response 145 of 256:

Jul 29 17:47 UTC 1999

Over the last couple of years I've collected a little original sheet
music from the ragtime era. I haven't been systematic about it, and have
no intention of getting into collecting in a big-time way - it's a
pretty expensive habit - but if in my travels I spot an antique store or
used bookstore with a sheet music collection, I'll look it over to see
if there's anything interesting that's not too expensive.

I spotted my most interesting recent acquisition last June at the Egbert
Van Alstyne Festival in Woodstock, Illinois. Dick Zimmerman was at the
festival as a performer. In addition to performing, Zimmerman is a
considerable researcher and music collector - he was the person who
unearthed a copy of Scott Joplin's long-lost "Silver Swan Rag" back in
the 1970's. 

Zimmerman brought some of his old sheet music to the festival that he
wanted to unload and had it on display for sale. In leafing through the
collection I spotted a copy of George Botsford's classic "Black and
White Rag" from 1908. It was one of the most popular pieces of the
ragtime era; its popularity survived the ragtime era and it went on to
become a big band staple in the 1920's and later. It's a piece I like a
lot and learned to play recently from a reprint of a 1920's edition. In
examine Zimmerman's 1908 copy, I immediately spotted a some differences
from the version I know - completely different introduction, walking
bass, and a few other things. So I decided I had to have this, since (1)
it was the original version, and (2) it's significantly different from
the version I knew and had heard other people play. Plus it was only
$14, since it wasn't in particularly good shape, although all the music
was there and perfectly legible.

Over the last few weeks I've been re-learning the piece using the 1908
edition, and have it pretty well down now. The original works better at
a slower tempo than the 1920's edition, suggesting that the composer (or
someone else, perhaps) made changes to accommodate the faster tempos
fashionable in the 1920's, which was the era of "novelty ragtime". In
any case, I prefer the 1908 version musically. Since I've never heard
anyone else play this version, it may be a unique feature of my
repertoire.

response 147 of 256:

Aug 13 21:11 UTC 1999

In case you see this before you get your mail (Grex is down):

I need a backup of the diskclavier disk; I've misplaced it.

I'm beginning to think I need to work on this rag after I get to Michigan.  I
have no idea when I'll find the time to finish it.

Did you find any translator programs that could convert the data to an IBM/Mac
file that a manuscripting program could read?

response 149 of 256:

Dec 12 23:36 UTC 1999

Hm, someday I'll post a followup report on the West Coast Ragtime
Festival, maybe.  It was a fine event.

In a few minutes I'm off to the annual "Christmas Ragtime Bash" at
the Unitarian Church, featuring Bolcom & Morris, Mike Montgomery,
and others.  Ta ta for now...

response 151 of 256:

Dec 13 18:26 UTC 1999

Guess I shoulda posted an announcement here. Sorry. It wasn't
very well publicized; I found it by scanning the Observer events
listings.

Nonetheless, it was a full house by 20 minutes before start time.
This despite the less accessible location of the new church, the
larger seating capacity there (I think), and the absence of
publicity.

It was a fun and lively concert.

The emcee for the evening was Mike Montgomery of Detroit, a
performer, scholar, and piano roll collector who's been around
for a long time. Some forty years ago he performed an
invaluable service to the ragtime community by seeking out the
great classical ragtime composer Joseph Lamb and recording Lamb
playing his rags (including many unpublished ones) on tape.
This was just a year or two before Lamb's death, so it's thanks
to Mike that we know about a lot of Lamb's compositions.  I've
encountered Mike at a few ragtime festivals around the country
over the last couple of years, and we've joked about the fact
that despite the fact that we're both Michiganders, we'd never
actually met in Michigan.  Well, last night we finally did.

Montgomery led off with a performance of Scott Joplin's "Maple
Leaf Rag", appropriate since 1999 is the hundredth anniversary
of its publication.  After pointing out that saloon players of
the ragtime era mostly learned music by ear rather than from
sheet music, (many couldn't read music), and tended to play in
their own style rather than note-for-note, he played "Maple
Leaf" in the key of F (it's written in A flat) with some
departures from the written score. Sounded pretty good.

Next William Bolcom performed, minus wife Joan Morris, who was
down with a cold and "off voice".  He zipped through a Venezuelan
"Danza", Eubie Blake's "Charleston Rag", and his own composition
"Graceful Ghost". Difficult music all.  I don't believe I'd ever
heard him perform "Ghost" live before, and he did it a little
differently from his early-seventies recording.  A bit brisker
tempo, and he didn't "swing" the 16th notes like he did in the
recording.

James Dapogny did some stride pieces, his specialty: Jelly Roll
Morton's "Stratford Hunch", James P. Johnson's "Snowy Morning
Blues", Fats Waller's "Viper's Drag".  Then he was joined by
vocalist Susan Chastain for a couple of numbers: "Between the
Devil and the Deep Blue Sea", and a gospel tune.  I'd not heard
Chastain before; she has a powerful but very warm voice, and
was a delight to listen to.

