King Of Ragtime - Anthology Of American Piano Music, Vol. 6

Description

Scott Joplin, James Scott, and Joseph Lamb form what is often referred to as the "three B's" of classic ragtime. While hundreds of ragtime composers were active around the turn of the 20th century – many of them being itinerant African American pianists performing largely unnotated rags in the Missouri Valley states – it was Joplin who gave the genre a fully realized and notated art form. These pianists, almost all men and rarely trained, were brilliant improvisers who made their living in the working-class neighborhoods. Often called "professors," they formed a dynamic musical network that fueled the ragtime craze from around 1890 until World War I. Joplin, for his part, stood out. Born in Texarkana shortly after the Civil War, to a father who was formerly enslaved and a mother who was free-born from Kentucky, he showed musical talent early on and received classical music training from an immigrant Czech Jewish teacher. Joplin's respect for rigorous musical training – and his sense of duty to the genre – shaped the history of ragtime.