Fig Leaf Rag

Nothing beats the elegant, stately ragtime of Scott Joplin. He manages to be a savant without the lifeless quality in some of his fellow Classic Ragtime composers (James Scott and Joseph Lamb).

Kater Street Rag

 

An enjoyable little romp from the early Bennie Moten Orchestra. Still rooted somewhat heavily in ragtime styles, the Kansas City band still had that irrepressibly powerful rhythmic sense within its ragtime structure. What did James Scott think of jazz bands retention of rags in 1920s Kansas City? There's an undeniable elegance to Scott's Don't Jazz Me Rag, but Moten's piece is invigorating.

Get Low-Down Blues

An excellent musical summation of all the elements of the Bennie Moten band of the late 1920s. Beginning with a ragtime-styled introduction, the song abruptly shifts into a low-down blues featuring some scat vocals and "hot" playing. Moten's band has become one of my favorites of 1920s-1930s jazz.

Eubie Blake

Al Rose's biography of composer and pianist Eubie Blake is not great. It's perhaps too short and clearly written by someone who lacks objectivity when ranking the works of Blake. Moreover, Rose is at times condescending in tone when describing African Americans (perhaps a reflection of his times and upbringing?). Nevertheless, this is a very useful read for anyone interested in the life and times of Eubie Blake, who lived long enough to experience early ragtime and jazz while also participating in the ragtime revival of the second half of the 20th century. Covering his life from his birth to formerly enslaved parents in Baltimore, Rose chronicles, often in the voice of Blake himself, his development as a pianist and composer in ragtime and popular music venues to his renewed status as an elder statesman of ragtime in the 1970s.

For someone primarily interested in jazz and its history, Blake's career is perhaps more accurately seen as one of the early ingredients of jazz. Reflecting vaudeville (including his early partnership days with Noble Sissle), ragtime piano, and black musical theater in NYC, Blake's music contains jazz elements and some of his compositions themselves became standards ("Memories of You"). However, Blake himself, despite his repute as a pianist since the early 1900s, and his influence on younger musicians like James P. Johnson, was perhaps more akin to James Reese Europe and Wilbur Sweatman. Like those other early jazz pioneers, his music straddled pre-jazz ragtime, musical theater, and vaudeville while keeping up with the new sounds of jazz and blues by the late 1910s and 1920s. But Eubie doesn't quite fit in with the stride pianists like James P. Johnson or Willie the Lion Smith, despite sharing their penchant for improvisation. Perhaps, since most of Blake's recorded music consisted of rags or recordings featuring the vocals of Noble Sissle, I detect more the influence of showtunes and vaudeville (with the occasional nod to blues, jazz or the Negro spiritual).

In spite of this, Blake is certainly a key figure in the history of ragtime and jazz. His musical partnerships with James Reese Europe and Noble Sissle were also significant for the development of black music in New York. Through the Clef Club, they helped organize and professionalize black music. Through musicals like Shuffle Along and their vaudeville performances, Blake and Sissle created music that did not depend on blackface or the most pernicious racial stereotypes (think of some of the unforgettable love songs from their collaboration). The indignities Blake had to endure to make it the entertainment industry are shocking nowadays, but it is thanks to musicians like Blake and James Reese Europe that African Americans in entertainment could surpass some of the limitations of a Jim Crow musical industry. Blake, as the son of former slaves, certainly lived long enough to witness the transformations in the lives of African Americans. Undoubtedly, this process is mirrored in our music.

Joe Jordan Live

Here is a priceless video from the 1970s featuring Joe Jordan singing and playing the piano. Jordan was an important figure in the Chicago South Side music scene in the pre-jazz days when cabarets on State Street featured ragtime and vaudeville performances. While not really a jazz musician in the 1900s or 1910s, Jordan's legacy in terms of the South Side music scene deserves mention, as well as his music's contribution to early jazz in its transitional phase. He was also present at various moments in the development of ragtime (St. Louis), Chicago's South Side (Pekin Theater), and New York (Clef Club). By the 1920s, he was recording "jazz" with his Ten Sharps & Flats. 

