Andy Senior

Andy Senior is the Publisher of The Syncopated Times and on occasion he still gets out a Radiola! podcast for our listening pleasure.
Wilmoth Houdini

‘Poor But Ambitious’

Let me confess here that I have long had a love of Classic Calypso. I’m referring specifically to the lively and witty Trinidadian music recorded

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Finding the Way Forward

In every issue of The Syncopated Times, I mean to celebrate the life force; syncopation itself is the pulse of life. The beat of one’s

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Max Morath by Joe Busam

Max Morath

We are delighted to extend birthday greetings to ragtime scholar, polymath, and entertainer Max Morath, who turns 95 on October 1st. Max was born on

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Raymond Scott by Joe Busam

Raymond Scott

Harry Warnow, known to us as Raymond Scott, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 10, 1908. Warnow grew up with parallel interests in

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Philco 20 Depression Buster

Depression Buster

It often happens that, when I need to cleanse my palate of the taste of drudgery that this gig engenders, I will browse our local

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Helen Kane by Joe Busam

Helen Kane

Helen Kane was born Helen Claire Schroeder in New York City on August 4, 1904. Her first stage experience was in school theatricals, but by

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Seger Ellis

Seger Ellis

Seger Pillot Ellis was born July 4, 1904, in Houston, Texas. As a teenager, Seger much admired the local pianists in the city, Jack Sharpe,

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Don Murray

Don Murray

Don Murray was born in Joliet, Illinois, on June 7, 1904, and attended high school in Chicago. In his teens he earned a reputation as

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Memento Mori

By the time you hold this paper in your hand, I will have achieved the grim distinction of being exactly the same age New Yorker

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Jimmie Noone by Joe Busam

Jimmie Noone

Jimmie Noone was born April 23, 1895, in Cut Off, Louisiana. Noone started playing clarinet after his family moved to New Orleans in 1910. By

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Felix the Cat Gin 1926

Problem Attic

I’ve been putting off writing this column until the last minute—almost until I am physically unable to write it. (That would be an excellent method

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Jean Goldkette by Joe Busam

Jean Goldkette

Jean Goldkette’s date and place of birth remain a matter of conjecture. According to Wikipedia, he was born March 18, 1893, though May 18 of

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Hudson Lake c1928

A Toast to Bix

I’m going to veer wildly off-format here in order to fulfill a promise I made in this column last month. Last year, a subscriber named

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Lil Hardin Armstrong

Lil Hardin Armstrong

Lillian Hardin was born February 3, 1898, in Memphis, Tennessee. Lillian received piano tutelage first from her third-grade teacher, eventually matriculating at a more formal

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