I could be the wrong person to report on a ragtime festival. My first piano hero was Teddy Wilson, so the crowd at the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, might eye me with skepticism. I heard one musician, perhaps whimsically, apologize for playing a song written in 1939.
Fifty years ago, I had records by Max Morath and Joshua Rifkin. But now, a little solo piano ragtime goes a long way, and I drawn more to rags played by Bunk Johnson and Mutt Carey, anything by Jelly Roll Morton, or improvisations by people like Dick Wellstood and Dick Hyman.
However, I was happy in Sedalia, Missouri, and I saw and filmed over a hundred performances, which might count for something. Here are some of my highlights, as they occurred.
The first set I caught was a solo piano excursion by Andrew Oliver, who I first encountered through his “Complete Morton Project,” a series of videos where he and reedman David Horniblow work their way through Mister Jelly’s canon, precisely and energetically. I also knew Andrew from CDs with Hal Smith and his own Bridgetown Sextet. Even though he said it was too early for him, he played brilliantly, moving from Joseph Lamb to Willie “the Lion” Smith to Artie Matthews, and two pieces new to me: Seger Ellis’ “Sentimental
