Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style noted for its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. It originated in African American communities in the late 19th century and was propelled to popularity in the 1890s to 1910s by composers such as James Scott, Joseph Lamb, and particularly Scott Joplin. Known as the "King of Ragtime", Joplin gained fame through compositions like "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer".
The style is closely related to marches. Ragtime pieces (often called "rags") usually contain several distinct themes, often arranged in patterns of repeats and reprises. They are typically composed for and performed on the piano, though the genre has been adapted for a variety of instruments and styles. The music was initially distributed primarily through sheet music and piano rolls.
Ragtime influenced early jazz, Harlem stride piano, Piedmont blues, and early-20th-century European classical composers such as Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, and Igor Stravinsky. It was overshadowed by jazz in the 1920s, but has since experienced several revivals, notably in the 1970s, when several of Joplin's songs were adapted for the caper film The Sting.
Etymology While the word ragtime was first recorded in 1896, the term probably originates in the dance events known as "rags", hosted by enslaved black people bound to the plantation system. The first recorded use of the term ragtime was by vaudeville musician Ben Harney who in 1896 used it to describe the piano music he played and first published the year prior.
History
Origins While the precise origins of ragtime are uncertain, scholars like Terry Waldo believe it to stem from music played by plantation slaves for dance events called "rags", with further influence from European classical music, Irish jigs, and Scottish cakewalks. The musician ensemble would generally only consist of a banjo player and a fiddle player. They would play dance music like jigs, reels and schottisches, with the way the banjo is played providing the syncopation that ragtime came to be known for.
While no notated or recorded examples of music from before the 1890s survive, oral tradition and later testimony preserve a few pieces that some musicians and historians associate with what became ragtime in the mid-1890s. One frequently cited example is The Dream Rag (originally titled The Bull Dyke's Dream) by Jessie Pickett, which uses a habanera left-hand rhythm (unlike the march bass typical of later published rags). Pickett performed The Dream Rag at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, introducing it to the greater American public. Others present at the exposition were such names as Scott Joplin, Ben Harney, and Shep Edmonds (referred to by some as the "father of ragtime"). Eubie Blake, who learned The Dream from Pickett around 1900, told Terry Waldo that it was the oldest rag he knew and recalled that Pickett believed it dated to sometime before the American Civil War.
Another surviving example sometimes cited as anticipating ragtime is the music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–1869). Early works such as Bamboula employ the cinquillo “de-dum-de-dum-dum” syncopation that musicologist Frederick S. Starr distinguishes from the more sedate habanera rhythm (“dum-de-dum-dum”). Gottschalk drew these Creole melodies from the French Caribbean repertoire of his Saint-Domingue family. Starr concludes that claims Congo Square was the source have “not a shred of evidence.”
The composed ragtime of the 1890s had its origins in African American communities of the Mississippi Valley in general and St. Louis in particular. Most of the early ragtime musicians could not read or notate music, but instead played by ear and improvised. The instrument of choice by ragtime musicians during this time was usually a banjo or a piano. It was performed in brothels, bars, saloons, and informal gatherings at house parties or juke joints. These places were an excellent breeding ground for new music as European classical music was mixed with African-American folk songs.
The earliest published ragtime composition appeared in 1895. Kentucky native Ben Harney's "You've Been a Good Old Wagon But You Done Broke Down" had its copyright registered in January 1895 by Greenup Music Co. in Louisville;Catalog of Copyright Entries, Library of Congress: January 1895 registration. Harney's song became a significant early hit that helped popularize the genre to mainstream audiences. In September 1895, Minstrel comedian Ernest Hogan registered copyright for "La Pas Ma La"; it is often mistakenly cited as the earliest published ragtime work by a Black composer,Catalog of Copyright Entries, Library of Congress: September 1895 registration. but Edward A. Berlin noted that "the bass is in the habanera style, the melody lacks the rhythms later associated with ragtime." In 1896, a coon song, "All Coons Look Alike to Me", was released by Hogan with a 'rag' accompaniment by Max Hoffman. Per Berlin, instrumental ragtime “emerged fully” in 1897 with the publication of around a dozen syncopated pieces. Another early ragtime pioneer was comedian and songwriter Irving Jones.
Ragtime was also a modification of the march style popularized by John Philip Sousa, with a steady bass accompaniment in the left hand supporting a syncopated melody in the right. Jazz critic Rudi Blesh thought its polyrhythm may be coming from African music, although no historian or musicologist has made any connection with any music from Africa.Scott Joplin: Black-American Classicist, pp. xv–xvi.
Ragtime composer Scott Joplin (ca. 1868–1917) from Texas, became famous through the publication of the "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) and a string of ragtime hits such as "The Entertainer" (1902), although he was later forgotten by all but a small, dedicated community of ragtime aficionados until the major ragtime revival in the early 1970s.Scott Joplin: Black-American Classicist, p. xiiiScott Joplin: Black-American Classicist, p. xviii For at least 12 years after its publication, "Maple Leaf Rag" heavily influenced subsequent ragtime composers with its melody lines, chord progressions or metric patterns.Scott Joplin: Black-American Classicist, p. xxiii.
