First, a correction. In my January, 2024 report of the West Coast Ragtime Festival I attributed “Belle Adair,” played there by Richard Dowling, to him. The actual composer is Vincent Matthew Johnson, as I learned at the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in late May. I apologize to Vincent for not crediting him for this piece that was commissioned by Glenn Robison for his wife Rita.
Now, for the Joplin festival. If you don’t care to read all 1,227 words, the bottom line is that this was a stellar event, the best of the five I’ve attended. Perhaps all the stops were pulled out to celebrate its 50th anniversary from May 29 through June 1 in Sedalia, MO, where its namesake published his most famous work, the “Maple Leaf Rag.” In fact, the publication site sits alongside the festival’s main music venue, the Stark tent in the first block of East 5th Street, which is closed for the occasion. The weather this year was quite good—no heat or high humidity, and the only rain fell late Friday afternoon and evening. Wind was a factor, however; those outdoor performers who used scores had to use clothespins or clear shields to keep them in place.
No fewer than 51 performers were on the bill. Not all were pianists; five full bands appeared in addition to several solo instrumentalists. The Chicago Cellar Boys made their first, and hopefully not last, appearance to enthusiastic acclaim. They are not known for playing ragtime, but during the finale they did just that. The other bands were put together just for this occasion—Hal Smith’s San Francisco Jazz All-Stars and two led by pianist Andrew Oliver to commemorate Jelly Roll Morton. All three of these bands had some members in common. The fifth band, the Crown Syncopators, is a regularly performing trio of Frederick Hodges on piano, Virginia Tichenor on drums and Marty Eggers on tuba (and perhaps occasionally on bass). Several people in addition to the Cellar Boys were on the bill for the first time: Miss Maybell and Charlie, John Gill, and Steve Hicks among them. Notably absent was Festival regular Jeff Barnhart, who was in Scotland.
Despite the stellar lineup, I thought the attendance was lower this year than at my last visit in 2022. It’s hard to judge the attendance based on the free sets since two or three venues are in use at the same time. But the paid evening shows seemed to be more sparsely attended except for the finale on Saturday.
On opening night there was a free public showing of The Sting, the 1974 movie that brought renewed attention to ragtime because it featured Joplin’s “The Entertainer.” After seeing it for the first time here, I felt I had not missed anything. Music was not a major part of the movie, and not all of what was included could be considered ragtime.
The “once and done” bands sounded as if they had been playing together for years. Not surprising considering the personnel—Hal Smith (drums), TJ Muller (cornet), Tom Bartlett (trombone), John Gill (banjo), John Otto (clarinet), Brian Holland (piano), and Dan Anderson (tuba). Hal put together this band to reprise the West Coast ragtime revival in the ’40s and ’50s of Turk Murphy’s band. Pianist Andrew Oliver, whom I had not seen before—my loss—led a (Jelly Roll) Morton trio of himself, Andy Schumm on clarinet, and Hal Smith on drums. Andy also played piano during the weekend in addition to the instruments he plays with the Cellar Boys.
This was the third year that Ragtime Kids was a feature. This year they included previous participants Leo Roth, Tadao Tomokiyo, Max Libertor, and Isaiah Burton. All four names were familiar to me, though I don’t recall having seen Leo before. The others have participated at the West Coast Ragtime Festival. Isaiah was the winner this year. Bill McNally deserves much credit for directing this program.
Festival founder Larry Melton was on hand for the first time in many years, and it was a pleasure to meet him. He told me that he met 18 people there with whom he had corresponded over the years but had never met in person. Larry was given a key to the city of Sedalia, where he once lived, but the key did not arrive in time for the ceremony, so a piano key was substituted. Larry’s physical capacity is now restricted, but not his mental faculties.
I attended most of the paid symposia, which were coordinated by “Perfesser” Bill Edwards. Presenters were Dr. Ed Berlin and his daughter Stephanie Caputo, who both spoke on the family of Joplin and tools they use in their search for “the truth.” Having done some genealogy work myself, I found their talks extremely interesting. Colin Hancock, the now 28-year-old phenom who’s done very admirable work scholastically and in performance for a good ten years, talked about the Missouri roots of ragtime, but focusing on people other than Joplin. I never fail to be impressed by anything he undertakes.
On Saturday morning a six-person panel, all of whose members have deep roots in ragtime, gave their individual perspectives on Joplin’s legacy. The panelists were Neville Dickie, David Reffkin, Terry Waldo, Virginia Tichenor, Dick Zimmerman, and joining via Zoom from Amsterdam, Joshua Rifkin. Despite a few technical glitches at the outset, the discussion was entertaining. I would have attended other symposia but that would have caused me to miss several pianists whom I would have not otherwise seen.
About the music sets, most ran 30 minutes, although the special band sets were one hour. No breaks were scheduled between sets, so if you wanted to move to another venue you had to miss part of one or two sets. I would have preferred 35 to 40-minute sets with 5 or 10 minutes between. Perhaps the sets were short in order to give all 51 persons a reasonable amount of exposure. Still, most pianists played only one or two sets per day. This made it hard to see everyone, and I missed about a dozen. But the evening concerts were arranged so that by the end of the weekend everyone got exposure at least once.
There were 19 themed sets, of which I caught only a few. Themes ranged from music by individual composers (Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Eubie Blake, etc.), rags and songs from 1899 to 1920 that were never recorded, original compositions for the left hand, and perhaps the most popular, “Guess the Pianist.” I caught only part of the last tune in this set, in which a panel of pianists, blindfolded, had to guess who was playing. But thanks to Bryan Wright’s wife Yuko, you can now view the entire set on YouTube.
Here are some highlights from my viewpoint from the concerts and solo sets:
♫ British guitarist Steve Hicks’ solo on “Temptation Rag” at the Saturday concert;
♫ Thursday evening’s concert that featured pieces written by their performers;
♫ Bryan Wright (the festival’s artistic director), playing a chorus of “Maple Leaf Rag” while lying backward on the piano bench and plunking the keys without seeing them above his head;
♫ Richard Dowling and Frederick Hodges duetting on Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” which celebrated its centennial this year.
It would be hard for the festival to top this year’s edition. I’m anxiously awaiting the roster of performers for 2025.
