Another ‘lost’
Lamb and an eclectic mix of rarities, originals and guest performers
highlight the July 2012 OCRS musicale
Ragtime fans collected at 3 p.m. at Steamers
for the July 2012 musicale. A double-booking at Steamers forced a
later start time and less time overall. Several of our regular performers
were absent, and an expected guest pianist was unable to appear –
yet two new guest performers attended, yielding a total of 10 pianists
and one banjoist. Over a span of just three hours, we heard nearly
three-dozen selections.
MC Eric Marchese started things off with two rarities: A.E. Henrich’s
outstanding 1901 rag “Dixie Flyer” and Walter Blaufuss’
“Get This” (1913). Henrich is an obscure figure from ragtime’s
earliest years whose other ragtime pieces include “Just Laughin’”
(published by Frank G. Fite in 1899) and “Queen Raglan”
(issued by Henry French in 1902). All three were published in Nashville,
leading one to guess he was either a native of that city or settled
there later. All three rags are fine pieces rarely heard, and Eric
qualified “Dixie Flyer” as “either a sophisticated
folk rag or a more simplistic classic-style rag.” The piece
re-introduces both the A and B themes after the trio, uncommon for
classic rags – so the folk-rag description is probably more
accurate for this inventive and often melodic piece. Milwaukee-born
ragtimer Blaufuss apparently thought of his piano rags in orchestral
terms, as the score to “Get This” denotes “cello,”
“cl.” (clarinet) and “fl.” (flute) in various
spots. It’s a most imaginative rag with three strong, catchy
themes (D is a restatement of B but in the subdominant key of the
trio). Like Henrich, Blaufuss’ ragtime output is quite sparse.
It includes his 1899 “Chicago Rag,” named for the Chicago
Musical College, and “Swanee Ripples” (1912).
Stan Long offered “Taxi Rag,” an exciting rag by Canadian
ragtimer Jean Baptiste Lafreniere and one of the entertaining specialty
numbers of Mimi Blais. Stan followed this great piece with the standard
“Coney Island Washboard,” which he played and sang, then
closed his set with his folk-style original, “Haunting Accident.”
In Southern California on a visit from Wisconsin, special guest Dan
Levi introduced himself and said he’s been playing ragtime music
since 2009. He then settled onto the piano bench and delivered Luckey
Roberts’ “Pork and Beans,” Joplin’s early
masterpiece “The Easy Winners,” and Gershwin’s “Swanee.”
Dan nicely accented the Stride features of “Pork,” offered
some nice embellishments of “Easy Winners,” and exhibited
a great deal of musicality on the Gershwin piece, which was originally
written for the 1919 musical revue “Demi-Tasse.”
John Reed-Torres, who had invited Dan, gave a wonderful, all-James
Scott set, playing his selections in chronological order of publication:
“Ophelia Rag” (1910), “Dixie Dimples” (1918)
and “Pegasus Rag” (1920). John’s performance of
“Ophelia” incorporates treble tremolos and bass octaves.
He shows an aptly light touch on “Dixie” and his playing
of “Pegasus” emphasizes its boogie-style walking bass
figures.
Next up was a second guest performer, also invited by John: Itichai
Tiemsanjai, who plays both piano and concertina. He warmed up on concertina
with an original, “Itchmeister Cakewalk,” then took the
piano for “Arabian Nights” (1908) and “Waiting for
the Robert E. Lee.” For both of these, Itchy (as his friends
call him) showed a suitably light touch, steady tempo and good dynamics.
Andrew Barrett took the stage, attributing his wonderfully garish
New Orleans-style costume to a gig he had that evening with Corey
Gemme and his Wabash Wailers. While Andrew took a few minutes to repair
and tie off a broken piano string, Itchy offered an impromptu concertina
performance of “Smokey Mokes” and “Camptown Races.”
Once Andrew was ready, he said he had planned a set of all 1912 selections
for OCRS, but for the sake of variety, he belatedly substituted a
later piece, saying he would play the third 1912 piece as his encore.
He opened with “Spring Thoughts,” a light, delightful
novelette by Gustave Salzer. Also from 1912: Albert Gumble’s
waltz song “When I Waltz With You,” which Andrew played
(adding wonderful pianistics) while singing Alfred Bryan’s lyrics.
To avoid playing three consecutive pieces in three-quarter time, Andrew
closed his set with Max Kortlander’s wonderfully intricate “Deuces
Wild,” which was published in 1923 but which Andrew said was
composed five years earlier. As with “When I Waltz…,”
Andrew introduced numerous piano roll-style embellishments which are
entirely in keeping with the piece, which was written in the late
teens in an advanced ragtime style. Andrew also noted that although
he learned and plays “Deuces” in A-flat major, he was
going to re-learn it in its original key, A natural.
Ryan Wishner played May Aufderheide’s “Novelty Rag”
– an outstanding piece that doesn’t get anywhere near
the exposure as “Dusty Rag” or “The Thriller”
– in a nice, crisp performance featuring improvised octave leaps
in the treble. Next was a great rarity by a classic rag composer:
James Scott’s wonderful “Springtime of Love, Valse.”
Ryan noted that the piece is “more laid-back than Scott’s
rags,” while its harmonic structure is just as complex and intricate.
From 1919, it’s a pretty light-classical work with some bravura
passages nicely emphasized by Ryan’s performance. Ryan then
closed an outstanding set with his newest original. He had just titled
it “West Park Rag” after the greater Cleveland, OH, neighborhood
where much of his family resides. He first broke the audience up with
some delightful anecdotes about past generations of his family, then
performed what is a terrific piano rag with a lively opening section;
a second theme with a riff-style melody and a sort of “downward
echo” wherein a treble phrase is played, then repeated an octave
lower; a wonderfully creative trio; and a closing theme built on minor
tonalities.
