If you haven't yet experienced a RagFest in Fullerton, you are missing out. Festival director Eric Marchese and his enthusiastic, hard-working committee put together a grand ragtime weekend October 21-22, 2006. This festival is slick! With Steamers, the famous jazz club and cafe, as the main venue, it doesn't get much better than this.
Other venues included the Osborne Auditorium of the Fullerton Public Library, with its wonderful grand; Mo's Cave, a funky barn of a place adjoining Mo's Fullerton Music, that featured an even funkier piano; and the grand and stately Imperial Ballroom for elegantly costumed dancers to gather for dancing to the tunes of the Heliotrope Ragtime Orchestra and the Albany Nightboat Ragtimers, plus frequent dance instruction sessions that were led by dance-masters Richard Duree and Ruth Levin.
The Little Theater at Fullerton High School was the scene of Saturday night's high-spirited Ragtime Revue program. The total of five venues, each unique in its own way, were filled with a variety of skilled performers, making for an exciting weekend.
Getting off to a roaring start, Tex Wyndham presented a session titled "Tin Pan Alley, The Sequel," which featured the music played in saloons, clubs and sporting houses during the teens and '20s. Other special events included Nan Bostick's popular seminar on Jerome H. Remick, a real life rags-to-riches tale, and the Youth Forum concert held on the grand piano in the Osborne Auditorium of the library, where seven student performers presented a 90-minute concert. Performers were Andrew Barrett (18), Brett Torres (18), Carl Finkel (12), Anthony Savitt (9), Vincent Johnson (13), Drew Hinckley (11) and Joel Hill (15). Five of the young pianists were awarded endowments from Friends of Jazz, the educational non-profit organization that sponsors RagFest each year.
Another RagFest favorite was Bob Pinsker, who knows his way around the violin as well as the piano. Singer Erika Miller, accompanied by festival founder Eric Marchese, proved to be a delightful hookup. From saucy to sublime, Erika's wonderfully lyrical voice just floated above Eric's accompaniments. And singing their way through a host of vintage songs by such favorites as Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan and others were the elaborately costumed Syncopating Songbirds, accompanied by Mr. Funny Man himself, Brad Kay.
Ratcheting up the excitement were two of the festival's finest players – the amazing boogie and barrelhouse playing Carl Sonny Leyland and the equally amazing "stridester" Patrick Aranda – who literally burned up the keys and kept toes tapping to a new high throughout the weekend.
A nice change-up from all the pianocentric sets of the festival was barnstorming Morris Palter, xylophonist extraordinaire, who plays hot ragtime and novelty xylophone – not so farfetched as it might sound (pun intended!). During the early 1920s, novelty xylophone became the penny slot machine music heard on the boardwalk for the very reason that it recorded well on wax cylinders.
Bill Mitchell kept popping up in numerous places, wearing a different hat each time. He not only played his own solo sets, but also appeared with Carl Sonny Leyland playing piano duets from their CD release, "Dr. Jazz at Old Town Music Hall." On piano, Bill also led The Albany Nightboat Ragtimers.
Historian and performer Nan Bostick played polished sets that included many interesting works by her great uncle, Charles N. Daniels (aka Neil Moret), pieces published by Remick, and women composers of the ragtime era. The Bradshaws, Jack and Chris, made their debut appearance at RagFest this year. With 20 flying fingers all going at once, they filled Steamers wall to wall with many of their favorite pieces from their new CD. Youth performer Andrew Barrett was on hand to give us a glimpse of the future of ragtime – and believe me, it looks rosy. Adding variety to the mix was Doug Haise, who calls both Wisconsin and California his part-time homes. Fortunately for us, Doug just happened to be in California for this festival, playing some lesser-known rags such as "The Hustling Rag," "Hot Air Rag," and "High Jinx."
Now, if you're feeling sorry for yourself because you missed out on RagFest 2006, mark your calendars now for RagFest 2007, to be held October 20-21. The Fullerton experience awaits you!