Features and Reviews
Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival 2002
By Fred Hoeptner
I arrived in Sedalia Wednesday evening, June 5, just in time for the pre-festival festivities at the Maple Leaf Park on the former site of the Maple Leaf Club, hosted by festival musical director Scott Kirby. Marty Eggers and Trebor Tichenor opened duetting on "Maple Leaf Rag". Soon John DeChiaro, music professor from the University of Mississippi and guitarist extraordinaire, took the stage. Explaining his feeling that he was visiting holy land, he performed Joplin's "The Entertainer", "Cleopha", "Augustan Club Waltzes", and "Magnetic Rag." Flutist Anne Barnhart accompanied her husband Jeff on Hunter's "Back to Life" and Hampton's "Agitation Rag". Also previewing their festival offerings were pianists Paul Asaro, Mimi Blais, Sue Keller, John Pedley, Jeff Barnhart, and Scott Kirby.
Thursday morning brought out about 30 festival goers in period costume, three flivvers, a high-wheel bicycle, and a burro pulling a cart advocating women's suffrage for the annual opening parade from Liberty Center auditorium to Joplin Park led by Bob Ault in period dress playing the accordion. After the obligatory speeches by local politicos and the Missouri Arts Council representative, Sue Keller officially started the festival complaining, "It's way too early!" However, she quickly got down to business with a ragtime song, "I Got What It Takes". Soon four venues scattered about town began operation featuring continuous free live ragtime.
Titled "A Tribute to Trebor Tichenor," Thursday morning's Kickoff Concert began with host Jack Rummel reciting a short bio. Performers included the Tichenor family trio (Trebor, his daughter Virginia, and her husband Marty Eggers, solo and in various combinations), Jack Rummel, Tony Caramia, and Trebor's quartet the St. Louis Ragtimers, celebrating 40 years performing together. Among them they played 14 of Trebor's compositions"," followed by a standing ovation.
Host Scott Kirby dedicated Thursday afternoon's Cradle of Ragtime concert to Jan Hamilton Douglas, who had been scheduled to play before his death the preceding week. The concert spotlights rags by Missouri composers. Kjell Waltman from Sweden opened with two pieces that he had transcribed from piano rolls, Charlie Thompson's "Delmar Rag" and Blind Boone's "Southern Rag Medley "featuring "Dixie" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic" played simultaneously. Other highlights were Paul Asaro's performance of Thompson's "Lily Rag";" "Sue Keller's performance of Charles L. Johnson's "Starlight "from 1918", "which she called the first example of Terra Verde; and Dan Grinstead's set "Powder Rag" by Charles L. Johnson, "Nappy Lee" by Joe Jordan, and "Coon Hollow Capers" by Frank Gillis.
Thursday night's "Ragtime Dance" was held on the State Fairgrounds in the Agriculture Building. The incomparable Pacific Coast Ragtime Orchestra featuring thrush Helen Burns provided the music for dancing and listening.
Friday morning the symposium series began at the comfortable United Methodist Church. This year $5 per day was charged for admission. Tony Caramia reviewed the life of British pianist Billy Mayerl, composer "par excellence" of novelty piano instrumentals, and analyzed his compositions. Ed Berlin had been scheduled to present a session on "The Source of the Maple Leaf Rag", but, finding that some of his information required further research, substituted "Brahms, Granger, Ives, and the Ragtime Connection". He began by discrediting the story publicized by Rudi Blesh that Brahms, who died in 1897, was the first classical composer to intentionally incorporate ragtime and intended to compose a rag. He then discussed Debussy's composing "Golliwog's Cakewalk" as a tribute to his daughter who owned a black doll. Charles Ives composed a very dissonant syncopated piece in 1897 incorporating "Hello Ma Baby "in a cacophony of noise surrounding New York's Central Park. Berlin showed that the classicists' reaction to ragtime ran the gamut from embrace to rejection. Mimi Blais, dressed in black formal menswear and top hat from the ragtime era, impersonated French-Canadian composer Jean-Baptiste Lafreniere, known as "the Canadian Strauss" for his waltzes. He composed eight rags, which she described as unexceptional. Local journalist Rose Nolen described Sedalia in the 1890s and the many attractions that it held for Joplin, such as a black college, two black newspapers, many musical activities, black social clubs, and uncrowded residential areas open to blacks.
The "Legacy of Scott Joplin" concert featured a spectrum of interpretations of Joplin. Alex Sandor from Superior, Wisconsin, new to the festival, added many embellishments, including a key change, to "Sugar Cane". Jeff and Anne Barnhart performed a beautiful arrangement of "Solace "featuring a flute and piano harmony lead. Classical pianist Roy Eaton incorporated considerable rubato in his performances of "Binks' Waltz" and "Euphonic Sounds". Sedalian Mary Francis Herndon's whistling "Bethena" accompanied by guitarist John DeChiaro received a standing ovation.
