1963 Ragtime and Early Jazz from the Perspective of a Swedish Adolescent’s First Visit to the Birthplace of Both Genres: a Memoir

The title for this talk is both intimidating and academically demanding. We recognize Lucille Salerno’s hand here. The paper was originally presented June 10, 2010, at the Blind Boone Festival in Columbia, Missouri. My own title for the mass market paperback version will be Tell Your Mother I Love Her. An explanation will follow later. The paper has been proofread for typing errors, but it remains essentially as written and retains my impressions then, not much hindsight, and my Swedish /English grammar. But it is a good title, trying to remember bits and pieces from the garden of my adolescence, having crossed the mudcracked wastelands of adulthood, and now arriving at the borders of the uncharted territory of senescence. To paint a background, ragtime was never even close to popular in Sweden. Yes, cakewalks were published, a military band recorded “Georgia Campmeeting” on a cylinder in 1899 or possibly 1900. Around 1910 we have some scattered accordion and band recordings and there was a “ragtime society” in Stockholm in 1915. But in Sweden, waltz was the craze, especially what was called the “Boston Waltz” which as far as I can understand, was similar to the “Hesitation Waltz.” When asked, my grandmother demonstrated it by a slow, hanging on to the first beat, approach. Behind this Boston waltzing was bandleader and composer Theodore Pinet, who on the other ha