Features and Reviews
West Coast Ragtime Festival 2003
By Fred Hoeptner
The seventeenth annual West Coast Ragtime Festival opened November 21 at the Red Lion Hotel, Sacramento, for three days of unsurpassed escapism amid syncopated musical delight. With five venues going simultaneously, four for listening and one for dancing and listening, aficionados could always find agreeable sounds. Six seminars educated the curious on various ragtime related topics. The festival also accommodated amateurs with twelve hours of open piano sessions where anyone could sign up to play for ten-minute segments.
Pianist headliners were strider Neville Dickie from the U.K.; Tony Caramia, professor of piano at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y.; Idaho's Scott Kirby, musical director of several festivals and unsurpassed Joplin interpreter; Quebec's Mimi Blais, specialist in elaborate musical collages combining ragtime with the classics; Glenn Jenks, famed ragtime composer and interpreter from Camden, Maine; Sue Keller, who intersperses her instrumentals with brassy vocals; Marylander John Petley, formerly of the U.K., specialist in rollicking folk ragtime; Jack Rummel, retired dentist and ragtime authority from Boulder CO and specialist in contemporary ragtime; noted jazz stylist Ray Skjelbred from Oakland; and New Yorker Terry Waldo, author, producer of musical shows, and friend of Eubie Blake and transcriber of his music. Christoph Schmetterer, composer, organist, cellist, and law student from Vienna, Austria, who had previously paid his own way to the festival, became a contract performer this year.
West coast pianists performing this year included Tom Bopp, regular at the Wawona Hotel in Yosemite; Nan Bostick from Menlo Park, regular festival performer and author; Tom Brier, sight reader of obscure rags par excellence from Sacramento; Yvonne Cloutier from Henderson, Nevada; Marty Eggers from San Francisco, formerly of the Bo Grumpus trio; Seattle's Dan Grinstead, musicologist and pianist with the Evergreen Classic Jazz Band; local southern California favorites Brad Kay, Eric Marchese, and Bob Pinsker (frequent attendee at the Rose Leaf Club); the classically trained duo of Alan Rea and Sylvia O'Neill, Gershwin and Gottschalk specialists; and Virginia Tichenor, Trebor Tichenor's daughter and expert ragtimer.
Performing groups featured were the six-piece Porcupine Ragtime Ensemble, augmented with Bob Pinsker on violin; the nine-piece Pacific Coast Ragtime Orchestra featuring vocalist Helen Burns; the St. Louis Ragtimers, a quartet featuring pianist Trebor Tichenor; The Fresno High School Band; and cutesy 1920s singer Janet Klein and her Parlor Boys with Ian Whitcomb. Ian and Regina Whitcomb also performed as a duo.
Friday evening's one-and-a-half-hour "festival sampler" hosted by Jack Rummel showcased the roster of talent.The St. Louis Ragtimers kicked off with "Ya Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dog Around," one of publisher John Stark's few non-ragtime hits. Bob Pinsker played Jimmy Blythe's "Jimmy Blues." Other memorable moments were Scott Kirby's performance of Joplin's "Solace," Tony Caramia's performance of Robin Frost's hypnotic, romantic "Satisfaction;" Sue Keller belting out "Hard-Hearted Hannah;" Glenn Jenks exploding "The Cannonball;" fourteen-year old Emily Sprague playing Lamb's "Sensation Rag" with the aplomb of a professional; and Janet Klein accompanied by her Parlor Boys (with Ian Whitcomb on uke) singing "I Love My Baby." Saturday night's specialty concert celebrated "The Year of the Blues" with eight of the performers participating.
Super stride pianist Neville Dickie of the U.K., in one of his few sojourns to the U.S., treated listeners to impeccable rhythm and accuracy while performing creative and elaborate variations on popular and ragtime tunes of the first three decades of the twentieth century. A typical Dickie program included Cooke's "Blame It on The Blues," Arthur Marshall's "Kinklets," James P. Johnson's "You've Got To Be Modernistic," Albert Ammons' "Shout For Joy," Fats Waller's "How Can You Face Me," Jean Schwartz's "Whitewash Man," a takeoff on Bizet that he called "Carmen's Boogie," and "If I Could Be With You" based on a duet version by Johnson and Waller.
