"and has primarily a written tradition, being distributed in sheet music rather than through recordings or by imitation of live performances. Ragtime music was also distributed via piano rolls for player pianos. A folk ragtime tradition also existed before and during the period of classical ragtime (a designation largely created by Scott Joplin's publisher John Stillwell Stark), manifesting itself mostly through string bands, banjo and mandolin clubs (which experienced a burst of popularity during the early 20th century) and the like. A form known as novelty piano (or novelty ragtime) emerged as the traditional rag was fading in popularity. Where"
"Scott Joplin Scott Joplin ( or November 24, 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an African-American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions and was dubbed the ""King of Ragtime"". During his brief career, he wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the ""Maple Leaf Rag"", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag. Joplin was born into a musical family of railway laborers in Texarkana, Arkansas, and developed his musical knowledge with the help of local teachers."
"Ragtime Ragtime – also spelled rag-time or rag time – is a musical style that enjoyed its peak popularity between 1895 and 1918. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or ""ragged"" rhythm. The style has its origins in African-American communities in cities such as St. Louis. Ernest Hogan (1865–1909) was a pioneer of ragtime and was the first composer to have his ragtime pieces (or ""rags"") published as sheet music, beginning with the song ""La Pas Ma La"" published in 1895. Hogan has been credited with coining the term ""ragtime"". The term is derived from his hometown ""Shake Rag"" in"
"Joseph Lamb, James Scott, and Joplin are, together, acknowledged as the three most sophisticated ragtime composers. Other leading ragtime composers include Jelly Roll Morton, Eubie Blake, Charles L. Johnson, Tom Turpin, May Aufderheide, Lyons and Yosco, Mike Bernard, George Botsford, Zez Confrey, Sidney L. Perrin, Ben Harney, Luckey Roberts, Irving Jones, James P. Johnson, Paul Sarebresole, Joe Jordan, Fred S. Stone and Wilbur Sweatman. European Classical composers were influenced by the form. The first contact with ragtime was probably at the Paris Exposition in 1900, one of the stages of the European tour of John Philip Sousa. The first notable"
"Syncopations"", a ballet based on tunes by Joplin and other composers of the era. That year also brought the premiere by the Los Angeles Ballet of ""Red Back Book"", choreographed by John Clifford to Joplin rags from the collection of the same name, including both solo piano performances and arrangements for full orchestra. Scott Joplin Scott Joplin ( or November 24, 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an African-American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions and was dubbed the ""King of Ragtime"". During his brief career, he wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and"
"Classic rag Classic rag (short for classical ragtime) is the style of ragtime composition pioneered by Scott Joplin and the Missouri school of ragtime composers. These compositions were first considered ""classic"" by Joplin's publisher, John Stark, as a way to distinguish them from what he considered the ""common"" rags of other publishers. Today, any composition fitting this particular ragtime structural form is considered classic rag. In the earliest days of ragtime, there was little consensus on how to print the syncopated melodies of ragtime, so there was considerable variety in the formatting of sheet music. Pieces appeared in common meter,"
"Joseph Lamb Joseph Francis Lamb (December 6, 1887 – September 3, 1960) was an American composer of ragtime music. Lamb, of Irish descent, was the only non-African American of the ""Big Three"" composers of classical ragtime, the other two being Scott Joplin and James Scott. The ragtime of Joseph Lamb ranges from standard popular fare to complex and highly engaging. His use of long phrases was influenced by classical works he had learned from his sister and others while growing up, but his sense of structure was potentially derived from his study of Joplin's piano rags. By the time he"
"Ben Harney Benjamin Robertson ""Ben"" Harney (March 6, 1872 – March 2, 1938) was an American songwriter, entertainer, and pioneer of ragtime music. His 1895 composition ""You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down"" is regarded as one of the early ragtime composition. In 1924, the New York Times wrote that Ben Harney ""probably did more to popularize ragtime than any other person."" Time Magazine termed him ""Ragtime's Father"" in 1938. Ben Harney is generally said to have been born in Louisville, Kentucky. Although some sources put his birthplace as Nashville, Tennessee, according to his father's military"
