Listening to the first track—Geoge L. Cobb’s Stop It! (1919)—I was thrilled by the orchestra’s precision and its ability to bring out unexpected details and subtleties. Nothing in the following twenty-one tracks diminished that impression.
Despite the CD’s title, taken from ragtime pioneer Ben Harney’s 1899 classic (performed here in a 1905 orchestration), not all the selections are rags. Among the non-rags is the first recording of orchestrator Richard Russell Bennett’s early and virtually unknown Ballade Modern (1922). A few other selections also emanate from years outside the ragtime period (ca. 1890s–1920). Notable among the outsiders are Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s Pasquinade (ca. 1863), Theodore Moses-Tobani’s fine 1894 orchestration of Stephen Foster songs (1849–1862), and ragtimer Mel Kaufman’s Step On It (1927).
From the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra’s beginnings almost forty years ago, the ensemble’s founder and conductor Rick Benjamin has dedicated himself to preserving the music as it was originally conceived and of presenting it in period orchestrations. At a live performance some years ago, though, I noticed that one of the orchestrations of a Joplin rag, while stylistically consistent with the period, was lighter and more varied than what I had anticipated. Speaking to Benjamin afterwards, he acknowledged it was his own arrangement. On this CD, too, he creates his own orchestrations for a few numbers, either because he cannot locate a period chart (in his collection of some 20,000), or he finds period arrangements of specific selections to be seriously deficient. That is why he wrote his own orchestration of Scott Joplin’s Gladiolus Rag (1907). In Benjamin’s version, Joplin’s original themes and harmonies are prominently retained in the foreground with a rich variety of assorted instrumental timbres. Added to Joplin’s notes, though, is a background of occasional and subdued counter-melodies and momentary brass punctuations. It is a masterful enhancement of the original piano score.
As with previous recordings of the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, this is a superb and fascinating CD. Recorded samples may be heard at www2.paragonragtime.com, where CDs can also be ordered.
Cakewalk in the Sky
Paragon Ragtime Orchestra
www2.paragonragtime.com