In contrast was Tony Caramia, specialist in novelty piano, including the compositions of Billy Mayerl from the 1930s and Robin Frost from today; and in contemporary modern ragtime ("modern" in the classical sense). One of his programs included his version of the cakewalk by S.M. Roberts "Walkin' On De Rainbow Road" from 1899; Turpin's "St. Louis Rag" swung; Adaline Shepherd's "Pickles and Peppers;" Imogene Giles' "Red Pepper," Niebergall's "Horseshoe Rag," and Hampton's "Cataract Rag," all three with dramatic dynamics; Confrey's "Kitten On The Keys" with added boogie bass; "Ink Spots" and "Zebra Stripes," novelty piano pieces by German composers; Billy Mayerl's "Parade of the Sandwich Board Men," my composition "Aura of Indigo" played with great sensitivity; and Bolcom's "Old Adam" from 1969.
Scott Kirby presented a special set, "Remembering Scott Joplin." He stated his goal was to remove the myths about Joplin. He said that although we remember Joplin's melodies mainly for their beauty, his compositions also attain a superior balance between rhythm and melody as demonstrated in "Maple Leaf Rag." Joplin added to his scores notes admonishing the performer not to play ragtime fast as a reaction to virtuosic "cutting contests" where speed prevailed to the detriment of melody. Piano roll evidence indicates that Joplin embellished his compositions in performance by adding bass runs.
The well-attended series of seminars began on Saturday with violinist David Reffkin's discussion of publisher John Stark's 1912 collection of orchestrations of fifteen pieces of classic ragtime known as "The Red Back Book." Reffkin, owner of one of only two complete sets known to exist, compared the orchestrations to the piano versions and played some of the few recordings made of these arrangements.
Musicologist and pianist Dan Grinstead reviewed his nine-year acquaintance with Joe Jordan, pianist and composer of rags ("Double Fudge" from 1902, "Pekin Rag" from 1904, and others) and musical director of the black-operated Pekin Theater in Chicago. Jordan successfully sued for royalties when The Original Dixieland Jass Band plagiarized his composition "That Teasin' Rag" for the trio of the "Original Dixieland One-Step," but he didn't get all his money until 1967. Grinstead said he found Jordan (who had moved to Tacoma in 1935 and become a successful realtor and politician) a difficult subject to research, as he discounted his past and wanted to live only in the present.
Musician and audio engineer Brad Kay declared, "It's only from phonograph records that one can know performance practices during the ragtime era" and proceeded to demonstrate "The Real Sound of Ragtime" by playing 17 rare recordings of ragtime and related music made during the period 1889 to 1914. Little piano ragtime was recorded during the acoustic era because the piano was considered to be unsuited to the recording process. He characterized the 1909 recording of "Porcupine Rag" by Prince's Band as typifying the authentic early ragtime sound." The moderato tempo slowed for the pre-final chorus, then accelerated for an exciting climax. A 1913 performance of "Gladiolus Rag" by the Pathe Dance Orchestra clearly indicated how Joplin's music was played during his lifetime.
Pianist, violinist, and physicist Bob Pinsker presented "The Ragtime Piano Rolls of James P. Johnson." Johnson had learned ragtime and Joplin from a friend when he moved to New York in 1908. Pinsker described Johnson as a central figure in the transition from ragtime to jazz by his incorporation into the ragtime format of blues, boogie, and other folk elements a new rhythmic articulation that we call "swing," an open-ended form based on improvisation, and other innovations. He demonstrated by playing recorded copies of Johnson's rolls from the critical years in this transition, 1917-18 (Johnson cut one to two piano rolls per month from 1916).
Tony Caramia opened his session "Cakewalkin' On the Keys" on Sunday by asking, "What is a golliwog?" "What is a cakewalk?" He went on to describe an early predecessor to the cakewalk, the chalk line walk from the 1850s developed by slaves who were imitating an Indian ritual. The form progressed as slaves dancing to banjo and fiddle music parodied their masters' dances. By 1899 the style had reached the height of popularity. The music entranced Debussy, and he included "Golliwog's Cakewalk" in his "Children's Corner" suite dedicated to his daughter (a "golliwog" is a little black doll).
Glenn Jenks finished the seminar series with "Teaching Ragtime for Mainstream Piano Students and Teachers." He provided a series of tips for teachers of children and adults and cited "Peacherine" as the easiest Joplin rag to play.
As usual, kudos are due to the staff and volunteers of the West Coast Ragtime Society for a very successful festival.
More West Coast Ragtime Festival Reviews:
1999 Festival
2000 Festival
2001 Festival
2002 Festival
2004 Festival