"aged 84. She is interred next to her husband in Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena, California. May Aufderheide May Frances Aufderheide Kaufman (May 21, 1888 – September 1, 1972) was an American composer of ragtime music. She was probably the best known among female ragtime composers. She received training in art music and visited Europe on a grand tour, yet decided to compose in ragtime. May Aufderheide was a member of the Indianapolis ragtime community that included Paul Pratt, Cecil Duane Crabb, J. Russel Robinson, Will B. Morrison, Julia Lee Niebergall, and Gladys Yelvington. The popularity of her first published"
"later admitted regretting that decision her whole life. Maple Leaf Rag The ""Maple Leaf Rag"" (copyright registered on September 18, 1899) is an early ragtime musical composition for piano composed by Scott Joplin. It was one of Joplin's early works, and became the model for ragtime compositions by subsequent composers. It is one of the most famous of all ragtime pieces. As a result Joplin was called the ""King of Ragtime"". The piece gave Joplin a steady if unspectacular income for the rest of his life. Despite ragtime's decline after Joplin's death in 1917, the ""Maple Leaf Rag"" continued to"
"Dick Zimmerman Richard “Dick” Zimmerman (born August 11, 1937) is a ragtime performer, historian, author and producer. He is regarded as being one of the key figures responsible for the worldwide revival of ragtime. Zimmerman is the only pianist to have recorded the complete works (66 rags on solo piano) of Scott Joplin and in 1987 was awarded the first place prize “Champion Ragtime Performer of the World”. Zimmerman was technical advisor for the films ""Scott Joplin"" and ""Scott Joplin, King of Ragtime Composers"". He is a founder of the ""Maple Leaf Club"", and is the editor of its publication,"
"Maple Leaf Rag The ""Maple Leaf Rag"" (copyright registered on September 18, 1899) is an early ragtime musical composition for piano composed by Scott Joplin. It was one of Joplin's early works, and became the model for ragtime compositions by subsequent composers. It is one of the most famous of all ragtime pieces. As a result Joplin was called the ""King of Ragtime"". The piece gave Joplin a steady if unspectacular income for the rest of his life. Despite ragtime's decline after Joplin's death in 1917, the ""Maple Leaf Rag"" continued to be recorded by many well-known artists. The ragtime"
"Ragtime (musical) Ragtime is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and music by Stephen Flaherty. The music includes marches, cakewalks, gospel and ragtime. Based on the 1975 novel by E. L. Doctorow, ""Ragtime"" tells the story of three groups in the United States in the early 20th century: African Americans, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Harlem musician; upper-class suburbanites, represented by Mother, the matriarch of a white upper-class family in New Rochelle, New York; and Eastern European immigrants, represented by Tateh, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia. Historical figures including Harry Houdini, Evelyn Nesbit,"
"annual ""It's Magic"" show. Dick and his wife Diane Zimmerman performed together as a husband-and-wife team in several magic acts, including one televised segment on the Merv Griffin Show. Dick Zimmerman Richard “Dick” Zimmerman (born August 11, 1937) is a ragtime performer, historian, author and producer. He is regarded as being one of the key figures responsible for the worldwide revival of ragtime. Zimmerman is the only pianist to have recorded the complete works (66 rags on solo piano) of Scott Joplin and in 1987 was awarded the first place prize “Champion Ragtime Performer of the World”. Zimmerman was technical"
"Terry Waldo Terry Waldo (born November 26, 1944 in Ironton, Ohio) is an American pianist, composer, and historian of early jazz, blues, and stride music, and is best known for his contribution to ragtime and his role in reviving interest in this form, starting in the 1970s. Says Wynton Marsalis in his introduction to Waldo's book: ""He teaches Ragtime, he talks about Ragtime, he plays it, he embodies it, he lives it, and he keeps Ragtime alive."" The book, ""This is Ragtime"", published in 1976, grew out of the series of the same title that Waldo produced for NPR in"
"act included him ragging tunes at the piano, vocal ragging scat singing), and dancing. Theatrical photographs from his Australasia tour (1911) show him dancing in blackface. Harney quit touring after suffering from a heart attack in 1928. Ben Harney died of a heart attack at the age of 66 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1938. In an appreciation that appeared in Time Magazine on March 14, 1938, a week after his death, he was described as ""Ragtime's Father"". Time wrote that ""the first man to write ragtime down on paper was a slick-haired Kentuckian, Ben Harney."" Ben Harney's compositions included: 1890s"