The first half of the concert closed with an unscheduled
appearance by Rick Grafton, who runs a club called "Rick's
Ragtime Cafe" in Toledo.  He gave a rousing rendition of an
obscure but excellent rag called "The Vamp" from about 1916.
Audience response was enthusiastic; hopefully he'll be back.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to seek out his establishment in
Toledo.

After intermission, Montgomery opened with an amusing vocal
number named "He's Just a Cousin of Mine" by Chris Smith of
"Ballin' the Jack" fame.

Then Terry Parrish, a newcomer to Ann Arbor, did a set.
Parrish is a doctor (child psychiatrist, I believe) and runs a
clinic in Indianapolis.  Despite the fact that music isn't his
full time job, in my opinion he's one of the best performers in
ragtime today - this opinion formed from hearing him at various
festivals.  So I was glad to see him show up at the Bash; I
believe Montgomery took the initiative in getting him here.
His set showcased a variety of ragtime styles: Brun Campbell's
"Frankie and Johnny Rag" (based on the folk song), Tom Turpin's
"St. Louis Rag", Les C. Copeland's eccentric "Bees and Honey
Rag" (unpublished, Parrish learned it from listening to a piano
roll), and a couple of his own compositions.

The evening closed with a set from boogie woogie pianist Bob
Seely, who has been playing piano at Chuck Muir's Charlie's
Crab Restaurant in Troy since the dawn of time, and whose
appearance at the Bash is an annual event.  As Montgomery put
it, Seely has to be last on the program because nobody would
want to follow him.  The man is a wizard at the keyboard, a
dynamo who brings his own battery-operated portable fan along
and sets it on the piano to keep himself cool while playing.
He performed pieces by boogie great Meade Lux Lewis, Albert
Ammondo (sp?), as well as perennial favorites, his boogie
versions of the inspirational tunes "A Closer Walk with Thee"
and "Amazing Grace".  I've heard him do it all before but never
get tired of it. Neither does the rest of the audience
apparently, who gave him a standing ovation.

At one point, Montgomery proposed having several Ann Arbor
ragtime concerts throughout the year instead of just the one,
bringing in more performers.  This was music to my ears.  To
judge by the popularity of the Christmas concert, I think the
audience support would be there.

response 153 of 256:

Jan 28 14:20 UTC 2000

An upcoming Ann Arbor ragtime-related event this coming Sunday, Jan. 30:
Faculty Recital/Superbowl Alternative Concert at the Britton Recital 
Hall, U of M School of Music.  Featured performers are pianist William 
Bolcom, violinist Stephen Shipps, cellist Erling Blondal Bengtsson, and 
pianist Gabriela Frank.  Bolcom will be playing some of his own works, 
including I believe some ragtime material.

Starting time is 7 p.m.

response 155 of 256:

Feb 23 00:36 UTC 2000

    Ragtime social notes from all over:

    One side effect of hanging around the ragtime circuit is that
    from time to time one hears personal news about the major
    personalities.  This is probably of limited interest to
    anyone reading this item, but Tracy Doyle - ragtime scholar,
    occasional piano player, and producer of the Van Alstyne
    Festival - just announced that she and Richard Zimmerman,
    ragtime pianist extraordinaire (he made one of the best
    recordings of Scott Joplin's complete works, back in the
    1970's) - are engaged to be married.  Congrats to Tracy
    and Dick.

    (I guess that was only one social note.  Maybe I'll post
    another one someday.)

    As I mentioned earlier, Tracy and Dick have lately been
    extremely busy putting MP3 ragtime material up on the
    web.  See http://www.mp3.com

response 157 of 256:

Feb 24 15:39 UTC 2000

    Ragtime was always improvisatory to an extent, but not in
    the same way as jazz.  The ragtime syncopated style of
    performance appears to predate by several years the
    appearance in print of pieces that were labeled as "rags".
    So at the beginning, the music wasn't written down, but
    rather, musicians learned it by ear from hearing other
    musicians perform it.  Under those circumstances, it was
    seldom the case that two musicians played the same piece
    exactly alike.  However, once a musician had learned a
    tune, he or she tended to play it pretty much the same
    way every time, perhaps occasionally incorporating some
    new variation that they'd thought of; improvisation per se
    wasn't part of the ragtime style.  Pieces generally
    consisted of three or four sixteen-bar strains, repeated
    in some fixed pattern such as AABBCCDD or AABBCCB, and
    musicians usually didn't depart from this architecture.

    Around 1898 ragtime piano solos, songs, and band
    arrangments started to be published.  In short order
    the ragtime craze took hold and ragtime publishing became
    a huge business.  Nonetheless, professional musicians
    continued to play the music in their own styles, seldom
    performing it note-for-note as written.  For one thing,
    a musician's image and reputation was founded in part on
    his or her unique style of playing.  For another, many
    musicians of the time didn't even know how to read music
    and learned pieces by ear.  In the musical circles in
    which he moved in his younger days, Scott Joplin was
    known as the "King of the Ragtime WRITERS" because he
    was one of the few who knew musical notation and
    actually wrote his compositions down.

