festival takes over the meeting rooms at
the Red Lion Inn for three days, with four concerts in progress
at almost all times -- sort of like Missouri's Scott Joplin
Festival, on a smaller scale. You buy a festival pass and can
come and go as you please to any of the venues.
This year's lineup included established performers I've seen at
numerous other festivals -- Dick Zimmerman, Sue Keller, Mimi Blais,
Trebor and Virginia Tichenor, Terry Waldo, Frank French, Ian
Whitcomb, etc. -- plus various west coast folks I don't see
elsewhere, such as Eric Marchese and Tom Brier -- plus talented
newcomers like Marit Johnson, Elise Crane (both still in high
school) and Neil Blaze (college freshman). My friend Nan
Bostick appeared in a couple of scheduled sets and asked me
to perform with her -- we had fun doing more-or-less improvised
duo-piano versions of Harry Kelly's "Peaceful Henry", Charles
Daniels' "Louisiana", and Harry P. Guy's "Pearl of the Harem".
I did some solo performing at after-hours, which gave me a
chance to try out for an audience a few of the pieces I've
learned recently -- several Charles Johnson rags, Botsford's
"Royal Flush", Irene Giblin's "Sleepy Lou", Joseph Lamb's
unpublished "Bee Hive Rag", James Scott's "Don't Jazz Me".
Alan Rea and Sylvia O'Neill gave an interesting seminar on the
life of American composer Louis Gottschalk, who pre-dated the
ragtime era by several decades, but whose incorporation of
American folk music and syncopated Latin rhythms into his
compositions makes him in some sense the "father of ragtime".
At the festival I became aware of Texas composer David Guion.
Anybody familiar with him? There's one piece of his that
ragtime performers like to play, the misleading-titled
"Texas Fox Trot", published in 1915 when Guion was about
20 years old. "Fox trot" suggest something upbeat and
bouncy, but the piece is fairly slow and beautifully harmonic,
alternating dark minor-mode strains with beautiful lush
major-mode passages. I heard it performed twice at the
festival, thought it was wonderful, and am currently working
on learning to play it. It's fairly difficult. After the
festival I did some web research on Guion. He's apparently
best known for piano arrangments of various American folk
tunes. I picked up sheet music of his "Turkey in the Straw"
at the festival -- it's theme & variations, beautifully
arranged, but very difficult. I'd like to learn to play it
too, but it's going to take a while.
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davel
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response 191 of 256:
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Dec 9 15:21 UTC 2000 |
What I've heard of Gottschalk's music is **wonderful** stuff.
John, I think the point is that it's a *Texas* Fox Trot. 8-{)]
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remmers
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response 192 of 256:
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Apr 24 03:50 UTC 2001 |
Haven't put anything in this item for a while, so a few updates:
I performed David Guion's "Texas Fox Trot" for an audience for the first
time a few weeks ago, at an informal "family night" concert organized by
my wife's cello teacher. I have to say it was a hit. People asked me
afterwards who the composer was, and if I knew anything more by him and
about him. It really is an amazing piece, one of the best compositions
to come out of the ragtime era.
I'll be performing at the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival this coming
August, in Sutter Creek, California. It's a lovely tourist town south of
Sacramento, in wine country, and the site of Mr. Sutter's gold discovery
in 1849. Haven't attended the festival before, but I'm told it more
or less takes over the town for three days. More info. is available on
the festival web site, http://www.ragtimemusic.com/scrf/ , which sports
photos of the performers, including yours truly.
Closer temporally and geographically is Zehnder's Ragtime Festival,
which takes place most of this week in Frankenmuth, Michigan, about
80 miles north of Ann Arbor. I'll be attending as much of it as my
schedule permits. This year's headliners are Bob Milne (as always),
Sue Keller, Reggie Robinson, Brian Holland, Tony Caramia, and the Et
Cetera String Band, and probably one or two other folks I'm forgetting.
I'll be in pig heaven as I listen to ragtime whilst pigging out on
Zehnder's fine cuisine.
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remmers
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response 193 of 256:
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May 26 01:24 UTC 2001 |
I've posted a "parlor ragtime recital" in this year's Grex auction.
See item 51 in the Auction conference <item:auction,51> .
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