They All Played Ragtime (Alfred A. Knopf, Ltd., 1950) by Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis is a wonderful story of our ragtime heritage. There have been a series of posts on the Internet recently regarding the book, and the posts appear to me to be conflicted as the writers discuss the value of this first major book on ragtime. So, I’ve decided to blow the dust off my old 1950 copy and weigh in here, from my experience.
In 1971, when I began thinking about a ragtime festival in Sedalia, I had only a vague awareness of Scott Joplin and I began looking for information, pre-Internet. Having been a bit of a bibliophile I contacted a St. Louis used book seller of my acquaintance and he procured TAPR for me at the then outrageous price of $20. (Little did I know I was going to extract a literal wealth of information from that already used copy.) Speaking of first acquaintance with the book, Max Morath recently told me he got his first copy of TAPR from Bob Darch who rode around with a case of the books in his old pick-up truck stowed under his old Cornish piano.
What are now determined to be the inaccuracies of TAPR were unknown to me then. I only recall how the book lifted my new awareness of ragtime to a level of excitement and enthusiastic action. The book inspired me and to this day I can recall my amazement when I read about buildings and streets I walked and drove every day. I sudd