In a 1913 interview published in the black newspaper New York Age, Scott Joplin asserted that there had been "ragtime music in America ever since the Negro race has been here, but the white people took no notice of it until about twenty years ago [in the 1890s]."
The heyday of ragtime
Ragtime quickly established itself as a distinctly American form of popular music. Ragtime became some of the first American music to have an impact on mainstream popular culture. Piano "professors" such as Jelly Roll Morton played ragtime in the "sporting houses" (bordellos) of New Orleans. Polite society embraced ragtime as disseminated by brass bands and "society" dance bands. Bands led by W. C. Handy and James R. Europe were among the first to crash the color bar in American music. The new rhythms of ragtime changed the world of dance bands and led to new dance steps, popularized by the show-dancers Vernon and Irene Castle during the 1910s. The growth of dance orchestras in popular entertainment was an outgrowth of ragtime and continued into the 1920s.
Ragtime also ironically made its way to Europe. Shipboard orchestras on transatlantic lines included ragtime music in their repertoire. In 1912, the first public concerts of ragtime were performed in the United Kingdom by the American Ragtime Octette (ARO) at the Hippodrome, London; a group organized by ragtime composer and pianist Lewis F. Muir who toured Europe. Immensely popular with British audiences, the ARO popularized several of Muir's rags (such as "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" and "Hitchy-Koo") which were credited by historian Ian Whitcomb as the first American popular songs to influence British culture and music. The ARO recorded some of Muir's rags with the British record label The Winner Records in 1912; the first ragtime recordings made in Europe. James R. Europe's 369th Regiment band generated great enthusiasm during its 1918 tour of France.
Ragtime was an influence on early jazz; the influence of Jelly Roll Morton continued in the Harlem stride piano style of players such as James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. Ragtime was also a major influence on Piedmont blues. Dance orchestras started evolving away from ragtime towards the big band sounds that predominated in the 1920s and 1930s when they adopted smoother rhythmic styles.
Revivals There have been numerous revivals since newer styles supplanted ragtime in the 1920s. First in the early 1940s, many jazz bands began to include ragtime in their repertoire and put out ragtime recordings on 78 rpm records. A more significant revival occurred in the 1950s as a wider variety of ragtime genres of the past were made available on records, and new rags were composed, published, and recorded.
In the 1960s, two major factors brought about a greater public recognition of ragtime. The first was the 1960 publication of They All Played Ragtime by Harriet Janis and Rudi Blesh. Some historians refer to this book as "The Ragtime Bible". It was the first comprehensive and serious attempt to document the first ragtime era and its three most important composers: Joplin, Scott, and Lamb. The second factor was the rise to prominence of Max Morath, who created two television series for National Educational Television (now PBS): The Ragtime Era (1960) and The Turn of the Century (1962). Morath turned the latter into a one-man show in 1969, and toured the US with it for five years. He later created and toured other one-man shows that educated audiences about ragtime.John S. Wilson, New York Times "MAX MORATH IN RAG AND 'UNRAGTIME'" . Originally published, July 30, 1982; site accessed, July, 2021. New ragtime composers soon followed, including Morath, Donald Ashwander, Trebor Jay Tichenor, John Arpin, William Bolcom, and William Albright.
In 1971, Joshua Rifkin released a compilation of Joplin's work that was nominated for a Grammy Award.Past Winner Database , "1971 14th Grammy Awards". Accessed Feb. 19, 2007.
In 1973, The New England Ragtime Ensemble (then a student group called The New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble) recorded The Red Back Book, a compilation of some of Joplin's rags in period orchestrations edited by conservatory president Gunther Schuller. It won a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance of the year and was named Top Classical Album of 1974 by Billboard magazine. The film The Sting (1973) brought ragtime to a wide audience with its soundtrack of Joplin tunes. The film's rendering of "The Entertainer", adapted and orchestrated by Marvin Hamlisch, was a Top 5 hit in 1975.
Ragtime – with Joplin's work at the forefront – has been cited as an American equivalent of the minuets of Mozart, the mazurkas of Chopin, or the waltzes of Brahms.Hitchcock, H. Wiley. "Stereo Review", 1971, p.84, cited in Scott Joplin: Black-American Classicist, p. xiv. Ragtime influenced classical composers including Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, and Igor Stravinsky.Scott Joplin: Black-American Classicist, p. xiii.
Historical context Ragtime originated in American music in the late 19th century and descended from the jigs and march music played by European bands, referred to as "jig piano" or "piano thumping".
By the start of the 20th century, it became widely popular throughout North America and was listened and danced to, performed, and written by people of many different subcultures. A distinctly American musical style, ragtime may be considered a synthesis of African syncopation and European classical music, especially the marches made popular by John Philip Sousa.