Joplin: Pineapple Rag

This is the second volume of the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra’s series of recordings paying tribute to the pioneering African-American composers of late nineteenth and early twentieth century New York City.

The initial inspiration behind this effort was James Weldon Johnson’s fascinating 1930 history book Black Manhattan, which described the evolution of New York’s black music and theater communities from the 1890s through the 1920s. Through its pages, Johnson (1871– 1938) brought to life an amazing group of achievers - musicians, writers, stage performers, and businessmen - whose work profoundly transformed the cultural life of this nation.

Black Manhattan Vol. 1 centered on music composed by members of the legendary Clef Club. The present volume ranges a bit more widely, offering music from the theater, ballroom, and recital stage. All of the selections heard here are performed from original orchestrations using antique instruments; most have never before been recorded.

The CD has already generated a lot of positive review attention and will shortly be reviewed in Gramophone Magazine to accompany this release.

Scott Joplin was 'the King of Ragtime Writers', a composer who raised banjo piano playing, a lowly entertainment associated with saloons and brothels, into an American art form loved by millions. Born in Texas around 1867 or 1868, Joplin was brought up in Texarkana, the son of a labourer and former slave. As a child, Joplin taught himself piano on an instrument belonging to a white family that granted him access to it, and in due course studied with a local, German-born teacher who introduced Joplin to classical music.

Joplin's first published rag dates from 1895 and the last from the year of his death, 1917, although an important 1914 piano roll of an unpublished rag was discovered as late as 1971.

Joplin's death did not make the headlines for two reasons: Ragtime was quickly losing ground to jazz and the United States would enter World War I within days. He was buried in St. Michael's Cemetery in the Astoria section of Queens.