RIVERSIDE RLP JAZZ ARCHIVES 12-126 RAGTIME Piano Roll Classics SCOTT JOPLIN, JAMES SCOTT. TOM TURPIN, others All selections on Side 1, and # l and 2 on Side 2, probably played by their composers; other four selections by unknown pianists. The recordirws that make up this LP comprise a unique lo put across this remarkable music to all of America. and important ;egment of the history of An:erican 1.nusic. SIDE 1 If Sedalia was the birthplace of ragtime, St. Louis antique~: became its capital. There the big man tin more ways But they are most ce!·tainly not mere musical (James Scott) they are exciting ragtime performances that are every bil l. Grace and Beauty than one) was Thomas Million Turpin (1873-1922), a six-foot, 300-pound saloonkeeper of legendary good as alive and compelling today as when they were first 2. Ragtime Oriole (James Scott) l'layed-which was in some instances more than half a humor, who wrote few rags but played many, and who (Tom Turpi11) fathered the more brilliant, swift and showy "St. Louis century ago. 3. St. Louis Rag school" of ragtime. His rhythmic St. Louis Rag was ( .: oseph f,amb) To begin with, these were not recordings al all- they 4. American Beauty Hag written in 1903. antedate all but the very earliest of records. They were 5. Scott Joplin's New Hag (Scott Joplin) oricrinally a series of oblong holes c;.it on long sheets of James Scott ( 1886-19381 ranks with Joplin and Turpin pa1~er, rolled into cylinders and played in both home~ 6. Original Rags (Scott Jopli11) as a major ragtime figure, but he was in every outward and saloons throughout a country that found its musical way Turpin's opposite. Small (about 140 pounds and entertainment by pounding the pedals of the player piano. SIDE 2 just a few inches over five feet tall) and shy, he was That, of course, was back in the first decades ?f this known as the Lillie Professor, and spent many quiet years centurv, before the phonograph, and then the movies and 1. Fig Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin) as organist in a Kansas City theater. Grace and Beauty t.1909.l and Ragtime Oriole t.1911), which have power as the radio all pushed the player piano and its rolls of 2. The Entertainer (Scott Joplin) music out of the spotlight and into l al best l obscure well as beauty, were among his most noted compositions. corners of dusty old attics. But this is music that deserves 3. States Rag Medley #8 Joseph Lamb, born in 1887, was a white man, which a much kinder fate than that, and so this material has 4. St. Louis Tickle (Hamey-Seymore) is a startling fact when you consider that authentic rag- now been transferred directly from rare copies of the time was so thoroughly a Negro style and then note the original piano rolls to make its reappearance as an LP (E. Phillip Severi11) 5. Jungle Time. true ragtime feeling of his American Beauty Rag ( 1913). album. 6. 'Possum and 'Taters (Charles Hunter) Lamb, who met Joplin in New York in 1907, was un- The works presented here include the compositions and doubtedly helped by him, but wrote rags that were fully his own. (as far as can now be determined) probably the perform- Like jazz, this was finsl a music played by and for ances of the greatest exponents of ragtime piano: Scott Negroes; like jazz, which first flourished in the red light Of the last four selections here, the Medley is an un- Joplin, Tom Turpin, James Scott, Joseph Lamb. Except district of New Orleans, ragtime grew up in an area of perhaps for Joplin, these are now names only dimly known pianist's rapid-fire compound of strains from some honky tonks and brothels. This was the tast Main Street ten pieces of his day; such potpourri often made up remembered, if they are remembered at all, and their section of Sedalia, Missouri, where a footloose piano music exists only in the form of distorted, 'ricky-tick' special extra-large-sized piano rolls. The remaining three player named Scott Joplin settled down in the 1890s. parodies. But what they created was in its day a national selections, also by unknown performers, serve to indicate Joplin was born in Texas in 1868, he died in 1917, at the high level of 'average' and now totally unremembered craze and a brilliant musical style, and it made a lasting just about the time when the music with which his name contribution to both jazz and popular music. ragtime composition. It should be noted that St. Louis • is almost synonymous was dying out-stifled and watered- Tickle is one of those old numbers that is a folklorist's down and worked to death by the song-mechanics of Tin Ragtime evolved, in the gradual way that musical styles delight. Jazz fans will recognize one of its strains as Jelly Pan Alley. But before that came to pass, Joplin and his are apt to come into being, out of the folk melodies and Roll's Buddy Bolden's Blues; the same strain also appears colleagues had many years of success and satisfaction: plantation songs of the Southern Negro. is related to in a Mississippi River levee work song, in a non-ragtime It their rags played everywhere, their piano rolls in great the cakewalk, and probably owes credit for its initial song by Joplin, and elsewhere. demand, national ragtime competitions drawing great popularity to the fact that this dance was sweeping the crowds at the great St. Louis Exposition of 1904 and (These selections have previously appeared on two country in the 1890s, when ragtime was first solidifying elsewhere. itseli into recognizable form. It is primarily a piano 10-inch Riverside alburns-1006 and 1025-but are now made available for the first time on 12-inch LP.) music, and its basic premise is simple enough to describe. Just after the appearance of his first published piece, It merely involves syncopation I accents on what are nor- Original Rags ( 1899), Joplin met a Sedalia music pub- mally the weak beats of a measure l with the right hand, lisher named Tom Stark, who immediately fell in love while the left plays a regular, precise bass. That much with ragtime, moved on to St. Louis and New York with Another collection of. similar material is- is simple enough: but there is nothing simple about either it, and for many years worked with single-minded fervor The Golden Age of RAGTIME (RLP 12-IIO) the beautiful, rhythmic, complex, multi-strain melodies or the skill and brilliance with which the early ragtime LP produt>ed b'" BILL GRAUER. Notes bv ORRIN KEEP- Other 12-inch LPs in the Riverside "Jazz Archives" artists played-as any current pianist who has tried to NEWS. Issued . by arrangement with ln~perial Industrial series offer recordings by such major figures as- play true ragtime can surely testify. Company, manufacturers of QRS piano rolls. Cover photo- graph by SHEILAGH COULTER; cover designed bv PAUL LOUIS ARMSTRONG (RLPs 12-101, 12-122) BACON. Although long considered a sort of branch of jazz, rag- FATS WALLER (RLPs 12-103, 109) time was actually a separate and somewhat earlier move- RIVERSIDE RECORDS BIX BEIDERBECKE (RLP 12-123) ment. However, many pioneer jazzmen knew and loved rags. They were part of the repertoire of the first New are released by JELLY ROLL MORTON (RLP 12-111) Orleans bands, and the earliest jazz pianists (most notably JELLY ROLL MORTON Library of Congress set: Jelly Roll Morton) fused elements of ragtime into the BILL GRAUER PRODUCTIONS 12 volumes (RLPs 9001 through 9012) mainstream of their music. 553 West 5lst Street New York 19, N. Y. (available singly) 9 - -· - a I - • "-.