Wilbur C. Sweatman and Early Jazz

After reading Mark Berresford's That’s got ’Em! : the life and music of Wilbur C. Sweatman, one can see more clearly the significance of Sweatman in the rise of jazz music. As a transitional figure whose life encompassed all the 19th and early 20th century musical forms that contributed to jazz, Sweatman, like James Reese Europe, is a perfect figure to study for understanding the transition to jazz and blues in the late 1910s and 1920s. In the case of Sweatman, Berresford emphasizes his past in minstrel, vaudeville, and circus or tent show performances. It also seems very reasonable to agree with the author that the rise of jazz could never be understood solely as a New Orleans phenomenon. Last, but certainly not least, one can see the centrality of ragtime as a musical genre that laid the foundation for the musical changes occurring in the first two decades of the 1900s. 

Further, it would seem that appearance of blues and jazz and the rise of African American popular music in the 20th century owes far more to minstrel, vaudeville, and ragtime-influenced tours that created conditions for African Americans to travel across the continent and exchange musical ideas. P.G. Lowery's group, or Sweatman's later career on the vaudeville circuit, or Chicago's South State Street black cabarets created a propitious climate for the exchange of musical ideas. All these aforementioned aspects of African American music would go on to make Sweatman a pivotal figure in early jazz. His unique clarinet style also included early jazz phrasing, particularly on his recording of "Down Home Rag" for Emerson. His singular sound on clarinet and "hot" style almost makes it plausible that he was playing "jazz" as early as his Chicago years. It also explains why Columbia and Pathé were drawn to Sweatman, who already had an established reputation, for a black jazz band to catch up to the jazz craze. 

Berresford's text, while full of informative details pertinent to recordings and tour dates, can be a tedious read. Ultimately, this study is limited by the loss of Sweatman's autobiographical notes and countless papers and records of his and Scott Joplin that would have shed so much light on ragtime and early jazz. Nonetheless, Berresford's biography convincingly demonstrates the significance of Sweatman in the history of jazz. Several prominent jazz musicians of the 1920s and 1930s were once associates or former sidemen of Sweatman, whose business acumen, showmanship, and experience impacted luminaries such as Duke Ellington and Jimmie Lunceford. Berresford's study also speaks to the theme of racial integration in jazz and popular music, an area in which Sweatman was a pioneer. 

What is required now is a detailed study of Sweatman's recordings, though Berresford nicely contextualizes the limitations of recording technology, Columbia's control on material, and the competing influence of the New Orleans polyphonic sound versus the large New York syncopated orchestras of the 1910s. One would also have liked to learn more about the relationship between Joplin and Sweatman, and, if possible, any reasons why Sweatman never joined the Clef Club or Tempo Club. What did Sweatman think of "jazz" and ragtime in the context of the "race" and its place in the development of black music? Unless someone locates the lost papers of Sweatman, perhaps we shall never know. 

Treemonisha

After finally reading the libretto for Scott Joplin's opera, Treemonisha, one can see the limitations of Joplin's attempt to create an opera entirely on his own. Joplin wrote the libretto and score, and while the music is fantastic, the actual story is quite thin. In short, one year after the US Civil War, an infant Treemonisha is found under a tree at a plantation managed by Ned and Monisha, who adopt the child as their own. Fast forward several years later, and Treemonisha is the only educated person in her isolated, all-black community (she is also the only one who does not speak in "dialect"). Conjure men, who prey on the ignorance and superstition of the community, peddle their magic wares and, after Treemonisha stands up to them, kidnap her. 

