Devoted Ragtimer Jack Rummel passed away on March 10th. Born in Tacoma Washington in 1939, he spent most of his musical life in Colorado but was a presence at ragtime events around the country. Jack was a composer, performer, and radio host whose passion for ragtime shaped his life and inspired countless others.
His love for ragtime began in the 1950s when he heard Joe “Fingers” Carr. His enthusiasm deepened in 1971 after hearing Joshua Rifkin’s album of Scott Joplin’s works, which inspired him to study and compose in the genre. He crafted over 20 original ragtime pieces, published in three folios. Some of his pieces have been recorded to piano roll and several are regularly played by other performers. Lone Jack to Knob Noster is perhaps his best known work.
Rummel released Back to Ragtime for Stomp Off Records in 1985, and two CDs for Diagonal Records in the 90s; Lone Jack: The Ragtime of Today and Brun’s Boys. What all three albums have in common is sharing, as well as his own compositions, those of his contemporaries. In August 2022, Brandon Byrne wrote in his Ragtime Vignettes column, “Jack Rummel is my favorite Ragtime composer; his Folk Ragtime and Bluegrass-influenced compositions bring me joy every time I play them.” Indeed Jack Rummel also played banjo in a bluegrass band, giving him crossover appeal as a DJ at his Colorado radio station KGNU.
He launched Ragtime America in 1980, a weekly radio program that brought ragtime to listeners across the Denver area. The show was a mainstay of the station until he retired it in March 2024. He also hosted other programs on the station, even decades after retiring in 2002 from his primary career as a dentist.
Jack Rummel also founded and co-produced the Rocky Mountain Ragtime Festival, serving as its president from 1992-2005. He was a noted emcee at other festivals, participating in the Scott Joplin Festival and receiving their Lifetime Achievement award in 2005. As recently as 2021 his great radio voice could be heard introducing bands for the outstandingly well produced online edition of the West Coast Ragtime Festival.
He began reviewing albums for The Rag Times in 1978 and continued to review ragtime albums for other publications and on his website, ragtimers.org, until fall of 2019. When he shuttered the review portion of the site many of those reviews were lost. Syncopatedtimes.com managed to recover over 100 of his reviews and currently hosts some from as early as 1994, with many left to add.
Jack Rummel was a crucial figure in the landscape of Ragtime from the great revival of the 1970s through to the present day with titles like his Portrait of a Silver Lady still being heard at festivals. Imagine all the casual fans he touched during 45 years of terrestrial radio! He leaves behind many friends in the ragtime community young and old.
Joe Bebco is the Associate Editor of The Syncopated Times and Webmaster of SyncopatedTimes.com
