Forwarded Message:

• From: dgracyk@cup.hp.com        To: ALL                       Orig: MBNET
 Subj: Defining "ragtime"/"Jopli Area: 1-ec.music.ragtime      Date: 10/12/95
 =============================================================================
•
I am writing the "ragtime" and "Scott Joplin" entries for an
encyclopedia of black culture in the 20th century, and I post
my rough drafts here so I can get comments from anyone who
would like to read them.  The entries must be short, so I
cannot add much to these, but if you think I misrepresent
anything or if you see where wording could be more precise, I
would like to hear your views.

Thank you.

--Tim Gracyk (using Donna's email address)

______________________________________________________________

Ragtime

Introduced in the 1890s, ragtime was incredibly popular in the
first two decades of the twentieth century.  Simply defined,
the music combines an even rhythm with a syncopated melodic
strain.  When piano players perform ragtime, the left hand
generally provides a march-like rhythm (often with
octave-chord patterns giving an "oom-pah" effect) while the
right hand plays a melody in a contrasting rhythm.
Syncopation is the result of emphasis or accent on beats that
would normally be considered weak musical beats.  Syncopated
music was not new, but constant syncopation combined with a
steady rhythm was a novelty in popular music.

The origin of the term "ragtime" is not clear.  Scott Joplin,
widely recognized as its greatest composer, explained to a
reporter in 1907 that the music took its name "because it has
such a ragged movement," or uneven movement or timing.  Other
explanations have been given.

The music was chiefly developed by African-Americans, with
important composers and performers including James Scott,
Artie Matthews, Joe Jordan, Scott Hayden, Eubie Blake, Luckey
Roberts, James P. Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton.  White musicians
performed rags written by African-American composers and also
composed works in a similar vein.  The song-writing industry
known as Tin Pan Alley recognized ragtime's popularity and
added "ragtime" and "rag" to countless titles to help
popularize new vocal numbers, but few melodies of instrumental
rags are suitable for vocals, and few popular vocal numbers
labeled as "ragtime" are true rags.

Ragtime was was already established as a genre when Scott
Joplin's first two rags were published in 1899, "Original
Rags" and "Maple Leaf Rag," the latter proving especially
popular.  Perhaps the only rag to surpass it in popularity was
Euday Louis Bowman's "Twelve Street Rag," published in 1914.

Hundreds of rags were written for piano and published in sheet
music format.  As ragtime developed, harmonies got
increasingly complex as did cross rhythms, so more skill was
required of ragtime pianists.  James Scott's popular "Frog
Legs Rag" from 1906 reflects this development.  Ragtime was
also played by brass bands and performed on solo instruments
like banjo, mandolin, and guitar.  Nick Lucas in 1922 made the
first disc of rags performed on solo guitar:  "Pickin' the
Guitar" and "Teasin' the Frets."  The African-American Blind
Blake recorded his own ragtime compositions for Paramount
beginning in 1926, and these influenced generations of guitar
players.

Notable ragtime numbers written by African-American composers
between 1900 and 1920 include Tom Turpin's "St. Louis Rag"
(1903), Luckey Roberts' "Pork and Beans" (1913), Wilbur
Sweatman's "Old Folks Rag" (1914), Jim Europe's "Castle House
Rag" (1914), Ford Dabney's "The Georgia Grind" (1915), W.C.
Handy's "Ole Miss Rag" (1916), Jelly Roll Morton's "King
Porter Stomp" (published in 1924 but written much earlier).
Artie Matthews' series of Pastime rags, published by Joplin's
publisher John Stark from 1913 to 1920 feature excellent rags.

Distinctions can be made between "folk ragtime," the music of
pianists with no formal musical training but who played by ear
and improvised, and "classic ragtime," which is the music of
trained musicians like Scott Joplin who brought form and
structure to ragtime.  By the 1920s, white pianists influenced
by ragtime specialized in a semi-virtuosic style of piano
playing called "novelty piano."  Zez Confrey's 1921 "Kitten On
The Keys" is an example.  Around this time African-American
pianists influenced by ragtime developed a new style of
playing called "stride."