She is saved by Remus, a man she taught, who dons a scarecrow costume to frighten the conjurers just as they're about to throw Treemonisha into a wasp's nest in the forest. The rest of the men in Treemonisha's community capture the conjurers, and just as their about to punish them, Treemonisha persuades them to not beat or kill them. She forgives Zodzetrick and his cohort, and the community nominates her as a leader. This is basically all that happens, with the exception of some musical scenes featuring a ring shout, Parson Alltalk (just talking, an ineffective figure in the community), corn huskers, cotton pickers, and miscellaneous additional scenes. Some of these appear to have no relevance to the plot, but they provide opportunities for songs and dances associated with black folk culture in the South.

Alexander Berlin's biography of Joplin suggests the character of Treemonisha or at least her surroundings were inspired by one of his wives, Freddie. Berlin and Rick Benjamin contextualize the opera in the context of Joplin's exposure to classical music, black musical ambitions of the era, and the political message of Treemonisha. Intriguingly, the opera is critical of organized religion as represented by Parson Alltalk, although Treemonisha is a deist of sorts. Obviously critical of the conjure men, who are inexplicably frightened of a man dressed as a scarecrow, Joplin seems to reject African-derived religious or folk traditions and the organized black church while suggesting rational, assimilation of Western education would lead the black community onward in progress. 

Yet, Joplin seems to enjoy drawing on black folk music and ragtime, incorporated into the opera. The Negro, it would seem, should embrace the best of Western knowledge but retain traditions into the future, creating a distinctly black art aesthetic that can stand beside Wagner, Dvorak, or Verdi. To reach that lofty goal, however, required leadership by the educated of the race, including women, like Treemonisha. As a "Black Athena" of her community, she will become the spark for general education and uplift of their Arkansas plantation. Of course, Treemonisha's mysterious appearance suggests mystical, supernatural conditions of the "insider-outsider" who can lead her community out of darkness and isolation. It would be interesting to compare this opera with Freeman's Voodoo.

James P. Johnson: A Case of Mistaken Identity

Scott E. Brown's biography of James P. Johnson is, to my understanding, the only book-length study of the life and music of the stride pianist. Due to my interest in early jazz and, increasingly, ragtime, I decided to read it to learn more about Johnson's place in the history of jazz. Brown's biography emerged from a student thesis, which can be clearly discerned. However, the provocative title is warranted because Brown's study illustrates many of the innovative and important features of Johnson's music on jazz and black music. Through his influence on Fats Waller, his composing of "serious music" drawing on African American spirituals and blues, and later generations of jazz pianists adapting the stride style, such as Thelonious Monk and Jaki Byard, Johnson's legacy in jazz is large and multifaceted.

As an active participant in the musical scene of New York in the 1910s and 1920s, Johnson witnessed the transformation of ragtime piano and the development of early jazz. Ragtime musicians in New York and New Jersey were, by the time young Johnson began playing in saloons, "ragging" popular tunes and engaging in "cutting contests." The Clef Club's emergence led to better gigs for black musicians and their refined mannerisms were, according to Brown, emulated by Johnson's generation. However, the older Clef Club musicians were not eager to embrace the blues or the polyphony of New Orleans jazz, so the younger artists like Johnson were the ones to channel the blues scale, blue notes, and vocalization to their instruments.

Indeed, the strong influence of black southern folk music and traditions, like the "shout," also help explain the emergence of stride as a distinct piano style from ragtime. The ringshout and similar black southern dances, rooted in the religious musical culture of black slaves and their descendants, transferred to secular expression after Emancipation. The "shout" was witnessed by a young Johnson in the dances held by his parents, and the riffs of stride were based on the rhythmic variations of shout dances. Johnson wasn't alone in attributing the origins of stride to the shout dances brought from the south by black southerners. His friend, Willie the Lion Smith, also noted the influence of the shout dances on stride piano, which, especially in its rhythmic riffing and blues influences, is more jazz than ragtime. 

