Sometimes too much of a good thing is, well, too much. Such is the case with the West Coast Ragtime Festival, which I attended for the first time on November 22-24 at the Marriott Rancho Cordova in a suburb of Sacramento, California.
This festival was exceptionally well organized, a fact that became clear after I arrived. Prior to leaving home, I attempted to plan which sets I wanted to see. This entailed approximately five hours poring over the festival website, and even then I could not construct a complete schedule. Many of the performers were new to me, and I wanted to catch as many of them as possible, while at the same time not ignoring those I’ve known and liked for some years. Upon arriving, I picked up a large sheet showing the schedule in both grid form and by performer. The grid form was on the website, but if the performer list was also, I missed it. Having it would have greatly reduced the five hours I spent at home.
The hotel offers an excellent venue, with six rooms of varying sizes, all within the equivalent of a city-block walk. The seating capacity of these rooms varied from about 50 to 200. One large room had a dance floor set up. The largest room had two Steinway grand pianos on a raised stage, apparently provided through the good graces of Richard Dowling. The other rooms had smaller instruments, mainly Yamahas. For some sets, the assigned room could not h
