Customer Reviews

King of Ragtime Writers

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Watching all-time favorite film "The Sting" on cable reintroduced me to the great Marvin Hamlisch score and set me to thinking about getting a Joplin album. Searching Amazon, I found this recording.

What the online description does NOT tell you is that this recording is comprised of piano roll performances. As such, there is little or no variation in volume or sustain, giving the recording a perky quality, rather than the more contemplative quality of the Hamlisch interpretations.

Liner notes discuss the piano roll industry of Joplin's time, including the practice of liberally interpreting scores into three- and four-hand arrangmetns. this recording consists of vintage-era performances, and also modern-era performances by piano roll collectors who punched their own.

I found this an interesting addition to my music library from the historical standpoint, but for "pure listenability"... well, I'm going to order the Hamlisch "Sting" soundtrack, short though it is.

I have something to confess : I like the sound of piano rolls.It's a little bit mechanical,and rigide, but it has a particular flavor and charm that is,I think,very attractive.I love Fats,Jelly Roll,James P.,James Scott or Scott Joplin's piano rolls.This old time music,and this old time rhythm,has something very melancholic that makes it indispensable and entrancing.None of these seventeen rolls has originally been played by Scott Joplin himself.Eight of them were originally issued at the turn of the century,and the nine others were produced in the sixties by a roll collector from StLouis,Mo,named Hal Boulware.But they are as close to the original arrangements that it is almost impossible to distinguish them.Scott Joplin's talent for writing explodes in each tune;this man,born 1868,and who died in 1917,half mad,after the disaster of his most ambitious work,an opera called "Treemonisha",created some of America's most beautiful melodies.Few jazz musicians played his tunes,because it was some kind of old time stuff;I just can name a few: Paul Lingle (hope that Delmark will soon reissue his three Euphonic lps),Jelly Roll Morton (who gave a magnificent rendition of "original rags" in 1939),MaryLou Williams ("elite syncopations","pineapple rag" and the wonderful waltz "pleasing moments",in his "Nite life" album issued on CD by Chiaroscuro),and an outstanding version of "the entertainer" by Jaki Byard on a very rare japanese Victor LP from 1972.This CD will be treasured by all lovers of old dusty things,of old music that will be an essential part in the birth of stride and swing.Even free jazz musicians will remember it,because it's part of their roots : listen to Dave Burrell's "Am rag" for example.I think these seventeen tunes are fascinating,as those included in Scott Joplin's two other albums on Biograph,because of the beauty of the music and the quiet melancholy that comes out.