OCRS’s first Ragtime
Ice Cream Social, and a batch of rarities, are hits at Mo’s
Fullerton Music
Our last OCRS at Mo’s for 2010 was
also our club’s first Ragtime Ice Cream Social, a hit with our
fans and something we’ll definitely want to revive again next
year.
Otherwise, we had a fine contingent of eight pianists and two guests,
vocalist Erika C. Miller and tuba player Dave Wright. Among us, we
cranked out some 39 selections, a pleasing variety of vintage ragtime.
Rare pieces were the focus of the afternoon – nearly half the
selections are seldom performed or heard at ragtime gatherings.
MC Eric Marchese and Marilyn Martin got things rolling with a duet
of Harry Jentes’s “Bantam Step” (1916).
Vincent Johnson opened with Zez Confrey’s first published novelty,
“My Pet,” and said he’d be playing six of Confrey’s
first seven novelties. From 1921-’22, these pieces form the
cornerstone of Confrey’s ragtime piano works. Though an outstanding
piece, “My Pet” is seemingly overlooked by today’s
ragtimers. Vincent then delivered “Kitten on the Keys”
and “Greenwich Witch,” the latter, as he put it, “sort
of an inversion of ‘Kitten’.” All three were played
smoothly, loose and jazzy, with wonderful embellishments.
Ron Ross gave us two of his ragtime originals from 1998, the year
he began composing ragtime songs and piano pieces: the song “Sweet
is the Sound” and “Rickety Rag.” Ron concluded his
set with his “Orange County Rag,” written in 2007 to honor
RagFest and OCRS. Ron’s pieces are always strikingly original;
like Henry Lodge, he has a preference for the minor tonality.
Eric then invited Shirley Case to join him in a duet of Julia Lee
Niebergall’s beautiful and lyrical “Hoosier Rag”
from 1907. Marilyn Martin followed with solos of Chauvin and Joplin’s
“Heliotrope Bouquet” and Harry Puck’s “The
Foot Warmer.”
Referencing “Heliotrope Bouquet,” Eric noted that Louis
Chauvin had a total of three published ragtime pieces: the 1903 ragtime
song “The Moon Is Shining in the Skies,” 1906’s
“Babe, It’s Too Long Off” and, of course, “Heliotrope”
from 1907. Eric concluded that though a prolific composer, Chauvin
was loathe to set his pieces down on paper, and that the only time
he did was when urged and encouraged by his peers in the form of collaborations
– hence the two ragtime songs above, with lyrics by, respectively,
Sam Patterson and Elmer Bowman, and “Heliotrope,” whose
introduction and second half are by Joplin. Eric then proceeded to
play his piano arrangement of “Babe, It’s Too Long Off,”
noting the many similarities to “Heliotrope” (same home
key, similar harmonies, etc.). A typically beautiful piece of Chauvin
ragtime, the song was published by M. Witmark and Sons and dedicated
to Dave Young (presumably a friend of Chauvin and Bowman).
Bill Mitchell delivered another 1906 piece, the longtime standard
“Dill Pickles.” Next up was Jelly Roll Morton’s
“Chicago Breakdown. A great Morton rag that’s rarely played
by today’s ragtimers, it was copyrighted in 1926 but composed
earlier. Bill ended his set with one of his longtime favorites –
W. R. McKanlass’s “Bag of Rags.” Published in Boston
in 1912, it’s a lively piece with a mobile left hand and a rousing
closing theme neatly embellished by Bill.
Noting that earlier this year she found an original of Nat Johnson’s
non-ragtime waltz “Sun-Kissed Roses,” Shirley delivered
a set of three waltzes by Joplin and Joe Lamb: Joplin’s “Augustan
Club Waltzes,” Lamb’s “Mignon” and Joplin’s
“Bethena.” The Augustain Club was a Sedalia social club
for whites which hired Joplin to write a waltz for a ball held there
in February of 1900. The piece is a classical style waltz, and Shirley
reports that though its composer, Joplin was not invited to perform
it at the ball. From 1901, “Mignon” is referred to by
Lamb as a “Valse Lente” and dedicated to his mother. From
1905, “Bethena” is a ragtime waltz brimming with the melancholy
felt by Joplin after the recent deaths of his baby daughter and of
his second wife, 19-year-old Freddie Alexander.
Noting the fact that much ragtime was originally written and played
to be danced to, Eric Marchese offered the rarely heard “Saratoga
Glide.” From 1909, it was written by Harry L. Newman, manager
of Chicago’s Grand Opera House, dedicated to the city’s
Saratoga Hotel and published in Chicago by Sunlight Music Co., which
Eric surmised was a self-publishing venture for Newman, as so few
rags by Sunlight seem to exist. The pieces A and B themes hover in
the minor tonality, giving the piece a torrid sound. By contrast,
the trio is broad, graceful and inviting, with lyrics by Newman along
the lines of “When you do the Saratoga Glide...”
