"It's just very upbeat and old fashioned," says Olivia of playing
ragtime, a fourth-grader at Kildeer Countryside School.
"Good Bye Alexander, Good Bye Honey Boy" (1918)--the title refers both to the contemporary and successful Honey Boy Minstrel Troupe, as well as to Irving Berlin's "Alexander's
Ragtime Band" (1911)--features slangy lyrics, but its cover is racially ambiguous.
Portents 1: A Joplin Bouquet: recording of classic
ragtime compositions by Scott Joplin and played by Ann Charters (1964).
But to those experiencing it for the first time, it was a novel and almost disturbing sensation; a typical review noted that "the catchy
ragtime refrains kept the head nodding and the toe tapping all over the theatre by means of their irresistible rhythm." Today this reads like someone marveling that a dessert is sweet, but before
ragtime, American pop consisted of waltzes, weepy ballads, marches, and jigs.
For example, Randall gives ideas for easily changing the left-hand patterns or adding right-hand chords to create a more advanced sound for the piece "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." In the video for "Glad Cat Rag," Randall reminds students of
ragtime's characteristics, and his "Howl at the Moon" video teaches us about chord progressions commonly used in rock and roll music and how to create variations of them.
Alexander's
Ragtime Band sparked an international dance craze in places as far away as Berlin's native Russia.
In
Ragtime, Doctorow describes turn-of-the century tenements full of immigrants with exactly the same noise problem.
As such, critics starting to dub him "the Welsh
ragtime wizard".
Pauline Kael said of watching Woody Allen's Zelig: "The effect is something like what you get when you read
Ragtime." Zelig, as it happens, might be a precursor of Homer & Langley: both observe the past through the scrutiny of marginal individuals.
Ask a Gotham legiter about "
Ragtime," and many won't immediately conjure images from the musical's Broadway preem--they'll remember the concurrent crash-and-burn of its producer.
There's wry humour in the likes of Goodbye Booze and Little Waterloo, great storytelling in Bill Mason's Bride, and instrumental hi-jinks in
Ragtime Annie.
The event will run from July 11 to 13, with the best in classic jazz, from
Ragtime to Swing.