Customer Reviews

American Beauty: A Ragtime Bouquet

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My love for Joplin's rags goes way back to my childhood; 'Maple Leaf Rag' and 'Gladiolus Rag' were two that I frequently played in public and always got a positive response, even from musically unsophisticated audiences. On this CD we have 'Gladiolus Rag' and in his notes pianist/composer Gary Smart calls it his favorite Joplin rag; mine, too. There is only one other Joplin piece here, 'Solace (A Mexican Serenade)', one I'd never heard before. It's a slow, dreamy piece which is underpinned by a Hispanic rhythm. Smart plays it with feeling, a creamy legato and a loose-limbed rubato. A winner.

The other rag composers represented here are Joseph Lamb ('Ragtime Nightingale', 'American Beauty'), James Scott ('Grace and Beauty'), Clarence Woods ('Sleepy Hollow Rag'), Robert Hampton ('Cataract Rag'), and best of all there are seven originals by Gary Smart himself: 'Laramie Rag', 'Two Flowers Rag', 'Cracker Rag', 'Peanut Butter Rag', 'Soirees de Vienne (Ragtime rondo)', 'Harlequin Rag' and 'Bell Rag.'

First, let me say that Smart plays these rags with close attention to the scores, not least Joplin's own imperative instruction not to play his rags too fast. Hurray for that. He has an interesting way with rubato; at times it seems wayward, but mostly it feels 'right.' He also plays with a minimum of pedal, which I quite like. He has a fairly well-regulated piano and the recorded sound is good.

Some musical high points: Smart's slithery 'Laramie Rag', written when he was teaching at the University of Wyoming in Laramie; it slyly quotes 'Home of the Range'. James Scott's 'Grace and Beauty' which has both title qualities in abundance; again, Smart's slightly restrained manner fits this elegant rag perfectly. Smart's 'Peanut Butter Rag', although written only last year, has its fair share of 1920s 'eccentric rag' licks. 'Gladiolus Rag' is played broadly and unhurriedly; I love Smart's way with the chromatic upsweeps in the left hand. Hampton's 'Cataract Rag', one that I can only recall hearing once before, is ragtime tone-painting at its best; the 'cataract' of the title is a waterfall, imitated with lacy downward chromatic figures.

But my favorites of the whole CD are the last two cuts, both rags by Smart himself. Smart says, in his handsome booklet notes, that 'Harlequin' is operatic and indeed it is, but not like any Italian opera you've heard, perhaps Joplin's own 'Treemonisha' is conjured up. It is harmonically adventurous and expands the usual AABBACCDD rag format. Musically it describes the Arlequino character from Italian commedia dell'arte (not the series of romance novels!) and has much the same kind of impish humor as in, say, Strauss's 'Till Eulenspiegel.' Finally, 'Bell Rag' (1986) is a joyous up-tempo rag, written on commission from Mountain Bell Telephone, and it humorously quotes that sentimental old pop song from 1901, 'Hello, Central, Give Me Heaven'. It is harmonically complicated, uses various kinds of 'bell' sounds, sometimes goes into some bop figurations and ends with, to quote the composer, 'a ringing coda.' Yowzah!

Worth a listen, for sure.

Scott Morrison

I've been compiling musical "anthologies" for 30 years (i.e., collecting recordings and rearranging them into programs for my own amusement), one of which was a celebration of ragtime. I also often mixed rags into other genres just to spice things up.

Admittedly, I usually became so fond of the first rendition of each rag that I heard that I rarely preferred to hear that rag as recorded by some other artist. The thought of looking for contemporary rags, however, never occurred to me, though after buying this CD and doing some research, I now understand there are lots contemporary rags (though I have not yet researched whether there are commercially available recordings of them). Hearing new rags played in a new style is a chance to start over, and hear the genre as though for the first time.

For example, when I popped this CD into the car player, I settled in for what I thought was going to be routine program. But a brief way into the second track (see next paragraph), I knew the original tracks were going to be the real treat. If, like the artist, you think the whole point of a rag is to have a bit of fun, then you are likely to appreciate these new rags; they are sometimes a rag "with a twist."

Laramie Rag is my favorite. It is the first original on the CD (the second track described earlier) and it has just enough, well, anomolies, for lack of a better term, that I knew, on the first listening, that it could not be a classic, even though, most of the time, it sounded just like one. And that's why it is so much fun.

The recording quality is also excellent. Overall, this was a really fine purchase.