Besides his ingenious stride piano style and songwriting for black musical theater, what most distinguishes Johnson is his desire to compose "serious" music drawing on the Western classical tradition. In Yamekraw, his Negro rhapsody, or The Organizer-A Blues Opera, a collaboration with Langston Hughes, Johnson drew on the blues, spirituals, and black folk material for classical works. Indeed, he knew Gershwin and likely understood the sources of black folk music better than the latter, although none of his symphonies were as successful as Gershwin's. Just as Joplin's opera, Treemonisha, was steeped in black folk music elements, Johnson endeavored to pursue a similar goal of fusing the "high" art of classical forms with black folkloric and blues roots, something many Harlem Renaissance critics and literary figures were hoping to accomplish in their own works. 

His musical contributions to the blues opera project with Langston Hughes also hints at social reformer or even socialist sympathies of Johnson. Hughes was, for a time in the 1930s, writing militant poetry reflecting his left-wing convictions. His opera with Johnson expresses those sentiments, too, as it involvements a labor organizer among black sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South, teaching them the path to their liberation is organization (to create a world without hunger, with no color line). Unfortunately, Brown's biography does not explore this, but it may suggest something of the degree to which the Communists during the Depression were influencing Harlem jazz musicians as well as intellectuals like Hughes. 

This desire to be taken seriously as a composer has been a consistent theme with many jazz musicians, who encountered a racist music industry and social prejudice. For instance, Johnson's music for black musical theater, often considered the highlight of the various musicals he was involved with, were limited to black musicals often reliant on racial stereotypes and ignored by the white musical establishment. He also sought to live on his composing rather than the brutal nightclub or dancehall circuit, which were the only venues jazz could be heard in during the 1920s. Although it seems like Johnson still enjoyed performing at Harlem rent parties where fellow stride pianists like Fats Waller and Willie the Lion Smith would also pop in, one can see see how he sought to find a place for his music beyond the limitations imposed on jazz as "entertainment" unfit for the high arts. In addition to his efforts at "serious" music and the consolidation of stride piano, his presence at the early days of jazz in New York surely attest to his importance in the jazz pantheon.

Black Bottom Stomp

While randomly listening to Jelly Roll Morton's "Black Bottom Stomp" today, I noticed a similarity with "Castle House Rag" by James Reese Europe, recorded in 1914. The 1926 recording by Jelly Roll Morton demonstrates the clear link to ragtime in "Black Bottom Stomp," particularly in a brief banjo solo that nearly echoes the "hot section" around 3 minutes into "Castle House Rag." Alternatively, the inspiration for Jelly Roll Morton's ragtime-inspired segment could hail from "12th Street Rag," but the banjoist's rollicking style brings to mind the banjo and mandolin players of Europe's Society Orchestra.  While Reese Europe's Society Orchestra in 1914 was still not quite jazz, it's interesting to note how Jelly Roll Morton was deeply aware of ragtime black music and incorporated elements of it into his own compositions, which were complex arrangements showing Morton's skills as what Gunther Schuller called the first great composer of jazz

A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe

Badger's biography of James Reese Europe is a fascinating read for all curious about the early history of jazz in New York City. It also encompasses black Americans in World War I and black musical theater and performance in the first two decades of 20th century New York City. After reading the biography, it becomes clear how Europe was a key figure in the early development of jazz as it transitioned from ragtime. His leadership skills and desire to elevate the status of black musicians led to the formation of the Clef Club, a central booking agency and labor union for black musicians which led to more opportunities for African American musicians in the 1910s. 

The Clef Club and Tempo Club orchestras and bands also were a fertile crossroads for various currents in black popular music of the era, combining those with musical theater experience, vaudeville circuit pasts, ragtime and dance musicians across the New York area. Europe's ability to arrange for large orchestras also earns him the distinction of being the first leader of a proto-big band, even if one takes issue with the use of the term jazz to describe Europe's music before the Harlem Hellfighters. Performing compositions by black songwriters, including Ford Dabney, William Tyers, Will Marion Cook and Europe himself, also showed the degree to which Europe promoted black composers as well as performers, subverting the stereotype that blacks couldn't write music.

