Bill Edwards

Please tell us a little bit about your life as a pianist, its beginnings and why Ragtime became a passion in your life.

I was five and hiding from a divorce that was ongoing in my home. I buried myself in records by Paul Lingle, Lou Busch, Frankie Carle and the Firehouse Five Plus Two that had been left behind. This put me into a happier world than the one around me at that time. So within a few months after trying to work these pieces out on my aunt's piano, my mother arranged for me to have a piano. While I learned classical, I always went for the ragtime on the side. By the time The Sting came out when I was 14, I already knew many of the Joplin rags, and hearing them orchestrated was very exciting.

In my adult life as both performer and historian, I have learned that the more you know about the context of the music, including the cover art, place of publication or composition, composer, etc., the more relevant it becomes as its own individual entity. Also, learning about and writing on the lives of the composers as I have individualizes them and makes them accessible as people, many with dream jobs in music, but most of them just ordinary Joes and Josephines who were expressing themselves through one or more attempts at creative composing. Since there are so many ways to stretch the boundaries of ragtime in performance, it also individualizes each performer in their own style and how they engage with an audience. What's not to be passionate about?

When we talk about the origins of the Ragtime, we always find the reference of the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 as the formal date of appearance. We know that long before that, black and white pianists were meeting in the sub world of the American honky-tonk and red-light districts as equals, competing, trading, and borrowing from the musical traditions of their two different races (European styles and African rhythms). How do you elaborate on that?

While Sedalia, Missouri has often been called the cradle of ragtime (should be one of the origin points of published ragtime), there are mentions of this style of music that date back to black newspapers in Indianapolis, Indiana in the early 1890s, and Kansas City in both Kansas and Missouri in the late 1880s. The role of white people in the "composition" or formation of ragtime is often not considered, and goes back to the late days of slavery and a bit beyond. When the black musicians were hired for dances, they were given certain parameters of what to play, but often asked to do it in a specific style, or perhaps their own style. Therefore, the assimilation of white forms like marches, jigs, quadrilles, etc., into the black culture was in part because of these requests, but also in part because of regular exposure. The application of polyrhythm and syncopations was perhaps one of the larger contributions of black musicians into this music. It can't really be called black or white, so ragtime should simply be termed as American Fusion.

As for the pianists, not very many white pianists early one were known to engage in this because prejudice worked both ways. Think of how as recently as the mid 1950s, Elvis Presley was often reviled for doing "colored music" in his shows. White musicians playing anything more than mild cakewalks in the mid 1890s may have had trouble finding gigs once word got out, and it was not likely that black people of society would hire black orchestras, although many white society folks would hire black orchestras to show how progressive they were. The few white pianists who did make it in the late 1890s, and who were exchanging directly with black artists, were in Vaudeville, and were usually highly versatile and talented, having different repertoire for different audiences. Mike Bernard and Ben Harney were able to endear themselves to an audience, and then play the music as if they alone had invented it, which removed most shades from it.

On African rhythms: there are many more Latin rhythms in ragtime than there are African rhythms. In truth, many of those had to wait for progressive jazz in the 1950s to get infused. Syncopation was a device used by Latin musicians in both South and Central America and the Caribbean. The Habanera was primary of these, and had origins both in Africa and South America. General syncopations like those found in Cakewalks, however, were also found in some classical music of Europe of the early to mid nineteenth century. It was, once again, the fusion of these sources that culminated in ragtime, and evolved into jazz.

I have always read biographies of Scott Joplin in which his birth date was cited. Recently I read we actually don't know where he was born and the date he was born. Have you ever conducted any research in this regard?

Indeed I have looked into the probable birth dates of Scott Joplin along with my colleague Ed Berlin. We believe it is potentially as early as November of 1867 since there are hospital records of a stay early in 1868, and his age given in the 1870 Census. In the end, while getting that particular bit of business tied up neatly would be nice, it would not have the same impact as it has had on composers like Eubie Blake, who found to be four years younger than he actually reported, or Mike Bernard, who was as many as twelve years older than he reported. This changes the potential age of when they were first composing or performing, and in the context of how fast ragtime progressed it makes a large contextual difference. One year with Joplin means much less in context, except that he died either at 48 or 49, and that was too soon. So knowing the date is a matter of thoroughness more than anything, but does not affect any other aspects of his time line.

Is it correct to say that Ragtime directly influenced blues and jazz? And if it weren't for Ragtime, those styles would not have existed?

Here is my view of ragtime in the US and the music that developed from it. Consider a giant funnel. Into the top is being fed marches, jigs, rounds, polkas, quadrilles, sonatas, habaneras, shanties, folk songs, etc. The center of this funnel would be the late 1890s and that would visualize the mix that became ragtime. Also, consider a string that starts in the 1880s and travels directly into the center of the funnel and through. This would be the blues. Ragtime and the blues both mixed and remained separate entities at the same time. Memphis Blues is a rag but also a blues, but most piano rags were not associated with blues, and many blues had no trace of rag. They did, however, have many of the same influences.

