Like most pianists who have devoted their lives to ragtime and early jazz, they remember the precise moment—and maybe even the exact work—when they first heard the music that would strike a chord deep inside and change their lives forever. For American pianist Corte Swearingen, that moment came in 1978 at Walt Disney World when at age 10 he found himself on Main Street U.S.A. and heard unfamiliar music coming from a little spot called “Coke Corner.” Little Corte was enthralled by what he was hearing, and no amount of coaxing from his parents to go on rides could pull him away from that piano. Standing there for a full hour until the piano player went on break, he resigned himself then and there to go home and demand that his piano teacher introduce him to this new music: “Ragtime.”
With the advanced world of Chopin and Liszt already at his fingertips, Swearingen began his musical studies at the St. Louis Conservatory of Music at age 15. His dream was to become a concert pianist; but he changed his mind at the last minute to study physics and mathematics at the University of Illinois. Over the years, although expertly proficient at the keyboard, piano was not a consistency due to work and raising two daughters.
Swearingen learned ragtime the way most pianists of a certain generation did: pre-PDF internet downloads, one was inclined to reach out to the composer directly v