Ragtime's heyday basically spanned Scott Joplin's career, from
1899 to 1917.  Rags continued to be written, with some rags
privately published even in recent decades, but other trends
eclipsed the ragtime craze by the World War I period,
including a jazz craze sparked by the first jazz disc, issued
in 1917.  Ragtime has enjoyed major revivals.  The publication
in 1950 of Blesh and Janis' They All Played Ragtime coincided
with ragtime recordings being issued by small 78 RPM record
companies devoted to ragtime (these labels recorded Joplin
numbers like "The Entertainer" for the first time).  Ragtime
enjoyed incredible popularity upon the release in 1974 of the
film The Sting, which was set around 1930 but
anachronistically features Joplin tunes.

Although ragtime in recent decades has been performed mostly
by white artists, notable African-American performers in
recent decades include Eubie Blake, who played ragtime up to
the year he died in 1983; pianist Hank Jones, who recorded in
the early 1960s an LP titled This is Ragtime Now!; and
Reginald Robinson, a contemporary composer who in 1993
recorded for a compact disc titled The Strongman 21 original
pieces, including "Spring Rag" and "Good Times Rag."

References:

Berlin, Edward.  Ragtime: A Musical And Cultural History.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Blesh, Rudi and Harriet Janis.  They All Played Ragtime.  New
York:  Alfred A.  Knopf, 1950.

Schafer, William J. and Johannes Riedel.  The Art of Ragtime.
Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1973.

SCOTT JOPLIN

Scott Joplin was one of America's most original and
influential composers.  He wrote a few dozen rags from the
turn-of-the-century until his death in 1917, all works of
great craftsmanship, but this composer of diverse talents also
wrote waltzes, marches, two operas, a ballet.

Born to freed slaves in 1868 in northeast Texas in a town
later named Texarkana, Joplin was reportedly in Chicago at the
World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, and he may have heard
ragtime played by African-Americans who congregated there (the
music was probably not named ragtime yet).  He settled in
Sedalia, Missouri in 1894 and composed when he found time
between jobs as a musician at prostitution houses and in
society dance bands.  His earliest published compositions were
not rags but parlor-type songs (lyrics by Joplin), marches, a
waltz.  The ragtime genre was already established when
Joplin's "Original Rags" was published in early 1899, but
"Maple Leaf Rag," also published in 1899, was so successful
that it sparked widespread interest in ragtime.  It was
recorded eight times during Joplin's life, with "Wall Street
Rag" being the only other Joplin tune recorded before his
death.  Joplin himself never made phonograph recordings.

In 1900 he collaborated with one of his Sedalia students,
Arthur Marshall, on "Swipesy," and its subtitle--"Cake
Walk"--is a reminder that ragtime spread with the popularity
of this dance.  By the time Joplin took up residence in St.
Louis in 1901, his fame had spread and the sheet music of
"Peacherine Rag" in that year identified Joplin as "the King
of Ragtime Writers."  His first opera, a two-act work titled
The Guest of Honor, opened in East St. Louis on August 30,
1903 but "Scott Joplin's Rag-Time Opera Company" soon
disbanded due to financial difficulties.  No reviews of
performances have been found, and the work itself is lost.

In 1904 John Stark published Joplin's "The Chrysanthemum--An
Afro-American Intermezzo," and this is the first time the
phrase "Afro-American" appears on sheet music.  Joplin wrote a
ballet titled The Ragtime Dance, published in 1906.  He moved
to New York City in 1907, published an instruction book for
ragtime enthusiasts, and wrote various ragtime gems including
"Pine Apple Rag," "Euphonic Sounds," "Solace," "Scott Joplin's
New Rag."

He also composed Treemonisha, a folk opera with ragtime
influences, not a ragtime opera.  Joplin wrote the libretto
along with the score.  The subject matter--an Arkansas
community of former slaves--was refreshingly different but the
work is dramatically weak, a consequence of Joplin having
little theatrical experience.  He copyrighted a piano-vocal
score of Treemonisha in 1911 but failed to secure backing for
a full production (its premiere was in 1972).  By 1915 he
suffered the effects of syphilis, and piano rolls made in 1916
do not reflect Joplin's earlier skills as a player.  He died
in 1917 at age 49.

References

Berlin, Edward.  King of Ragtime.  New York: Oxford University
Press, 1994.

Blesh, Rudi and Harriet Janis.  They All Played Ragtime.  New
York:  Alfred A.  Knopf, 1950.