Ragtime: An Encyclopedia, Discography, and Sheetography [Hardcover] Review

What is Ragtime? David A. Jasen gives the definitive musical definition as well as the history of Ragtime from it's beginning to the present day in his latest book "Ragtime An Encyclopedia, Discography, and Sheetography" published by Routledge. It's 550 pages, hardcover, 8 ½" X 11".

Jasen describes in detail the categories of Ragtime. From the Early Folk Rags, The Joplin Tradition or Classic Ragtime, Popular Ragtime, Advanced Ragtime, Novelty Ragtime, Stride Ragtime, and Jelly Roll Morton's Ragtime. Ragtime's original heyday as well as its Revivals are covered up to the present day.

The book is divided into 4 primary sections. The first section contains the Encyclopedia entries. You can look up Composer, Performer, and Publisher Profiles, Ragtime Compositions with musical descriptions and other interesting related facts. There are over 100 images of rare photos and artifacts from the Ragtime era. Including a signed contract between Scott Joplin and his publisher John Stark for his landmark composition "The Maple Leaf Rag". There are images of Sheet Music, Record and Piano Roll Labels, Period Advertising, Composers, Performers, and Places of historical interest.

As a serious collector of Ragtime Sheet Music, Piano Rolls and Records, I really appreciate the next three sections of the book. The perennial question for the collector is "What's out there to collect?"For the performer it might be "What tune can I perform that nobody else has done or may even know about?" Stamp collectors have their Scott's Catalog to see what's possible to collect. We Ragtimers have a Discography, Ragtime Piano Rollography, and Sheetography, thanks to Professor Jasen, the first to have published them. I check off the items I own, and then I can see the items I need.

Appendix 1Rags On Record: A Discography

"The intention of this discography is to identify all commercially released discs of 78s, 45s, and LPs throughout the world since the beginning of Ragtime recording in 1897." The discography lists the Compositions alphabetically with the Composer, followed by Performers, Record Speeds, Record Companies and Number, and Year of release.

Appendix 2Ragtime Piano Rollography

There are Ragtime Compositions that were never published in sheet music form, or recorded on disc, as you will note from the entries in the encyclopedia. However, some compositions do turn up on Piano Roll. Some of the performances are truly extraordinary. The Rollography lists the Compositions with Composers alphabetically, then the Roll Companies and Number. If the roll is an early 65-note type it's indicated. The performer is listed if the roll is hand played.

Appendix 3Published Rags In America

There's an alphabetical list of over 2000 Published Instrumental Ragtime compositions. It lists the Composition followed by the Composer, Date, Publisher, City and State of Publication.

David A Jasen is internationally recognized as a leading authority and collector of American Popular Music. He's authored many well-received reference books on Ragtime, Early Jazz and Popular Music. He produced many sheet music folios and Records. As a Composer and Performer, The Professor captures the true essence of Ragtime. He is Professor of Media Arts at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, where he has been teaching for the past 35 years.

Joel@sheetmusiccenter.com
www.sheetmusiccenter.com

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Product Description:

Ragtime: An Encyclopedia, Discography, and Sheetography is the definitive reference work for this important popular form of music that flourished from the 1890s through the 1920s, and was one of the key predecessors of jazz. It collects for the first time entries on all the important composers and performers, and descriptions of their works; a complete listing of all known published ragtime compositions, even those self-published and known only in single copies; and a complete discography from the cylinder era to today. It also represents the culmination of a lifetime's research for its author, considered to be the foremost scholar of ragtime and early 20^th century popular music.Rare photographs accompany most entries, taken from the original sheets, newspapers, and other archival sources. Ragtime: An Encyclopedia, Discography, and Sheetography will be a standard reference for anyone interested in the history of jazz.

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Keyboard Runs for the Pop & Jazz Stylist [Paperback] Review

This is my first review for Amazon. I wish someone had warned me before buying this book.

On the plus side this book gives you loads of runs that are mostly practical. They're offered in three (good) keys and give you fingering suggestions. The author is a gifted pianist who really knows her stuff. You get the feeling she's giving you the runs that really helped her as she was learning her craft. That's it for the positive comments.

