Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott Joplin, James Scott, and Joseph Lamb. Ragtime pieces are typically composed for and performed on piano, though the genre has been adapted for a variety of instruments and styles.
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Dubbed the "King of Ragtime", he composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became the genre's first and most influential hit, later being recognized as the quintessential rag. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls and largely disdained the performance of ragtime as honky tonk music most common in saloons.
The "Maple Leaf Rag" is an early ragtime musical composition for piano composed by Scott Joplin. It was one of Joplin's early works, becoming the model for ragtime compositions by subsequent composers. It is one of the most famous of all ragtime pieces. Its success led to Joplin being dubbed the "King of Ragtime" by his contemporaries. The piece gave Joplin a steady if unspectacular income for the rest of his life.
Morten Gunnar Larsen is a Norwegian jazz pianist and composer, well known for several stride piano recordings and collaborations.
John Stillwell Stark was an American publisher of ragtime music, best known for publishing and promoting the music of Scott Joplin.
Arthur Owen Marshall was an American composer and performer of ragtime music from Missouri. He was a protege of famed ragtime composer Scott Joplin.
Percy Wenrich was an American composer of ragtime and popular music. He is best known for writing the songs "Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet" and "When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose", along with the rag "The Smiler". For more than 15 years, Wenrich toured with his wife, vaudeville performer, Dolly Connolly; for whom he wrote several hit songs, including "Red Rose Rag", "Alamo Rag" and "Moonlight Bay". He was known throughout his lifetime as "The Joplin Kid".
Little is known about the exact origin of the music now known as the blues. No specific year can be cited as its origin, largely because the style evolved over a long period but blues is inarguably a Black American art form as it is noted "it is impossible to say exactly how old blues is - certainly no older than the presence of Negroes in the United States. It is native American Music, the product of the Black in this Country or to put it more exactly the way I have come to think about it, blues could not exist if African Captives had not become American Captives". Ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik traces the roots of many of the elements that were to develop into the blues back to the African continent, the "cradle of the blues". One important early mention of something closely resembling the blues comes from 1901, when an archaeologist in Mississippi described the songs of black workers which had lyrical themes and technical elements in common with the blues.
"The Entertainer" is a 1902 classic piano rag written by Scott Joplin.
"I'm Alabama Bound" is a ragtime melody composed by Robert Hoffman in 1909. Hoffman dedicated it to an M. T. Scarlata. The cover of its first edition, published by Robert Ebberman, New Orleans, 1909, advertises the music as "Also Known As The Alabama Blues" which has led some to suspect it of being one of the first blues songs. However, as written, it is an up-tempo rag with no associated lyrics. The song has been recorded numerous times in different styles—both written and in sound recordings—with a number of different sets of lyrics.
William Henry Krell (1868–1933) composed one of the early mature 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. Many historians believe that "Mississippi Rag" was more so of a cake walk composition than a ragtime. 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. Krell also composed the rag Shake Yo' Dusters! or Piccaninny Rag in 1898. "Mississippi Rag" was one of the compositions that help popularize the genre known as ragtime.
Theodore Havermeyer Northrup (1866–1919) composed one of the earliest rags, "Louisiana Rag", in 1897. The Thompson Music Company of Chicago in November, 1897 stated in a promo ad that it was "composed by Theo H. Northrup, the greatest living ragtime pianist. This piece has made an instantaneous hit and has become a great favorite everywhere." His other compositions in 1897 included "A Night on the Levee" and "Savannah Jubilee".
"Bethena, A Concert Waltz" is a composition by Scott Joplin. It was the first Joplin work since his wife Freddie's death on September 10, 1904, of pneumonia, ten weeks after their wedding. At the time the composer had significant financial problems; the work did not sell successfully at the time of publication and was soon neglected and forgotten. It was rediscovered as a result of the Joplin revival in the 1970s and has received acclaim from Joplin's biographers and other critics. The piece combines two different styles of music, the classical waltz and the rag, and has been seen as demonstrating Joplin's excellence as a classical composer. The work has been described as "an enchantingly beautiful piece that is among the greatest of Ragtime Waltzes", a "masterpiece", and "Joplin's finest waltz".
Trebor Jay Tichenor 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.
Scott Joplin is a 1977 biographical film directed by Jeremy Kagan and based on the life of African-American composer and pianist Scott Joplin. It stars Billy Dee Williams and Clifton Davis. Its script won an award from the Writers Guild of America in 1979. Eubie Blake makes an appearance in the movie.
Charlotte M. Blake was an American composer of waltzes, marches and ragtime.
Henriette Blanke-Belcher, also known as Henrietta Blanke-Belcher and later as Henriette B. Melson, was an American composer of popular music, especially waltzes and ragtime tunes.
