Generally speaking, I’m not a big fan of “complete works” albums (of any composer). It is a huge amount to ask of both the player and the listener. Most of them, in my opinion, don’t show a great deal of variation between tracks, and one often is subjected to a lot of sameness. One of two of the best precursors to this album of which I can recollect is William Albright’s complete works by Joplin. He changed the score considerably during the repeat sections, and Albright was what we used to call a “monster pianist”—that is, someone who could play anything in any genre with towering virtuosity, beautiful tone, breathtakingly slow or heart-stoppingly fast. Another album which springs to mind is that of John “Knocky” Parker on Solo Art, a subsidiary of Jazzology. What he misses in dynamic variation he more than makes up for in unusual jazz-inflected variation.
So, I am ecstatic to report that this 2017 three CD set, played by Richard Dowling is, in my opinion, probably the best of the lot. What makes this set so great, in my estimation, is that a certain set of parameters were decided upon in advance. The first, and most important perhaps, was Dowling’s determination to follow Joplin’s (purported) own words that “…each note will be played as written…” We are fairly certain that Joplin himself did not hold himself to that tenet completely (Trebor Tichenor o