In terms of the transition from ragtime to jazz, Europe's band played a pivotal role in the rise of the fox-trot and jazz dance. His partnership with Vernon and Irene Castle led to the creation of the fox-trot by adapting Handy's "Memphis Blues" to a slow dance. This, in turn, shows the central importance of blues to early jazz, something Europe incorporated into his music when accompanying the Castles. Although definitely not the first musician to incorporate blue notes and structures into his band, Europe was one of the early bandleaders in New York to incorporate brass and woodwinds into what was previously strings-dominated orchestras (harp-guitar, mandolin, banjos, etc.).

Their syncopated approach with the addition of slurred notes, blues elements, and prominent drums (Buddy Gilmore, in particular) must have shocked and enthralled audiences. These sounds he carried with him to France, where he led the 15th Infantry Regiment Band to mesmerized audiences, impressing both French, European, and US listeners. The addition of Puerto Rican musicians for this band also led to some of the earliest Latino jazz musicians, although "Latin" music was long part of the repertoire of various bands Europe led (tango and "Latin" pieces by Tyers and others). While the distinction between jazz and ragtime wasn't clear to all listeners, it was clear Europe's music was something new to a variety of audiences. He was undoubtedly one of the first international proponents of what became "jazz," performing "Memphis Blues" in Europe along with military band music.

Europe's belief in the uplift of the "race" also deserves mention. Badger's biography illustrates, through the testimony of those who knew Europe and published interviews with the bandleader, how he saw his own music and efforts for black musicians as part of the elevation of African Americans. Instead of following his younger sister, Mary, who became a respected concert pianist in Washington, D.C., Europe endeavored to avoid the binary of "high" and low" while performing pieces reflecting spirituals, ragtime, blues, proto-jazz, and classical music. Europe's eclecticism reflected the various influences upon his own development as a musician, from marches he heard in DC to the ragtime and musicals he performed with during his first decade in New York. 

Just as future generations of jazz musicians struggled to escape the limitations placed upon the genre as simple entertainment or low "popular" music, Europe's ambitions for a National Negro Orchestra which would play "Negro" music illustrates his belief in the importance of developing a black musical aesthetic that is just as valid as any other. His joining the 15th Infantry Regiment during WWI was also linked to his racial politics, as he saw a strong organization of black men as a model for Harlem. The military band he was able to form, with additional outside funding, established a reputation for the black New York regiment in France. According to Noble Sissle, the band also helped the regiment with recruitment in New York, attracting audiences. 

While Europe subscribed to some of the notions popular of his era, such as black musicians having a natural inclination to rhythm, his views on the potential for black popular music are unique in that he did not limit the aesthetic brilliance of black music to spirituals or "sorrow songs." Black music, rooted in the past, also had future routes, one of which was jazz.  Unlike Coleridge-Taylor, Europe saw the value in black popular music, which was something to cultivate rather than ignore. Undoubtedly, Europe's central place in the favorable conditions leading to jazz ensure him a place in the music's pantheon, as well as New York City's centrality to its rise and development. Unfortunately, we have no recordings of Europe's early renditions of "Memphis Blues," which must have been interesting musically as pre-1917 early jazz. 

Variations About the Cascades

The Vienna Art Orchestra's modernized, free interpretation of Scott Joplin's Cascades is worth a listen. Fusing elements of ragtime and experimental jazz, the the orchestra modernizes one of Joplin's most evocative compositions. It's quite playful, much like Joplin's original work.

Maple Leaf Rag

Another jazz interpretation of Scott Joplin from jazz musicians out of the avant-garde of the 1970s. Anthony Braxton lets loose some hints of his contemporary sound while Muhal Richard Abrams continues to pound on the keyboard in a style reminiscent of ragtime and stride piano. This would have likely worked better with the addition of a drummer, bassist, and another horn player who is more comfortable with improvisation on it. 