On the downside:
1-I don't know why the title includes the word Pop. All the runs are blues/jazz.
I was hoping there would be some ideas to throw in to a real pop tune.
2-Many of the runs are great but about half seem like filler.
3- Too many jazz and bebop runs. There fine I guess but if you're going through the trouble of learning someone else's bebop runs why not just get a Charlie Parker book and steal from a master.
4- This is the biggie.... This is the reason I can't recomend this book and want my money back for it:
The CD.
4a-it sounds like it was recorded in a bedroom on an answering machine.
4b-The piano she plays is so out of tune that you can't even transpose your keyboard to match it.
4c-All the runs in each style (that's four) Are included on 1 CD track.
That means Blues run 27 is 5 minutes into track 2. That makes it very inconvenient to audition,play along with, or learn any of the runs.
4d-Not all the runs are on the cd. She jumps around and doesn't always play each run in all keys. This makes it difficult to even know what you're hearing. Doesn't help that piano is out of tune.

Anyway. If you're a good reader you could probably go through all the runs quickly, pick out the ones that work best for you and get a huge value out of this book.
If you're like me, and like to hear what the riffs/runs sound like you're out of luck.

Sorry my first review was such a downer.

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Product Description:
Dozens upon dozens of runs and fills professional pianists use to add style to their performance. Includes various styles of runs such as: swing and society, blues, jazzy bebop, and contemporary. In addition, Noreen Grey Lienhard, one of today's pop pianists and arrangers, has demonstrated many of them on the enclosed CD in a special note-by-note slow versions, and at full tempo.

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Classic Piano Rags [Paperback] Review

There are a fair number of books on the market with ragtime sheet music in them.This is the one I've used the most over the years, since despite its quirks it's the best way of getting a hold of a generous amount of period ragtime, in unedited form.
About that "unedited form".The book photographically reproduces the original sheet music verbatim.This has its downside: the original music companies printed things in a quick'n'dirty manner, & while the sheet music from Stark (Joplin, Lamb, Scott, &c) is usually well-presented & carefully set, some of the other music is sprinkled with errors & eccentricities, especially the tunes by Charles Hunter.However, I'd rather have the typos--easily fixed--than have some meddling editor tidy up the text.Editions of these tunes by people like Max Morath tend to have a fair bit of editorial interference, & I'd much rather see what the tunes looked like without that kind of filtering.
Dover also prides itself on historically accurate reprints.This means that you get the original cover art.....which is as you'd imagine often pretty offensive by modern standards in its depiction of African-Americans.Still, it's just as well to be reminded of the historical conditions of this music's creation and dissemination. -- What's more irritating & less justifiable about the decision to include cover art is that it completely throws off the pagination.Since each piece is typically 4 pages long, adding the cover art makes for 5 pages--so that every second piece has its page turns in exactly the wrong place.This isn't a minor quibble: often the page turns are as a result placed in the middle of repeats, at key moments in the score, &c.Dover ought to have added some blank pages to keep the rectos & versos in the right sequence.
Anyway, enough caviling.What you get is an enormous pile of Joplin--nice, but that's easily enough available elsewhere.But you get a huge selection of work by most of the other really interesting figures of the period.I think Blesh's concept of "Classic Ragtime" is a crock, an attempt to make polemical distinctions between high art & popular trash in a genre where such distinctions are hard to make.& what does the idiosyncratic, rather naive music of Charles Hunter have to do with the sophisticated creations of Joplin or Artie Matthews anyway?Anyway, it's great to have all this stuff here--pieces by Robert Hampson, Hunter, Charles L Johnson, Joplin, Joe Jordan, Joe Lamb, Arthur Marshall, Matthews, Scott, Charles Thompson, Tom Turpin, Percy Wenrich, Clarence Woods.I've spent years working through the book.
Fans of this book, by the way, should check out Trebor Tichenor's two volumes of ragtime rarities for Dover--these include some terribly obscure stuff along with lesser-known Scott & Lamb pieces, & is very much worth exploring if you're curious about the genre.

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Product Description:
Best ragtime music (1897-1922) by the greatest ragtime composers of the age: Scott Joplin, James Scott, Joseph Lamb, Tom Turpin, nine more. Definitive collection for lovers and performers of ragtime.