    Those ragtime composers -- such as Joplin, Joseph Lamb,
    and James Scott -- who wanted ragtime to be taken
    seriously on a par with classical compositions, said that
    they preferred that their music be played note-for-note,
    as written.  I don't think they had much success getting
    their contemporaries to do that.  Even Joplin didn't follow
    his own advice, as we know from the testimony of people
    who heard him play, and from the few piano rolls that he
    cut.  In repeats of strains, one hears significant departures
    from the written scores in the bass line.

    Nowadays, ragtime players seem to fall into two camps:  the
    note-for-note camp and the variations-are-desirable camp.  To
    the former group belong Joshua Rifkin, Scott Kirby, and
    David Thomas Roberts, and Glenn Jenks, for example.  In the
    latter one has Bob Milne, Richard Zimmerman, Tony Caramia,
    and Sue Keller.
    
    This is a bit of an oversimplification, because I don't know
    of any current ragtime musician who plays everything exactly
    as written; limited variations on repeats are considered to
    be okay, even by the note-for-noters.  And there are musicians
    whose adherence to the written score depends on what composer
    they're playing.  Jeff Barnhart or Sue Keller might stick
    close to the score with a Joe Lamb rag but go wild with
    variations on Jelly Roll Morton.

    A musician who departs from the printed score doesn't
    necessarily draw the variations out of the air.  A couple
    of years ago, I heard Richard Zimmerman perform a Charlie
    Johnson piece that I'd also been working on.  He threw in
    an enormous number of variations:  interior melodies, doubled
    bass lines, etc.  Later I asked him about that.  He told me
    that ragtime pieces were often published in band arrangments
    as well as piano solos, and that he studies the band 
    arrangments and incorporates elements from them into his
    solo performances, trying for a kind of orchestral effect.
    Zimmerman has prodigious technique, so it works.

    I'm not the ragtime scholar that Zimmerman is, but in my own
    playing -- although I tend to play pretty close to the
    written score -- I incorporate variations that are consistent
    with common practice during the ragtime era.  This includes
    such things as playing the melody an octave higher on repeats,
    doing the bass line in octaves, or playing the final strain of
    a piece at slightly slower tempo for a "grand finale" effect.

response 159 of 256:

Feb 25 18:20 UTC 2000

    Joplin attended a small all-black college in Missouri, where he
    studied music.  He is one of the few ragtime musicians of that
    era (certainly one of the few black musicians) to be college-
    educated.

    Morton was definitely a bridge between ragtime and jazz.  He
    liked to claim that he invented jazz, although that is no doubt
    an exaggeration.

    Joplin appears to have written two operas:  "A Guest of Honor"
    and "Tremoneesha".  The former has been lost, although I
    believe I've read that his composition "The Ragtime Dance",
    published both as a piano solo and as a song, is taken from
    it.  We have the score to "Tremoneesha", and there have been
    a few productions of it in the last 25 years or so.  The
    quality of "Tremoneesha" is rather uneven (especially the
    lyrics -- Joplin was not the master of lyrics that he was
    of instrumental music), although the finale, "A Real Slow
    Drag", is one of his most splendid creations.

response 161 of 256:

Feb 26 14:28 UTC 2000

    I thought I might be spelling it wrong, so I looked it up, and
    I was.  It's "Treemonisha."

    Hm, I'll have to look up the bit about piano accompaniment.  I
    know that a piano arrangement of the score was published, but
    I had always assumed that it was scored for full orchestra
    originally.  Modern productions of the opera have featured
    orchestral accompaniment.

    One of my most moving and memorable experiences at last summer's
    Scott Joplin Festival was hearing a performance of excerpts
    from "Treemonisha", performed by the Ophelia Ragtime Orchestra,
    a chorus, and soloists -- all from Oslo, Norway.

    The Ophelia Ragtime Orchestra also performed at other festival 
    events.  I don't know to what extent they tour in the United
    States, but if you ever get a chance to hear them, don't misss
    them.  They are wonderful.

response 163 of 256:

Mar 11 01:05 UTC 2000

Spoke to Karen the ballet teacher today -- after listening to the tape I
made multiple times, she's decided to do George Botsford's "Black and
White Rag" for her ballet recital.  It's a deligtful piece and fun to
play, so I have to say I'm pleased with the decision.  Another reason
for the choice is that her students' ballet costumes are black and
white.  I'm anxious to see what kind of choreography she works out for
it.  She'd like me to wear black and white too.  (Remmers in a tuxedo? 
Hmm, I'll have to give this some thought...)

response 165 of 256:

Mar 11 14:31 UTC 2000

Scott, why are all your responses these days filled with underscores instead
of blanks?

response 167 of 256:

Mar 13 12:47 UTC 2000

Dunno how "established" I am, but in any case I don't own a tux,
so I'd have to rent one.  Another possibility is some kind of
ragtimey "saloon" get up with red armbands.