Tents, stalls, cafés, and bars were erected and the soundtrack to this merriment would be Ragtime. Many Black musicians and entertainers were not granted admission to perform inside, so a fringe event sprang up on the outskirts. Then, in 1893, a cultural and social extravaganza would attract 27 million visitors over 5 months when Chicago held the world fair to celebrate the 400 th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World. These seemingly magical wooden entities would help boost sales of the musical scores that were now being transcribed and transferred onto punctuated paper rolls. Later, the pneumatic player pianos or pianolas – the jukebox of the day – would become popular and have a brief moment in the spotlight. Music was heard in halls, in bars, diners and parlours of the middle and upper classes. (Sadly, so much of early ragtime sheet music features an overwhelming theme of racist blackface artwork). Publishers would copy write and distribute sheet music to the public and musicians alike. The wax disc and the mass availability of records and amplification didn’t exist either, so music publishing was how revenue was generated in this period before the widespread availability of record players. It had a stumbling staccato rhythm and an infectious melody, and it would open the door to what would become the first popular music of African American origin.īy 1877, Thomas Edison had invented the phonograph, but the recording industry was still yet to be born. The composition was developed from a dance called the ‘Pasmala’. In 1895, the first recognized Ragtime song would be published, ‘La Pas Ma La’ by Ernest Hogan and his minstrel group the Georgia graduates. The patrons of these establishments were witnessing the new swirling up-tempo momentum of something brand new that was forging, and they couldn’t get enough.
Traveling African American pianists who worked the sporting houses, brothels and diners of small towns had started to develop polyrhythmic improvisations to the jigs and military marching music of the time. This new style of music had been evolving along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers of the Midwest for some time. One such African American minstrel artist was Ernest Hogan, who may be credited as the first ragtime artist to be published. Despite the great cost to their pride, African-American artists reluctantly made their way onto this controversial stage too, and in a bid to reach a wider white audience, Black-only minstrel groups formed and toured the country.
The performing style emerged soon after Emancipation and marked the first instance of Black music passing into white society. It would draw influences from African drumming, classical compositions, as well as the banjo and fiddle playing of the European immigrants flooding into America.īut ragtime found its footing in a more disturbing place – the minstrel show – a racist “comedic” performance of mostly white people in blackface, imitating African American music and dancing, which disappointingly, also happens to be the first original American theatrical form. The sound of Ragtime was uniquely American, implanted in the multi-cultural landscape of a still relatively young country and cultivated by the African American pianists of the day. What would emerge would be an intoxicating new genre of music. Ragtime began to evolve on the piano in the late 19 th century and took its name from the act of experimenting with the rhythmic nuisances of a musical piece, the underlying beat in one hand and a syncopated melody in the other to produce a ‘ragged’ musical rhythm that made you want to move. Scott Joplin and his hit, The Entertainer Gestating in the barrelhouses and saloons of the mid west, Ragtime would help create the music industry as we know it, produce its first stars, influence and shape American popular music, revolutionise the way we play classical instruments and divide cultural opinion, all before fading back into the cultural ether. In the beginning, before Jazz, there was the syncopated melodic march of Ragtime, and for a period, it would captivate a nation, sparking its first popular music craze in history. But it was written by America’s greatest musician that we’re betting you’ve never heard of – an African American composer by the name of Scott Joplin, who laid the cornerstones of what many of us would now think of as American music. “ The Entertainer“, a classic piano rag, is one of the most recognisable melodies of the 20th century (go on, have a quick listen). You know the sound of ragtime even if you don’t think you do. Eblon Theater Orchestra with ragtime star, James Scott second from right
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