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Scott Joplin Collected Piano Works: Rags, Waltzes, Marches (Belwin Edition) [Sheet music] Review

This wonderful collection of the piano music of Scott Joplin (1867 - 1917) was originally published by the New York Public Library in 1971 and edited by Vera Brodsky Lawrence.With additions in 1981,the book includes the score for virtually all of Joplin's solo piano works, including 41 "original works",7 "collaborative works",3 "miscellaneous works", and 3 additional rags added to the volume in 1981 when permission was secured from the holder of the copyright.I have had this volume for many years and continue to study and learn from it, in playing familiar works and learning new pieces.The volume is an endless source of delight and inspiration.

Born in east Texas to a father who had been a former slave and to a free black mother, Joplin showed musical talent at an early age and received free piano lessons oriented towards classical music from a local white teacher who recognized his talent.At 14, Joplin left home and assumed a wandering life in hopes of furthering his dream to become a composer and musician. He ultimately settled in St. Louis and Sedalia, Missouri where he began to compose the ragtime that would make him famous.Late in life Joplin moved to New York City where he continued to compose ragtime while spending most of his energy on his opera "Treemonisha."His music was in danger of being forgotten until interest revived in the early 1970s through the use of his music in the movie, "The Sting", the revival of "Treemonisha" and the publication of this volume of his music.

This volume includes familiar and unfamiliar Joplin. The most familiar of his ragtime works are the "Maple Leaf Rag" (1897) and "The Entertainer" (1902) which became famous when used in "The Sting."Among the other rags I have enjoyed and learned to play over the years are "Elite Syncopations" (1902), "Weeping Willow Rag" (1903) , "Pine Apple Rag" (1908), "Wall Street Rag" (1909), and several others.Joplin also combined with friends and students in writing some pieces, including "Heliotrope Bouquet" (1907) with the gifted but troubled Louis Chauvin and "Swipesy" (1900) which Joplin wrote with his young student, Arthur Marshall.Joplin also wrote beautiful waltzes, including "Bethena" (1905) and "Binks Waltz" (1905). He also wrote a tango called "Solace" (1909).

Joplin's musicis varied, strongly syncopated, and melodious.Joplin tried to combine African American and classical music idioms to help create a distinctively American music.This is an elusive goal that has been pursued by many other composers.His piano music is not easy to play but is generally within the reach of determined amateurs, such as myself.Joplin wrote a set of exercises, the "School of Ragtime" (1908) to help aspiring pianists learn the skills needed to play his music.Joplin also said regarding his works:

"That real ragtime of the higher class is rather difficult to play is rather a painful truth which most pianists have discovered. Syncopations are no indications of light and trashy music, and to shy bricks at `hateful ragtime' no longer passes for musical culture."

In addition to the musical scores, this book includes a lengthy introduction "Scott Joplin: Black-American Classicist" by ragtime scholar Rudy Blesh which offers an excellent overview of the composer's life and music and of performance practices. Over the years, I have played Joplin for my own enjoyment, for friends, and at various venues on a volunteer basis. When I play for others, I generally combine classical works, with a performance of Joplin's "Bethena" together with some of the ragtime works.I find that Joplin's music is almost invariably the best-received of the works I perform by both knowledgeable and less-knowledgeable audiences.

Scott Joplin remains an American treasure. As Joplin wished, his music breaks down claimed musical boundaries between classical and popular.This volume will bring joy to lovers of the piano and to serious pianists, whether amateur or professional.

Robin Friedman

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Product Description:
In addition to the 54 original and collaborative works presented in this impressive volume, Scott Joplin: The Collected Piano Works includes 34 pages of scholarly insight and history that help the pianist determine performance practices and authentically reproduce the sound and style Joplin intended. With editions of 19 publishers reproduced in this volume, a colorful variety of music typefaces and printing styles is offered. Together with the evocative original cover designs, they present a vivid panorama of the Ragtime Era. Because study of the original publications has revealed great numbers of errata of various kinds, and since this edition is primarily intended for study and performance, the editors have incorporated corrections into the facsimile pages rather than perpetuate original errors for antiquarian interest.

Titles include: Maple Leaf Rag
* The Entertainer
* The Chrysanthemum
* Rosebud
* Eugenia
* Gladiolus Rag
* Wall Street Rag
* Solace
* Paragon Rag
* Lily Queen
* Heliotrope Bouquet
* Kismet Rag
* School of Ragtime
* Swan Rag
* Treemonisha and more.

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