Bob Pinsker picked up where he left off at the last OCRS, continuing
to dig into and research the often mystifying evolution of the many
Joe Lamb rags composed after 1919’s “Bohemia.” First
up was a fascinating alternate version of “Ragtime Bobolink”
than what appears in the 1964 Mills Music folio “Ragtime Treasures.”
This version, transcribed by Glenn Jenks from the recording Mike Montgomery
made when he visited Joe Lamb at home in 1959, has principal differences
to both the B and C themes while also scrapping the as-published closing
section that sounds markedly like “The Old Piano Roll Blues,”
and adds a transition from the end of C to the closing reprise of
A.
Next was “Hot Cinders.” Bob notes that the title was inspired
by Lamb’s granddaughter’s middle name “Cindy”
(according to Lamb’s daughter Pat Lamb Conn) and that until
the recent discovery of “Shooting the Works,” it was the
only Novelty rag by Lamb. A real boundary-stretcher for Lamb, it contains
no “oom-pah” bass until well into its second theme (B9),
a dynamic C theme played mostly below middle C, and complex interaction
between treble and bass throughout.
Bob capped his outstanding all-Lamb set with a historic performance:
The first-ever performance of another Lamb Novelty: “Cinders.”
Bob related the piece’s history, noting that it had been filed
by a Mills employee only by its title. Bob said this explains “why
it was lost for almost 90 years,” announcing that his performance
of the piece was a true world premiere in that “Cinders”
has never been played for any audience anywhere. Living up to this
billing was Bob’s first-rate performance of the rag. And while
“Cinders” is more conventional and more Lamb-like –
and less Novelty-style – than “Hot Cinders,” the
piece’s B theme has a very strong Lamb flavor (mixed with some
real novelty cross-hand figuration) and wonderful phrasing and rhythms
in its C theme, capped in the D strain with the most technically difficult
keyboard pyrotechnics found in any Lamb composition (at least so far!).
Bob concluded that “there is no doubt that the four newly-discovered
manuscripts [“Shootin' the Works,” “Crimson Rambler,”
“Chime In!,” and now “Cinders”] are four of
the 15 ‘lost’ Mills Novelties” that Lamb described
and listed to Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis in 1949, and as such constitute
the most exciting and unexpected discovery in ragtime in many years.
Bob will present a seminar on this topic at next month’s (August
2012) Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival.
While Jimmy Green began setting up to play the banjo, Bill Mitchell
described what came to be known as “the Spanish tinge,”
then played a great example of it: Jelly Roll Morton’s wonderful
“New Orleans Joys,” with Bill imparting a solidly Mortonesque
feeling and playing style. He and Jimmy then delivered “Curse
of an Aching Heart” and a lively version of the ragtime standard
“Dill Pickles.”
Ron Ross played “Digital Rag,” the 1999 piece that leads
off his 2001 CD “Ragtime Renaissance.” He followed with
the “Rose Leaf Combination Tango” from 2011, then harked
all the way back to the early ’80s with the comical ragtime
song “Afternoon TV.” “…Combination Tango”
evokes poignancy and romanticism, while “…TV” features
Ron’s patented twangy comedic vocals.
After a brief break and the raffling of several ragtime albums and
CDs, Eric kicked off the encores with an original, “Valedictory
Rag.” Noting that he wrote the piece in 1996 to commemorate
his younger brother’s college graduation, he said the piece,
subtitled “A Farewell in Ragtime,” uses its four-bar intro
to quote the familiar “Pomp and Circumstance,” then moves
through a standard classic rag format with four introspective and
often plaintive themes, with a closing theme that expresses more optimism
and a quiet sense of triumph than its preceding sections. Eric said
the artwork on the cover of the sheet music shows a mortar board with
tassel sitting atop a rolled-up diploma, and that a few years after
writing the rag and publishing its score, he recorded it on the album
“The Silver Lining” along with six other originals and
nine vintage selections.
Andrew followed up on his 1912 selections with Walter Rolfe’s
“Mystery Waltz” from that year, noting that the piece
deliberately tried to capitalize on the success of William Polla’s
1907 hit “Dream Waltz” by using the same rhythms as the
earlier piece but casting them in the minor. In fact, its use of the
minor is inventive, and the piece, which features interesting interplay
between both hands, has a solidly classical sound.
Bob continued with yet another rarity too: the pop song “You
Hurt Me” with music by Fats Waller and Wilmore “Slick”
Jones and lyrics by frequent Waller lyricist Andy Razaf. Bob explained
that Fats sold many pieces to Mills and other publishers, often even
reselling the same pieces to more than one publisher, and that “new”
Waller tunes were continuously being unearthed. “You Hurt Me,”
he noted, was never copyrighted nor published. His version, a piano
arrangement with no vocals, is more or less in keeping with most pop
material of the ’20s and ’30s, but with richer, more inventive
harmonies.
John Reed-Torres offered “a rough draft” of his latest
original, an as-yet untitled piano rag. A pleasing blending of folk
and classic materials, it strongly resembles John’s other ragtime
piano compositions, with interesting harmonies in its C theme and
a D theme with a more subdued mood than what you would normally find
in a closing section.
Ryan Wishner encored with Ted Snyder’s lively, catchy “Wild
Cherries,” one of the biggest ragtime hits of 1908. His performance
showed why the piece was so popular while also proving how much fun
it is to perform.
Itichai Tiensanjai closed the afternoon with Sousa’s rousing
“Manhattan Beach March,” a Sousa standard first published
in 1893. He and John, Andrew and Vincent Johnson will be at Old Town
Music Hall on Sunday, September 16. That’s the same weekend
as our next OCRS (Steamers, Saturday, September 15). See you all next
month at both venues – Steamers and OTMH!