Now consider what is coming out of the funnel. Picked ragtime in West Virginia and Kentucky becomes bluegrass, and eventually country music as it emerges from Bristol, Virginia in 1927. Piano ragtime would evolve into novelty ragtime and hot piano through the 1920s, leading into aspects of techno-jazz in the 1930s and beyond, directly influencing Fats Waller and Art Tatum. Band ragtime was changed in 1916 with the combo of three lead instruments and a three to four instrument rhythm section, simply by repeating one section of a rag with improvisation on the melody. This would become traditional jazz. That Blues string would remain its own separate entity in the 1920s, yet also be fused with traditional jazz at that same time, creating swing, a music that would dominate the late 1930s. The small instrumental ensembles would then fuse blues, swing, popular song and techno-jazz to become be-bop. Swing itself would morph in the song world into rhythm and blues, the direct ancestor of rock and roll.

One other aspect often overlooked is the Broadway show. Most of these had ragtime or ragtime song in them in the 1900s to 1920s. While some added jazz, the most significant departure was to start writing toward character-based tunes, keeping elements of the origins of ragtime and adding interesting poly-rhythms in some cases, but largely creating a form of song that was part popular and part identifiable with a specific character. This led into the milestones Showboat, the movies Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Wizard of Oz, and finally Oklahoma in 1942, the first modern stage musical that was fully composed for the story, not just for songs. Yet it can directly trace its origins back to Eubie Blake, George M. Cohan, and even Florenz Ziegfeld who incorporated a lot of ragtime into his own extravaganzas.

In terms of the music we hear in the western world today, virtually all of it can be traced directly to ragtime. The major exception would be film scores, which themselves grew out of the application of classical or themed pieces, some of the Broadway paradigm. From the incorporation of classical themes into cartoons by Carl Stalling and the work of Elmer Bernstein and his sweeping western scores in the 1940s and beyond, we now have John Williams, Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, and many more that provide us with a new type of fusion that owes its roots more to Beethoven and Stravinsky than it does to ragtime composers. Otherwise, most western music on you hear in the media today can be traced in some way to ragtime.

As for jazz not existing - that's a tough one. It was simply a direct evolution from ragtime, and it may have eventually happened. Part of that process is usually getting the ear of the public used to or at least accepting some minor developments in music. Stravinsky went overboard when he did Rite of Spring in 1912, and for many in the public it was simply too much change and alienation at once. Richard Strauss also had many detractors. But those who adapted the familiar into something more, such as the pioneers of jazz music, usually gained wider acceptance. Since the basis of jazz is improvisation, it's hard to say it wouldn't exist without ragtime, especially if one looks at the Modern Jazz Quartet and how much Bach they used in their work. So I'd give that particular answer at about a 50/50 level concerning jazz, but having to leave it open ended in asking the difficult question - what sort of jazz?

When Ragtime exploded in the 1900s, it was very strongly criticized by the some people of the society and the music establishment of that time. For example, at the 1901 convention of the American Federation of Musicians in Denver, "Resolutions were adopted characterizing 'ragtime' as 'unmusical rot.' Members were encouraged to 'make every effort to suppress and [to] discourage the playing and the publishing of such musical trash." (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 5/14/1901, 1)

Why is it that Ragtime went from a "disreputable genre of music" to have worldwide acceptance, to the point of being played regularly by all types of musicians, including the classical ones? Any comparison with today's Rap Music?

Assimilation is the answer. We will be dealing with this the next few months with a Black President in this country. It will be difficult for some people to get used to, but they will. It's like using the internet, driving a car, learning what's on television, sound in a moving picture, what's the latest dance, etc. It's also a matter of survival. The feelings instilled in some who heard ragtime for the first time where perhaps too strong to assimilate for many, given that it gave them pleasure that some music forms did not, or that they found it too jarring. However, listen to it enough (and it was everywhere so that wasn't hard to do) and the ear and the mind become more in tune with the music. The Cakewalk was a light form of what was to come with it's simple in-measure syncopations. Ragtime syncopation would extend beyond measure boundaries in many cases, and the strange juxtaposition of right hand syncopations and polyrhythm with the left hand or band accompaniment duple meter often took a while to get used to. But when you remove much of what is in the market, or flood the market with something else, it often becomes in vogue by shear force or exposure.

As for musicians playing it - once the public declared they wanted ragtime more than anything, musicians had to adapt or die. If you weren't in a symphony or stage orchestra playing regularly, you had to learn how to read ragtime rhythms so you could find work, or simply take on another profession. Survival of the raggiest. One of the strongest cases for this would be in Detroit, Michigan. Fred S. Stone helped run a rather large black union of musicians there, and at one point there were many white musicians lobbying to get into that union simply so they would find work, since the black union was getting most of the jobs playing ragtime, dance music, and even some classical.

As for rap - just find the lyrics to the Maple Leaf Rag and say them out loud. "Oh go 'way man, I can hypnotize 'dis nation, I can shake de Earth's foundation wid de Maple Leaf Rag." It works as rap, as do many early coon songs. Performers often recited them to music if they couldn't quite get how to sing them. There were many coon songs - written by both races - that were simply "in yo face" material that is not much different rap, talking about sexual misconduct and violence with razor blades. Rap is an evolution of ragtime and the black race, who often were the leaders in this regard. Whatever they came up with musically that became popular, white musicians would soon try to make it their own. Thus blacks wanted to stay ahead and continued to create new music styles. Rap is little more than highly rhythmic asymmetrical poetry set to a beat, and some early songs, even though they had more symmetry, were highly similar. Also consider that rap is more of a performance medium and ragtime more of a published one historically, yet they still have that bond.

 

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