"the year and was named Top Classical Album of 1974 by ""Billboard"" magazine. The movie ""The Sting"" (1973) brought ragtime to a wide audience with its soundtrack of Joplin tunes. The film's rendering of ""The Entertainer"", adapted and orchestrated by Marvin Hamlisch, was a Top 5 hit in 1975. Ragtime – with Joplin's work at the forefront – has been cited as an American equivalent of the minuets of Mozart, the mazurkas of Chopin, or the waltzes of Brahms. Ragtime also influenced classical composers including Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, and Igor Stravinsky. Ragtime originated in African American music in the"
"Etilmon J. Stark Etilmon Justus Stark (May, 1867 — January 1, 1962) was an American ragtime composer and arranger, the eldest son of ragtime publisher John Stark. His best-known work includes the rag time pieces ""Trombone Johnsen"" (1902), ""Billiken Rag"" (1913), and ""Gum Shoe"" (1917), and the arrangements for the collection ""Fifteen Standard High Class Rags"" (1912) (better known as ""The Red Back Book""). Stark was born in Gosport, Indiana and he was known as ""Till"". While his birth date has been traditionally cited as 1868, he was actually born in May 1867. E.J. Stark moved to Missouri with his"
"rags, brought out compositions that had never been published, and made recordings. A year before his death in 1960 the album ""Joseph Lamb: A Study in Classic Ragtime"" was released by Folkways Records. He died of a heart attack in Brooklyn at age 72. Works cited Joseph Lamb Joseph Francis Lamb (December 6, 1887 – September 3, 1960) was an American composer of ragtime music. Lamb, of Irish descent, was the only non-African American of the ""Big Three"" composers of classical ragtime, the other two being Scott Joplin and James Scott. The ragtime of Joseph Lamb ranges from standard popular"
"Max Morath Max Morath (born October 1, 1926) is an American ragtime pianist, composer, actor and author. He is best known for his piano playing and is referred to as ""Mr. Ragtime"". He has been a touring performer as well as being variously a composer, recording artist, actor, playwright, and radio and television presenter. Rudi Blesh billed Morath as a ""one-man ragtime army"". Morath was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He studied piano and harmony as a child and was exposed to the rudiments of ragtime piano by his mother, a schooled pianist who had spent several years playing for"
"on live television. He died at age 78 in 1956. Julius Lenzberg Julius Lenzberg (January 3, 1878 to April 24, 1956) was a German-American composer of ragtime and jazz. He recorded a substantial number of jazz pieces with orchestra between 1919 and 1922, in addition to ragtime music such as his popular ""Hungarian Rag"" of 1913. Lenzberg was the youngest child of German (Prussian) immigrants Henry and Julia Lenzberg, and he had many brothers and sisters. His father worked as a cigar packer in Baltimore. Jules, as he often called himself, worked at the Weber and Fields Vaudeville Club in"
"Wallie Herzer Wallie Herzer ""(né"" Walter Henry Herzer; 15 April 1885 San Francisco – 15 October 1961 Redwood City, California) was an American composer of popular music, music publisher, and pianist. Herzer flourished in music prior to and during World War I. The Columbia recording of his 1912 composition, ""Everybody Two-Step"" — performed by ragtime pianist Mike Bernard on December 2, 1912, in New York City — is the first recording of ragtime music. It became a hit and coincided at the start of a renewed craze for ragtime and dance — fifteen years after William Krell's ""Mississippi Rag"" had"
"third phrase repeating the first. There is considerable variation, though. Some composers (such as James Scott) made frequent use of two-bar phrases and others (such as Joseph Lamb) tended to employ eight-bar phrases. Classic rag Classic rag (short for classical ragtime) is the style of ragtime composition pioneered by Scott Joplin and the Missouri school of ragtime composers. These compositions were first considered ""classic"" by Joplin's publisher, John Stark, as a way to distinguish them from what he considered the ""common"" rags of other publishers. Today, any composition fitting this particular ragtime structural form is considered classic rag. In the"
"came the release and Grammy Award for The New England Ragtime Ensemble's recording of Joplin's ""Red Back Book."" Finally, with the release of the motion picture ""The Sting"" in 1973, which had a Marvin Hamlisch soundtrack of Joplin tunes edited by Gunther Schuller, ragtime was brought to a wide audience. Hamlisch's rendering of Joplin's 1902 rag ""The Entertainer"" won an Academy Award, and was an American Top 40 hit in 1974, reaching No. 3 on May 18. Ragtime composers of the mid- to late-20th century include Max Morath, William Bolcom, Trebor Tichenor, David Thomas Roberts, and Reginald Robinson. Many modern"
"Trebor Jay Tichenor Trebor Jay Tichenor (January 28, 1940 - February 22, 2014) was a recognized authority on Scott Joplin and the ragtime era. He collected and published others' ragtime piano compositions and composed his own. He authored books about ragtime, and both on his own and as a member of The St. Louis Ragtimers, became a widely known ragtime pianist. Trebor Jay Tichenor was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Dr. Robert and Letitia Tichenor. His first name was formed by reversing the letters in his father's first name. He studied piano from the age of five and was"
