The Haenschen-Joplin Connection: a Readers’ Exchange

We received a number of informed replies to Ed Berlin's article about Gus Haenschen's relationship to Scott Joplin in the May issue. In the interest of space below are the three we feel our readers will be most interested in and add most to the conversation. The album being discussed is The Missing Link: How Gus Haenschen Got Us From Joplin to Jazz and Shaped the Music Business. To the Editor: Thank you for sharing Ed Berlin’s review of the Archeophone CD liner notes and performances by or relating to Gus Haenschen. Berlin’s assessment of the “missing link” assertion about Haenschen’s role in the transition from ragtime to jazz is similar to Mark Berresford’s review of The Missing Link in Vintage Jazz Mart (Autumn 2020). While commending “Archeophone’s exemplary standards ... musician and historian Colin Hancock’s informative and well-researched liner notes ... [and] Richard Martin’s lovely, musically-rich transfers and sound restoration,” Mark B. concluded that he could not agree to the “missing link” metaphor, which he likened to the “peculiarly American aphorism, ‘close, but no cigar.’” Mark readily acknowledged that the first two personal recordings Haenschen and his St. Louis friend and drummer, T. T. “Tom” Schiffer, made in 1916 are clearcut departures from mainstream performances of ragtime and blues. “Whilst Haenschen’s blues