Quartet of pianists carry July 2024 OCRS

Pianists were in short supply during our July session, but fortunately for all, canny selections and strong performances weren't.

MC Eric Marchese got things rolling with "Texas Tommy Swing," a rare piano rag that the duo of Harris and Brown submitted to and then performed at the Ziegfeld Follies of 1911. He then pivoted to pieces by two ragtime composers born in July.

First off was "St. Louis Tickle," perhaps the best rag of all-around ragtime Theron C. Bennett that was featured at the renowned St. Louis world's fair and, according to reports of the time, was a huge hit at the event. Bennett was born July 9, 1879, in Pierce City, MO, and his life ties in with the west (he founded and ran The Dutch Mill in Denver and passed in Los Angeles in 1937). Eric followed with "Dynamite Rag" by J. Russel Robinson, born July 8, 1892 in Indianapolis. This socko piece has two So. Cal. tie-ins: It was published by Southern California Music Co. (Los Angeles) in 1910, and Robinson eventually made his way to our region, residing in the city of Palmdale, passing in 1963.

Without another pianist to take the stage, Eric continued with "World's Fair Rag," which Harvey Babcock wrote to hail the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915, then self-published in San Francisco three years before the fact. Next up was "Kismet," written mostly by Scott Hayden and with a trio by Joplin several years prior to John Stark's publication of it in 1913.

Eric then honored audience requests for "Solace -- A Mexican Serenade" and "Gladiolus Rag" before ceding the piano to Ron Ross, who had just arrived.

Ron honored us with three originals: "Sunday Serendipity," "Orange County Rag" and "Valley Ragtime Shuffle." The latter two were penned to salute two local clubs, OCRS and the Valley Ragtime Stomp, and the latter piece offers a playful tone and a creatively inventive trio.

Pedro Bernardez gave us four early Joplins, none later than 1902: "A Breeze from Alabama," "Original Rags," "Maple Leaf Rag" and "Elite Syncopations." Pedro provides ample examples, especially with "Original" and "Maple Leaf," of how a pianist can improvise upon and embellish a classic rag score, and his performance of "Elite" proves especially showy and flashy.

Eric offered two more classic rags of varying character. "The Nonpareil" has a markedly stormy, fervent style not seen in Joplin's other rags. Eric displayed color and black-and-white copies of the rag's cover, which shows Uncle Sam unfurling the stars and stripes, and notes that the "none to equal" title refers both to the rag itself and, by just a small stretch of the imagination, to the U.S. itself.

"The Bee-Hive" was sketched out by Joe Lamb perhaps decades prior to the 1950s but wasn't completed until 1959 at the urging of Ragtime Bob Darch. Eric said one of many reasons he chose it was for a title that suggests summertime. He favors it, though, because it's a spectacular yet restrained "heavy" score akin to those Stark issued in the teens -- one that certainly stacks up favorably with any of Lamb's greatest piano rags.

Patrick G. Smith, who related that during the '70s he was a Shakey's Pizza Parlor pianist, delivered instrumental versions of a sextet of pop songs from the ragtime era and the teens, starting with "My Mammy," a 1918 number popularized in vaudeville by Al Jolson.

Next up were the hit songs "I'll See You in My Dreams" (1924) and "For Me and My Gal" (1917).

"In the Good Old Summertime" and "Shine On, Harvest Moon" hail from the ragtime era -- "Summertime" from 1902, "Harvest Moon" from 1908.

Patrick ended his set the same way he started it, with a late ragtime-era ragtime song -- this time, "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody." Like "My Mammy," it was first heard in 1918 and was popularized by Jolson.

Ron encored with the original ragtime waltz "Cloudy," the "more recent" piano rag "That Itchin' Rag," and "Nostalgia" a rag tango that's one of his earlier compositions.

Eric noted that each year he likes to dust off and perform Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" between Memorial Day and Independence Day and that he frequently includes it in his repertoire throughout the summer. Hence we got a mostly traditional version of the piano score of this 1896 masterpiece that in the closing iterations of the trio and trio interlude veers towards the type of rendering one might have heard when solo piano was a staple of the vaudeville stage.

Pedro encored with "The Easy Winners," one of Joplin's earliest piano rags and easily among his greatest, then followed with the Marshall-Joplin rag "Swipesy" written mostly by Marshall (first half and closing theme) and copyrighted and issued by Stark in July of 1900.

Patrick encored with entertaining and enjoyable piano arrangements of five more pop songs ranging from the pre-ragtime era up through the '50s, starting with the 1924 hit "It Had to Be You" by Isham Jones and Gus Kahn.

Also from the mid-'20s (1926): James P. Johnson's "If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)."

Patrick jumped ahead nearly three decades with "Misty," the 1954 standard by jazz pianist Errol Garner, then rocketed back to the dawn of the ragtime era with the 1895 song hit "The Band Played On" (aka "Casey Would Waltz with a Strawberry Blonde").

Patrick closed his final set of the day and took us home with Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'," which became an instant classic as soon as its 1929 debut.

The audience of roughly 20 listeners heard some 33 selections ranging from early, mostly Joplin classic ragtime (from Pedro) to a slew of originals (Ron) to piano arrangements of 1890s through 1950s pop songs (Patrick) to various early, classic, popular and vaudeville selections (Eric).