Like many a full generation before him Tony Kieraldo was introduced to ragtime by the movie The Sting. His father, Joe Kieraldo, a jazz fan and subscriber to this paper until his passing late last year, played him the film when he was ten and he was hooked. Now a successful performer and composer, Kieraldo is a pianist with Postmodern Jukebox, and the musical director for both the National Dance Institute in NYC and Celebrate the Beat in Colorado. He lives with his young family in Hudson, New York, about 120 miles up the Taconic State Parkway from NYC.
Off the road and enjoying his town during the pandemic he received a grant for a project about Hudson. This lovely collection of new ragtime compositions and an accompanying book of maps and local history is the result. Hudson lies amid a stretch of pre-revolutionary hamlets and urban centers that retain a Dutch feel. In 1785 Hudson became the first chartered city in the young country, and at one point grew to be the 24th largest American city, though now it holds barely 6000 souls.
The history included with this work will be of interest to people far beyond the Hudson valley. Told as the story of five streets, you aren’t committing yourself to the detailed study of an unfamiliar locale but rather a glimpse at the evolution of many American frontier towns, and in the late 1700s Hudson was very much still on the frontier. As a source
