Ragtime – also spelled rag-time or rag time – is a musical style that flourished 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. "Maple Leaf Rag", "The Entertainer", "Fig Leaf Rag", "Frog Legs Rag", and "Sensation Rag" are among the most popular songs of the genre.
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Because of the fame achieved for his ragtime compositions, he was dubbed the "King of Ragtime." During his career, he wrote over 40 original 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 archetypal rag. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music and largely disdained the practice of ragtime such as that in honky tonk.
The mazurka is a Polish musical form based on stylised folk dances in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, with character defined mostly by the prominent mazur's "strong accents unsystematically placed on the second or third beat". The mazurka, alongside the polka dance, became popular at the ballrooms and salons of Europe in the 19th century, particularly through the notable works by Frédéric Chopin. The mazurka and mazurek are often confused in Western literature as the same musical form.
Jazz music has a long history in Australia. Over the years jazz has held a high-profile at local clubs, festivals and other music venues and a vast number of recordings have been produced by Australian jazz musicians, many of whom have gone on to gain a high profile in the international jazz arena.
A taxi dancer is a paid dance partner in a partner dance. Taxi dancers are hired to dance with their customers on a dance-by-dance basis. When taxi dancing first appeared in taxi-dance halls during the early 20th century in the United States, male patrons typically bought dance tickets for a small sum each. When a patron presented a ticket to a chosen taxi dancer, she danced with him for the length of a song. She earned a commission on every dance ticket earned. Though taxi dancing has for the most part disappeared in the United States, it is still practised in some other countries.
The Texas Tommy is a vigorous social dance for couples that originated in San Francisco in the early twentieth century.
Rick Benjamin is the founder and conductor of the world-renowned Paragon Ragtime Orchestra. Benjamin has an active career as a pianist and tubist as well as an arranger.
The Barbary Coast was a red-light district during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries in San Francisco that featured dance halls, concert saloons, bars, jazz clubs, variety shows, and brothels. Its nine block area was centered on a three block stretch of Pacific Street, now Pacific Avenue, between Montgomery and Stockton Streets. Pacific Street was the first street to cut through the hills of San Francisco, starting near Portsmouth Square and continuing east to the first shipping docks at Buena Vista Cove.
International Settlement was a relatively short lived entertainment district within San Francisco, located along a one block stretch of Pacific Avenue between Kearny and Montgomery Streets, whose popularity lasted from 1939 to 1960.
Novelty piano is a genre of piano and novelty music that was popular during the 1920s. A successor to ragtime and an outgrowth of the piano roll music of the 1910s, it can be considered a pianistic cousin of jazz, which appeared around the same time. "Nola," a 1915 composition by New York pianist Felix Arndt, is generally considered the first novelty piano hit. Many early novelty composers were piano roll artists from the Chicago area, where two of the largest piano roll companies, QRS and Imperial, were based. While often only lightly syncopated or lacking syncopation entirely, novelty piano influenced the evolution of jazz. It is distinct from stride piano, which was developed in New York at about the same time.
Riverwalk Jazz was a popular weekly public radio series distributed by Public Radio International that ran from 1989–2012.
Michael Joseph O'Sullivan was an American jazz pianist.
This is a timeline of music in the United States from 1880 to 1919.
Benjamin Franklin "Reb" Spikes was an American jazz saxophonist and entrepreneur. His composition with his brother John, "Someday Sweetheart", has become an often-recorded jazz standard.
Bert Kelly was an American musician, who pioneered jazz as a banjoist, bandleader, educator, promoter, night club owner, and night club operator. After professional stints in Seattle and San Francisco, Kelly moved to Chicago in 1914 where he flourished a banjoist, bandleader, and promoter. In 1915 — before the U.S. prohibition — he founded and operated a Chicago speakeasy called "Bert Kelly's Stables," where patrons were introduced to early jazz.
Terry Waldo 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 1974. Waldo is also a theatrical music director, producer, vocalist, and teacher. He is noted for his wit and humor in performance, as "a monologist in the dry, Middle Western tradition." Eubie Blake describes his first impression of Waldo's performance thus: "I died laughing...that's one of the hardest things to do—make people laugh. Terry's ability to do this, combined with his musicianship, actually reminds me of Fats Waller."
John Mosher (1928–1998) was an American jazz bassist, classical bassist and composer who worked, recorded and toured with a wide range of primarily West Coast artists from the 1950s through the mid-1990s.
Terrific Street was a short-lived entertainment district on San Francisco's Barbary Coast during the early 20th century. It consisted of dance halls, jazz clubs, and various kinds of drinking establishments. Terrific Street was centered upon a single block of Pacific Street, which was one of the earliest streets to cut through the hills of San Francisco, starting near Portsmouth Square and continuing east to the first shipping docks at Buena Vista Cove. The district was located between Kearny and Montgomery streets on Pacific Street.
Wallie Herzer(néWalter 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.
Black and Tan clubs were clubs in the United States in the early 20th century catering to the black and mixed-race (tan) population. They flourished in the speakeasy era and were often popular places of entertainment linked to the early jazz years. With time the definition simply came to mean black and white clientele.
