The Past Is Yet To Come

Craig Ventresco | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 1, 2001)
• Original Release Date: February 1, 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Origin Jazz Library
• ASIN: B00005BHW0
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #244,082 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Shuffle Rag

2. An Operatic "Rag"

3. Goodnight Angeline - medley

4. Whoa, You Heifer - a cowboy intermezzo

5. Tobasco

6. Ragtime Oriole

7. Oysters and Clams - medley

8. Dance of the Nile Maidens

9. A Black Smoke

10. Sunflower Slow Drag

11. Shadow Blues

12. Handsome Harry

13. Lingering Love - medley

14. The Georgia Grind

15. Salome

16. High Brown Blues

17. Junk Man Rag

18. Back To Baltimore - medley

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable anachronism!, June 20, 2003

By 

B. P. Price "Tech Geek & Sensitive Artiste" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Past Is Yet To Come (Audio CD)

Craig Ventresco manages to do what few "recreators" of old music ever achieve - he avoids the preciousness, delicacy and stiffness that often comes with the territory. Rather than viewing these pieces as sacrosanct, Ventresco infuses them with a very modern sense of urgency and immediacy. The results are stunning: 80 year old piano rags are played the way I can imagine audiences heard them when new. Ventresco attacks the music and his instrument with ferocious intensity - nothing sounds the least bit overwrought or hesitant.

To me, that flaw has always been the difference between the originals and the many respectful imitators. Compare Blind Blake to Stefan Grossman and you hear the "real deal" versus a very well intentioned and technically capable student. Ventresco surpasses because he lifts the veil of time and culture; when compared with Blake (Blind and Eubie), Jefferson, Joplin, Waller, etc., he does not sound at all like an imitator but rather a contemporary. He does not honor or pay homage; Ventresco just DOES IT right from his core. Highly recommended!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heaven Sent, August 30, 2007

By 

S. L. Boyce "Mother Nature" (Little Rhody) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Past Is Yet To Come (Audio CD)

This man is a God who brings out music from his guitar that makes me feel so warm, content and taken care of. Sounds nutty, I know, but it's true. I love this sound and I have never heard it anywhere else but from Craig Ventresco! You want this recording.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ragtime with a twist, March 15, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Past Is Yet To Come (Audio CD)

I consider myself a respectable music critic, and although I am not a resident in the land of ragtime, this cd is breathtaking. Craig is a phenomenal guitarist, able to blend common rag techniques with an unforgiving intensity and somewhat chromatic flair that can keep you comfortably enjoying his music while breathing heavily in anticipation of his next tangential masterpiece. Anyone interested in in rag or blues should give this a chance, as true talent can never be avoided.