A "ragtime catfish fry" preceded Friday night's "Easy Winners" concert. Held at "Joplin Hall", a converted section of the main exhibit building at the fairgrounds, the concert featured duets and trios. Host and washboardist Mike Schwimmer introduced performers Alex Hassan and Dan Grinstead, Jeff Barnhart and Brian Holland, Mimi Blais and Sue Keller, The Tichenor Family Trio, and the St. Louis Ragtimers. Jeff and Brian played "Mike's Washboard Rag," which David Jasen had composed in honor of Mike's 75th birthday. Jeannie Wright presented the Scott Joplin award for achievement in the field of ragtime to the Saint Louis Ragtimers quartet led by pianist Trebor Tichenor, who had been playing together for 40 years.
Saturday morning the symposia resumed with historian Murray Bishoff profiling the life of "Theron Bennett, Missouri Composer." Bennett traveled widely as a representative of the publisher Victor Kremer absorbing the unique regional styles that then existed in the days before homogenization. Consensus is that he wrote the popular "St. Louis Tickle" attributed to Barney and Seymour. Later he had a radio program on Los Angeles's KFI with his band, The Packard Six. Giovanni DeChiaro explained how he arranged and transcribed all 52 Joplin rags for guitar in a folio published by Mel Bay. In most cases he uses a "dropped D" tuning and finds the most suitable key by trial and error. He studies the piano score for notes that can be eliminated without degrading the harmony. Nora Hulse, retired professor of music, reviewed the lives and works of women ragtime composers, both prominent and obscure. Sue Attala, faculty member at Tulsa Community College, presented "Goofer Dust, Bags of Luck, and Books: A New Look at Treemonisha", a discussion of the hoodoo belief system among slaves.
The Saturday concert series began with "Ragtime Revelations," which host Jack Rummel explained would focus this year on both new ragtime and novel interpretations of ragtime. This year's scheduled composition contest, normally a major feature of this concert, had been cancelled because of the Joplin Foundation's tight financial situation. Terry Parrish began with two of his compositions in the novelty piano style, "Yellow Tulips" and "Harry's Hello". Jeff and Anne Barnhart, piano and flute, duetted beautifully on Willie "The Lion" Smith's "Echo of Spring" and Hal Isbitz's "Opalescence". Peter Lundberg from Sweden played a tune from Ghana that he believed demonstrated the roots of ragtime, followed by Wenrich's seldom-heard "Sunflower Rag". Eighteen-year old Jason Carini, sponsored by the Ragtime for Tulsa Foundation, played David Thomas Roberts' "Kreole". Robert Ault tried something new, improvising a folk rag on the spot. Swiss ragtimers Martin Jäger and Felix Fürher, piano and percussion, performed two of Martin's compositions. Sue Keller premiered Galen Wilkes' ragtime waltz "Sweet Dreams" dedicated to Craig Ventresco and played a take-off on Puccini's "Musetta's" "Waltz" from La Boheme. Jack Rummel followed with his "Waiting for the Zenith", Alex Hassan with the Robin Frost piano novelty "What a Relief, "and" "whistler Mary Francis Herndon with "Roberto Clemente" accompanied by Scott Kirby. Mimi Blais closed the concert with a waltz from Jean-Baptiste Lafreniere and her arrangement of Euday Bowman's "Eleventh Street Rag".
Saturday evening Jack Rummel hosted "The Entertainer" concert at Joplin Hall featuring multiple selections each by pianist Scott Kirby, The Small Timers (a group of wind instrumentalists from the Pacific Coast Ragtime Orchestra), guitarist Giovanni DeChiaro, and pianists Tony Caramia, Paul Asaro, and Alex Sandor. Highlights were Caramia's performance of four Billy Mayerl compositions "Sleepy Piano", "Ace of Clubs", "Autumn Crocus", and "Trapeze"; Asaro's "Fingerbreaker" by Jelly Roll Morton; and Sandor's "Graceful Ghost" by Bolcom and "Russian Rag" by Cobb. Then came the usual hurried drive across Sedalia to the Liberty Center auditorium for the late-night Ragtime Music Hall hosted by Jeff Barnhart. Performers were Grinstead and Hassan, Caramia, Asaro, Sandor, Holland and Barnhart, and the Pacific Coast Orchestra performing both ragtime songs and instrumentals. A reenactment of a cutting contest on the "Maple Leaf Rag" featured Hassan and Grinstead with "Maple Leaf Hora", Sandor with a heavily embellished version, and Holland and Barnhart with a version featuring interspersed classical themes (including the Hungarian Rhapsody) and accelerating tempo. The finale featured the entire cast on Cobb's "Alabama Jubilee". The festival officially ended with the usual elaborate Sunday brunch and a free afternoon concert at Liberty Park.
Attendance at the paid events was significantly down this year, while attendance at the free events seemed to have risen. According to Jeannie Wright, this, together with decreases in grant funding availability for the arts from state and federal governments because of security needs, has jeopardized the future of the festival.
More Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival Reviews:
2006 Festival
2004 Festival
2003 Festival
2001 Festival
2000 Festival
