Blowing Off The Dust

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

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

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

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,

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

“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,

Several years ago, I met a remarkable young man at the Sedalia Ragtime Festival named Brandon Byrne. Later, I discovered an on-line newsletter he produces

Like many reading this, I suspect you are nearly overwhelmed by the negativism accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a pessimistic time and for many

One of the great ragtime adventure stories I ever heard was of Peter Lundberg’s tour of America in 1963, vising and interviewing ragtime greats across

I grew up in the 1940’s reading science fiction stories of time travel and of mysterious flying carpets. Today as I sit here in still

As I was contemplating a column for this month, I came across a Facebook posting that inspired this article. It was a recent photo in

The docents at the KATY Depot Visitors Center in Sedalia regularly receive inquiries about the city and its ragtime heritage. Since the folks there are

This is supposed to be a column for the new year, but I find myself beginning to write on Thanksgiving Day, thinking of all the

I knew Treemonisha. Well, I should have written “a Treemonisha.” I certainly knew her as surely as if the fictional heroine of Scott Joplin’s opera

My column requires a disclaimer this month because frankly, it amounts to little more than a grandfather bragging obnoxiously about his grandchildren. That written, I’ve

In my April 2018 column, I wrote of the accomplishments of the good people of Texarkana and the work they are doing to preserve their

Making new friends and learning more about older acquaintances is one of the many rewards of being part of the on-line ragtime community. I am

They All Played Ragtime (Alfred A. Knopf, Ltd., 1950) by Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis is a wonderful story of our ragtime heritage. There have

Each year as a Scott Joplin anniversary rolls around, I get to pondering the composer’s tragic life and the lack of acclaim he received while

Imagine the privilege of sitting a few rows behind Eubie Blake on the night of January 28, 1972, and watching his whole body move to

I am often asked about my background in music, what instruments I play, and when I first became interested. My flippant response is that I

Just when I was becoming accustomed to getting my ragtime music solely from the Internet and recordings, I had a pleasant surprise. Virginia Tichenor emailed

This month, I fear I will be rambling even more than usual. So many things rattle around in my head these days, so I’ll just

I have recently been blowing the dust off nearly 50 years of photos and ephemera from the many annual trips my wife and I took

The Age of Sound I recently discovered that the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry has made the final selections for it’s now completed “500

I spend a lot of time blowing the dust off of old newspaper clippings, especially articles about the ragtime festivals in Sedalia over the years.

No dusting off this month, only fresh anecdotes and delightful reminiscences. I managed to spend a week at the 38th Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in

This month I am going to use this tiny Sedalia newspaper snippet from 1902 to discuss some thoughts on research and then segue to writing

Recently, letters written between 1945 and 1951 by S. Brunson Campbell (Scott Joplin’s white pupil in Sedalia in the late 1890s) were made public for

A fond memory from the ragtime revival years of the early 1970s was a trip to Texarkana, a community which famously straddles the border between

Throughout mid-February, I was suitably entertained watching the Winter Olympics. I thoroughly enjoy the amazing feats of skill, endurance, agility and downright courage the athletes

“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” This line, credited to Andy Warhol from a Stockholm exhibit catalog in 1968, has gone

I was visiting recently with a friend about angels. Not the Gabriel types, with trumpets blaring, or the ones like Clarence waiting to get their

Among the treasures of the Sedalia Ragtime Archive are sections of G. Thomas Ireland’s old clarinets. Though Sedalia ragtime is usually associated with Scott Joplin,

Fred Hoeptner’s paper on the origin and use of the term “ragtime” delivered at last Summer’s Joplin Festival in Sedalia has had me thinking about

Perceptions As I was wandering the Internet this month for ragtime news, something Jeanie Wright wrote on her Facebook page caught my attention. When asked

Haze of Memory Not very much happened of ragtime interest in Sedalia in the years after World War I. The bustling town moseyed along, growing

Earlier Festivals in Sedalia As I am writing this, the 37th Annual Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Missouri, is well under way and by

1983 was a busy year… I note that as the Director of Symposia for the 2017 Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival, Bill Edwards will present

I enjoy working with the ephemera of the Ragtime Archive in Sedalia and, as a diversion, I work with my own accumulation of personal scrapbook

While blowing off the dust this morning, an old newspaper clipping fell out of a scrapbook and it took me back to Sedalia, Missouri in

One of my fondest memories (and there were many) of last summer’s Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in Sedalia is of meeting Kyle Stark and his

In the month supposedly reserved for New Year resolutions, I prefer to look back forty years to an as yet unrealized resolution from the 1970s.

I’ve been reminded again recently that archival work isn’t all about shuffling old papers and blowing the dust off of old artifacts to conserve them.

I can’t believe that I ever functioned without Internet email, social media, and especially without the benefit of search engines and databases. As someone who

In December it is customary to review the major events of the year but I’m far too off-put by this year’s chaos so I decided

As I was writing last month about the excellent newspapers and newsletters in the fields of jazz and ragtime, I was also reminded of the

I have been reflecting recently with an old friend by email, about all the sources of information we have regarding Ragtime, from learned authorities to