Ed Berlin Remembers Ian Whitcomb

Ian Whitcomb was a fun person to be with. I believe it was in 1986 that we first met, at the Sedalia Scott Joplin festival. I was intrigued by his constant, humorous patter, his insightful observations, and his spontaneity. While not qualified to analyze the causes of his stammer, I had long thought that his mouth simply couldn’t keep up with the speed of his thoughts as they came pouring from his mind. His idiosyncratic personality was clear in his performances and also comes across in his books. They are written with style and they move; they are fun to read. He did good research and he knew his subjects, but at times his artistic sense pushed the scholar aside and allowed his imagination to run loose. A great example is in one of the late chapters of his book on Irving Berlin’s ragtime years. He portrays Rasputin, the mystic advisor to the Russian tsar, as being ragtime mad, so much so that he was assassinated while listening to a test recording of the ODJB playing an Irving Berlin tune. I questioned Ian about this during a seminar at a ragtime event and he laughed: “Everyone knows that couldn’t be true.” It was fun to write and he simply couldn’t resist the idea. At least one of his imagin