Customer Reviews

Real Ragtime: Disc Recordings from Its Heyday

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This is the second edition of this CD to be released by Archeophone Records. It contains one additional tune and one substitution. The selections have been remastered, and the sound which was good the first time, has even been improved this time. Some of these recordings are over one hundred years old, and have no right to sound this good! This disc offers a good cross section of the music that was popular between 1898 and 1918. The booklet is done with a real attention to detail, and a lot of information is included along with photographs and first class graphics. This disc, along with the others from this company (I have them all), can stand tall alongside any other reissues by anyone!

Titles I especially enjoy are "Booster Fox Trot" by the Victor Military Band; "Dill Pickles Rag" by Chris Chapman; "The International Rag" by Collins and Harlan; "Cohen's Rag Babe" by Arthur Collins; and "Ragtime Temple Bells" by Billy Murray.

By the way, the substitution mentioned is a different version of "Dill Pickles Rag". The original version by Chris Chapman (1908), is included here, while the version by William H. Reitz (1922), was featured in the first edition of this CD. The additional tune is "Sugar Plum" by Samuel Siegel and Roy Butin.

For those who enjoy original recordings of the first quarter of the twentieth century, this disc is a good place to begin. Archeophone Records is the premier company reissuing this material, and I can recommend their CDs highly. They have released discs featuring Bert Williams, Billy Murray, Art Hickman, and The Benson Orchestra of Chicago; along with over twenty more titles, all of the highest quality sound that modern remastering will allow.

When I buy a collection of old music like this, I do so hoping to find perhaps three or four tunes that are worth ripping to my computer and listening to over and over again. With this CD, I ripped at least 90% of the cuts, they're that good. Of course, the TYPE of music helps. Just like there is no really BAD baroque music, there is no really BAD ragtime. But when you find a CD of old music that is at least 90% first-rate, you have a winner.

Another great feature of this collection is that it offers plenty of ragtime banjos, accordions, and xylophones, but no piano solos and no Scott Joplin. Pianos are fine and Joplin is terrific, but as this CD demonstrates, ragtime in the early years was not exclusively piano music, and Joplin was not the only superb ragtime composer out there.