Our Ragtime Community
Larry Melton
July 26, 2021
I have been thinking a lot about our ragtime community these past months in forced isolation. Not that I have been unaware of the other
I have been thinking a lot about our ragtime community these past months in forced isolation. Not that I have been unaware of the other
Many of us have not heard from Matthew de Lacey Davidson for some time. Though he is now retired from performing, his ragtime recordings are
I am blowing off the dust this month with Max Morath. There are so many stories from his long career, but I am beginning with
The weekend of June 4-5 belonged to the virtual concerts and symposia of the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival Foundation. That would ordinarily have been
Dr. Ian Hominick at the University of Mississippi in Oxford produced a fine 2021 virtual program to keep the Old Time Piano Playing Contest at
During the June 4-5 weekend, the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival Foundation Announced that Bryan Cather received the 2020 Award posthumously and Mimi Blais received
David Mallette, energetic advocate for Texarkana (Arkansas and Texas) and director of the Regional Music Heritage Center there, died On Saturday June 5, 2021, at
As I watch civilization slowly emerge from our pandemic hibernation, I realize we still live in a dangerous world. I find myself in a tentative
For many admirers, a personally signed autograph is a treasured keepsake. For over fifty years I avidly accumulated these bits of personalized ephemera. It all
The Fungus Five plus Two (“our music grows on you,”) the Gutbucket Syncopators, Waldo’s Ragtime Orchestra, and The Gotham City Jazz Band are only a
If anything can dispel the gloom of a negative historical anniversary, it is music. That seems to have been what motivated Dr. Michael J. Budds
George Segal died March 23. 2021 near his Santa Rosa, California home. He was perhaps best known for the broad scope of his television and
I believe I have made more valuable and lasting friendships in the past year of so-called social isolation, than I have made in the past
Well known sheet music collector and music aficionados Janice Cleary died February 8, 2021 in Omaha, Nebraska, she was 96. She had recently donated her
As I begin writing this column for February, we are only a week into the new year. However, I have already had what will be
It doesn’t seem like five full years since the first issue of The Syncopated Times began appearing in our mailboxes. Since the February 2016 issue,
I remember reading Bill Hoffman’s fine column last year in The Syncopated Times describing his first visit to a West Coast Ragtime Festival (WCRF) and
Sadly, Steve Radeck informs us that “Professor” Don Burns has died at the age of 81. Don was a familiar ragtime entertainer in western New
Recently, I have been considering the relationship between ragtime and the railroads more intently than ever. First, because Marcello Piras wrote to inquire about railroad
When I get a message from Ed Berlin, it gets my immediate attention. Last month I received a most fascinating document Ed was passing along,
Last month I began my comment on the confusing heritage of Sedalia’s Maple Leaf Club (MLC). Was it the benign men’s social club of the
The River Raisin Ragtime Review Board of Directors announced on Thursday, Kelsee Vandervall will be the new Music Director following the retirement of founding director
“There has to be a balance between literally white-washing or ignoring history and presenting it in actual context…it appear(s) no matter what approach is taken,
Writing for The Syncopated Times reminds me of the experience of being alive. We go from experiencing the joy and ecstasy of the music we