Down Home Rag

Some consider this 1916 recording of Wilbur Sweatman playing his own "Down Home Rag" to be the first jazz record. Although it's undeniably rooted in ragtime, Sweatman improvises in a surprisingly jazz or jazz-like manner on his clarinet. According to other accounts, Sweatman was known for his "wild" improvisations on clarinet during past performances in vaudeville shows, suggesting one possible source of jazz improvisation. In spite of its jazz-like qualities, it sounds more like a transitional song. But, it's still "jazzier" than anything James Reese Europe recorded before 1917. 

King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era

Although ragtime is not my preferred genre of music, my interests in the evolution of black music and, in particular, jazz, warrants an deeper understanding of the genre. Berlin's biography of Joplin is rather sparse on many details of his life, due to the paucity of reliable sources. So, in light of some of the many questions left unanswered by studies of the course of Joplin's personal life, Berlin fills in as many gaps as possible. Using his knowledge of the state of ragtime during Joplin's life, this biography is more of an overview placing the man and his compositions in the social, musical, and cultural context of his era. Joplin's struggles to find legitimacy as a composer. Plusm his views on the eventual uplift of Black America through education (seemingly the motivation for Treemonisha), as well as his seeming admiration for Booker T. Washington reveal something of Joplin's thoughts on social matters and the destiny of the "race." Something peculiar to Black America, rooted in the minstrel and "coon song" tradition, combined with march steps and syncopation, bequeathed to the country the first national music craze. One, it must be said, Joplin hoped to be considered a serious art form.

Berlin's biography is a rewarding one. It focuses heavily on the music, offering analysis of some of the innovative traits of Joplin's compositions. His work also places this son of a former slave into the debates on racial uplift, nascent Tin Pan Alley, and the status of black music in pre-jazz days. In this account of his life, Joplin emerges as a sophisticated, eloquent man who sought to elevate ragtime and be taken seriously as a composer, a struggle bringing to mind future black jazz artists who hoped to be considered true artists alongside the likes of Wagner, Bartok, or Ravel. He also dealt with publishing companies, the association of ragtime with social vices, and the financial insecurity of a musician. All struggles familiar to early jazz. 

So, what was so exceptional about the author of Maple Leaf Rag? According to Berlin's biography, Joplin's previous career in music involved violin lessons from his father, learning the piano with a German instructor, and leading a vocal quartet. Thus, long before ragtime, Joplin was involved in various forms of music, as well as having experience with vocal quartets, popular song, and African American music. His siblings were also involved with music and dance, exemplifying how musical the family was. By the 1890s, after the Exposition in 1893, he eventually ended up in Sedalia, Missouri, a center of commerce and rail transport with a lively musical scene (plus, brothels, bars and social clubs, conditions conducive for musical entertainment or innovation). There, as ragtime consolidated as a genre across the decade, Joplin began a fruitful partnership with Stark's music publishing company. Genius rags such as Maple Leaf Rag brought new dimensions to piano ragtime as well as ensuring Joplin a comfortable income from royalties.

Joplin's rags, often with four strains, experimented with different rhythms, harmonies, tonal patterns, counterpoint, and mood. He also composed marches, operas, waltzes, and, intriguingly, incorporated elements of the blues and Latin music into his works. One piece, Wall Street Rag, even contained narrative sections for each strain, demonstrating an interest in narrative music. Just as many of aforementioned ingredients were present in jazz, Joplin's approach to ragtime composition were of an exceptionally high standard, even recognized as such by whites in Sedalia and music journals in New York. At a time when most white Americans and "respectable" black Americans looked down on ragtime, Joplin's serious demeanor and attempts to elevate black music to the esteemed status of Western classical stand out. His attempts at opera, although the first one is lost, demonstrate the breadth of his musical vision. They also exhibit an excellent blend of the European tradition with African American styles, including some of the Southern African American musical traditions he was exposed to through his parents. This is several years before Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, and more of an actual operatic work than what Will Marion Cook was doing at the time. 