"Euday L. Bowman Euday Louis Bowman (November 9, 1887 – May 26, 1949) was an American pianist and composer of ragtime and blues who represented the style of ""Texas Ragtime"". He is chiefly remembered as the composer of the successful ""Twelfth Street Rag"", a rag from 1914 out of a series of ragtimes that Bowman wrote during or after a period in which he worked as a pianist in some of the better bordellos of Kansas City. These tunes -- ""Sixth Street Rag"", ""Tenth Street Rag"", ""Eleventh Street Rag"" and ""Twelfth Street Rag""—were named after streets of ""Boss"" Tom Pendergast's"
"classical composer to take a serious interest in ragtime was Antonín Dvořák. French composer Claude Debussy emulated ragtime in three pieces for piano. The best-known remains the ""Golliwog's Cake Walk"" (from the 1908 Piano Suite ""Children's Corner""). He later returned to the style with two preludes for piano: ""Minstrels"", (1910) and ""General Lavine-excentric"" (from his 1913 Preludes), which was inspired by a Médrano circus clown. Erik Satie, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and the other members of The Group of Six in Paris never made any secret of their sympathy for ragtime, which is sometimes evident in their works. Consider, in"
"""miniature opera"" intended to be sung by three or four people, but the idea never gained acceptance. After a long career involving many kinds of music, he died in New York City. George Botsford George Botsford (February 24, 1874 – February 11, 1949) was an American composer of ragtime and other forms of music. Botsford was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and grew up in Iowa. His first copyrighted number was ""The Katy Flyer -- Cake Walk,"" published in 1899. His most important rag is ""Black and White Rag,"" published in 1908. Other Botsford compositions include ""Grizzly Bear Rag,"""
"forces in American music. Handy was an educated musician who used folk material in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting the sources of his works, which frequently combined stylistic influences from several performers. He loved this folk musical form and brought his own transforming touch to it. Scott Joplin (c. 1867/68–1917) was an American musician and composer of ragtime music. He remains the best-known ragtime figure and is regarded as one of the three most important composers of classic ragtime, along with James Scott and Joseph Lamb. His music enjoyed a considerable resurgence of popularity and critical respect in"
"1896 1897 1898 1899 1899 1901 1902 1913 1914 1925 While Harney was neglected by commercial recording studios during his lifetime, in 1925 a folklorist, Robert Winslow Gordon, recorded Harney singing an example of an early ragtime or rag-blues song, ""The Wagon"", on a dictaphone phonograph cylinder, and this recording has survived. Harney stated on the recording: ""This is absolutely the first song published in ragtime; the first song ever written in ragtime. The idea was conceived by Ben Harney, in Louisville, Kentucky."" Ben Harney Benjamin Robertson ""Ben"" Harney (March 6, 1872 – March 2, 1938) was an American songwriter,"
"May Aufderheide May Frances Aufderheide Kaufman (May 21, 1888 – September 1, 1972) was an American composer of ragtime music. She was probably the best known among female ragtime composers. She received training in art music and visited Europe on a grand tour, yet decided to compose in ragtime. May Aufderheide was a member of the Indianapolis ragtime community that included Paul Pratt, Cecil Duane Crabb, J. Russel Robinson, Will B. Morrison, Julia Lee Niebergall, and Gladys Yelvington. The popularity of her first published rag, ""Dusty"", convinced her father, Indianapolis loan broker John H. Aufderheide, to enter the music publishing"
"William Krell William Henry Krell (1868–1933) composed what is regarded as the first rag or ragtime composition in 1897 called Mississippi Rag, published in New York by S. Brainard's Sons and copyrighted on January 27, 1897. The sheet music stated that it was the first rag-time two step ever written and was first played by Krell's Orchestra in Chicago although the structure is in the form of a patrol march. The cover shows a group of all ages dancing to a banjo player before onlookers sitting on a pile of stacked cotton bales on a dock on the Mississippi River."
"Tom Turpin Thomas Million John Turpin (November 18, 1871 – August 13, 1922) was an African-American composer of ragtime music. Tom Turpin was born in Savannah, Georgia, a son of John L. Turpin and Lulu Waters Turpin. In his early twenties he opened a saloon in St. Louis, Missouri which became a meeting-place for local pianists and an incubation point for early folk ragtime, such as musician Joe Jordan. Turpin himself is credited with the first published rag by an African-American, his ""Harlem Rag"" of 1897 (it was composed by 1892, a year before ragtime's introduction to the world at"