Excluding only “Stumbling (Paraphrase),” Vincent Johnson
continued with Confrey’s 1921-1922 novelties – “You
Tell ’Em Ivories” and “Poor Buttermilk” from
1921 and “Coaxing the Piano” from 1922. “Ivories”
is yet another great underperformed work, its second theme ablaze
with the same kind of twisting rhythms heard in the B themes of “Witch”
and “Buttermilk.” For the latter, Vincent now includes
the D theme excluded when first published but recently transcribed
(by Tom Brier) from an audio recording. “Coaxing” is one
of Confrey’s best, given a particularly crisp, snappy interpretation
by Vincent.
Andrew Barrett delivered a mini-set featuring works by Albert Gumble
and/or from the year 1910. He started with George Botsford’s
1910 rag “Chatterbox,” then Lamb’s “Champagne”
from the same year. Noting that Gumble was a close friend of Botsford
who wrote many one-steps, Andrew delivered Gumble’s “Circus
Day in Dixie,” a hit song from 1915 with lyrics by Jack Yellen
(which Andrew sang without benefit of a microphone). This one was
a terrific, wonderfully exciting piece and a great find.
During a brief break, patrons and musicians alike enjoyed the many
treats from the ice cream bar. Several ragtime CDs were raffled off
as well as several more non-ragtime prizes and two pairs of All-Events
tickets to RagFest 2010.
Bob Pinsker kicked off the second half with a “guess the composer”
set. He opened with “Helter Skelter,” a peppy, march-like
piano piece Bob said was referred to in the score as a polka; played
and sang “Teasin’ Tessie Brown” from the later ’30s
(along with the clue that it was co-composed by a famous bandleader);
and concluded with “Blue Fever.”
Even with the distinctive style of all three pieces and the many clues
offered, Bob stumped everyone but Andrew, who correctly identified
the composer as Luckey Roberts. Bob closed his Roberts set with the
composer’s biggest hit: “Moonlight Cocktail.” Lifted
from the opening theme of Luckey’s own, unpublished “Ripples
of the Nile,” the song, with lyrics by Kim Gannon, became a
huge hit in 1942, giving Luckey, at age 55, his first genuine hit.
Shirley encored with two more non-ragtime waltzes by Scott Joplin:
“Binks’ Waltz,” from 1905, and one of Joplin’s
earliest published pieces, “Harmony Club Waltzes” from
1896. The latter is an especially interesting example of Joplin’s
early style.
Beckoning Erika Miller to the stage, Eric accompanied her on another
great George Botsford number from 1910: “Grizzly Bear Rag,”
which was a hit rag, hit ragtime song and a ragtime dance craze all
in the same year. Erika has mastered Irving Berlin’s tongue-twisting
lyrics, with Eric sailing along at the piano, transposing the verse,
the rag’s A theme, to C-major and the chorus, the rag’s
trio, to F-major while using the rag’s B theme as an instrumental
break.
Bill Mitchell’s encores were with Dave Wright on tuba. For years,
Dave was with the Albany Nightboat Ragtimers, with Frank Sano on percussion
and Hal Groody on banjo. The quartet headlined at the first RagFest
in October of 2000 and has anchored the festival every year since.
Dave said he is now retired from music, having moved to the desert,
but his performances of “Maple Leaf” and “Bohemia”
say otherwise.
Bob Pinsker wrapped up his all-Luckey program with a piano arrangement
of Roberts’ second-biggest hit, the song “Massachusetts”
and followed with Luckey’s best ragtime piano solo, “Pork
and Beans.” Bob made this choice an even greater challenge by
choosing to play it in the original key of C sharp minor, which he referred
to as “Luckey’s key” (for playing “Pork and
Beans,” that is).
Vincent offered “Pianogram,” a gentle 1929 novelty by
Ralph Rainger (the pseudonym of Ralph Reichenthal), then invited Andrew
to join him on a spectacular four-handed version of Roy Bargy’s
“Slipova.”
Andrew then cleared off one of the console pianos at the back of The
Cave to deliver one more Gumble number and one more from 1910: Gumble’s
“Mandy and Me” (an outstanding ragtime song that’s
miles ahead of Berlin’s better-known “Mandy”), then
a first-rate rendition of James Scott’s great 1910 rag “Hilarity.”
As his encore, Andrew essayed Charles N. Daniels’s 1898 hit
song “Margery,” taking care to rag the piece up for a
big finale.
This was a wonderfully fun and musically diverse afternoon. We’ll
see everyone next month (Sept. 18) at Steamers for our last OCRS of
the year, then a month later at RagFest 2010!