How does it relate to jazz? And what did Joplin think of the nascent jazz of the 1910s New York? He corresponded with Jelly Roll Morton, the self-proclaimed inventor of jazz. His friend, Wilbur Sweatman, later became a jazz musician himself. During his time in St. Louis during the early 1900s, he also participated in an active ragtime community (Tom Turpin, Louis Chauvin, etc.) where other black pianists of the artist engaged in "cutting" contests, showing off their instrumental chops, reminiscent of future jazz musicians. As a member of the black musical entertainment circles of New York, he participated in the Colored Vaudeville Benevolent Association and the Clef Club. This means he almost certainly knew or at some level interacted with James Reese Europe, Ford Dabney, and other musicians active in black cabarets in the Tenderloin district, later Harlem (which was becoming increasingly black in the final decade of Joplin's life. 

Indeed, during Joplin's New York years, blues and "proto-jazz" (or jazz, depending on one's definition of the term) were increasingly heard, which may explain some of the blues elements in Joplin's music, particularly Magnetic Rag. Unfortunately, his painful death due to syphilis deprived the world of watching the further developments of his work. However, Berlin states Joplin was ignored by Europe and others in the Clef Club, so perhaps Joplin would have remained on the margins of the new music while attempting to stage Treemonisha. Alternatively, his relationship with Wilbur Sweatman and Jelly Roll Morton may have pushed him into jazz, where he could have perhaps emerged as the most important composer in the genre's early stage. How he would have responded to improvisation on his tunes one cannot say, but his sophisticated musical knowledge could have enriched early jazz's songbook.

Weeping Willow Rag

Air, consisting of Henry Threadgill, Henry Hopkins, and Steve McCall, produced a gem in their jazz interpretation of a Scott Joplin ragtime piece. "Weeping Willow Rag" manages to accomplish the impossible: retain that bouncy, old-time feel of the original yet sounding contemporary. Since many elements of free and avant-garde jazz were a return to the roots of the music, it's not altogether too shocking that Air were able to bring to life Joplin's ragtime compositions. Even without a piano, their version captures that ragged, two-step style with rollicking drums and old-timey saxophone from Threadgill who can't help but turn this weeping willow into an upbeat one. There is a celebration of life in music such as this, which I can appreciate in similar jazz forays into the past of black music. 

Old Rag

One of Jarrett's better trios performing an original rag-styled composition by Jarrett himself. It's playful, swinging, and a moving tribute to the history of jazz's roots. As an eclectic player whose music reflected influences from just about every form of popular American music, it's an interesting example of how modern jazz conceives its past. "New Rag" is also worth listening, for a composition looking forward in an even more playful manner. 

Porto Rico

The Manhattan Ragtime Orchestra playing Ford Dabney's Porto Rico. Composed in 1910, shortly after Dabney's stint in Haiti, the song is another example of Caribbean musical influences in American music. As an important figure in the development of jazz and black music in New York during the 1910s, one cannot forget the presence of Puerto Rican musicians in the band of James Reese Europe. This may explain how Dabney was able to compose a piece that almost sounds like a danza, which also possesses some similarities with the Haitian music Dabney must have heard previously. 

Irresistible

James Reese Europe, identified in Schuller's Early Jazz as a major transitional figure in the pre-history of jazz on the East Coast, also recorded a tango, entitled "Irresistible." It's interesting to hear since its an early example of how jazz music was always connected to "Latin" music. From the "Latin" section of "St. Louis Blues" to a variety of other examples, early jazz was cognizant of Cuban, Mexican, Argentine, and Caribbean musical influences. 

Ragtime Dance

I love it when avant-garde artists look to the roots, in this case, Scott Joplin and ragtime. Although I admire Henry Threadgill, there is still much of his music I am unforgivably unfamiliar with. So, enjoy this "Ragtime Dance" for the weekend.

Ford Dabney's Haytian Rag

Check out a rag for Haiti from the early 1900s. Ford Dabney, the African-American composer, actually served as a court musician in Port-au-Prince. While there is nothing distinctively Haitian about this piece, ragtime does share some stylistic commonalities with Cuban danzon.