If you rent a video of The Jazz Singer, young Jakie Rabinowitz performs a couple of ragtime songs at the beginning.
Although you’re clearly well informed about ragtime (I would have cited Blesh if you hadn’t done so first), your claim that there is no new ragtime is simply false.
The renaissance I referred to was the renewed popular interest in ragtime that began in the early 1970s, and its widespread appearance in popular culture, e.g. The Sting. Joshua Rifkin’s recordings of Joplin’s rags for Nonesuch Records were a significant influence in this revival. The increased awareness and appreciation of ragtime led many people to start writing new works in the genre: this list of ragtime composers on Wikipedia shows 52 from the classic era (including Irving Berlin, who shouldn’t be there), and 35 born since 1940, including:
Dick Hyman
Max Morath
Trebor Tichenor
David Thomas Roberts
Mark Birnbaum
in addition to the three I mentioned in my earlier post.
These aren’t just guys sitting around playing music for their friends. They’ve all made records and published sheet music of original ragtime, most of them well before computers and the Internet made it possible for anyone to do those things.
I think characterizing the hundreds (possibly thousands) of ragtime pieces written since 1970 as “an extreme anomaly” is somewhat off the mark, but I don’t care to quibble about it. I was merely pointing out that, contrary to what you had said, there is plenty of modern ragtime.
Thanks guys. You’ve all been helpful. I’ve got a list of music I will take with me to a resale store that usually has LOTS of older titles.
Who would have thought that we’d actually have enough interest on this topic to even stir a mild debate? Not me. Cool.
Check out Ian Whitcomb. Ian Whitcomb - The Foremost Ukulele, Ragtime, and Tin Pan Alley Recording Artist
“You Turn Me On” was his one hit–back in the 60’s. But this Brit moved to Southern California & continues to play Ragtime, Ukelele & other un-hip genres from the first part of the last century. (And some earlier British Music Hall stuff.)
He’s also written some good books, like *After the Ball: Pop Music from Rag to Rock *. (
Ragtime is primarily an instrumental genre; although words were often put to the rags later, it’s the original instrumentals that are primarily remembered today. If it’s ragtime you want, you should check out Bill Edward’s site. He’s got hundreds of ragtime midis, all played live by him, and accompanied by extensive blurbs about the pieces. There’s also advice on how to get started learning to play, if you want to do that. I used to do it myself, but I’ve forgotten how to play virtually everything as I have moved on to other musical interests.
You might also want to check out Jelly Roll Morton, who more or less bridged a gap between ragtime and New Orleans jazz. In particular, if you want vocals there was a double LP set called The Commodore Years that had him doing some vocal and piano arrangements, as well as some piano solo and band plus vocal numbers. I think you can get it on CD now. You could also check out George Gershwin songs generally, but I don’t know any good vocalists to recommend.