The King of Ragtime (31 page)

Eubie Blake benefitted enormously from the ragtime revival, and his gain was ours. He lived to the age of 100 years and five days (though his birth date has been disputed), and his life story is a fabulous read. From the early 1900s, he was a prominent member of the east coast ragtime school, penning compositions such as
Charleston Rag
that became instant classics. In 1921, he joined with Noble Sissle to write
Shuffle Along
, a Black musical that took Broadway by storm, and the two friends enjoyed continued success through the decade. By the forties, Eubie had pretty much dropped from view, but doing nothing just wasn’t his style. He enrolled at New York University, and in 1950, received a degree in music. In the ’sixties, he captured the attention of the new generation of ragtime players, and until his death in 1983, Eubie Blake probably was the best-known and most influential composer and performer of ragtime. He appeared at countless festivals and concerts all over the world, cut recordings, and received honor after honor.

Finally, what to say in a short summary of the life of Irving Berlin? Thanks to a stunning gift for musical composition, work habits that would have felled a horse, and a flair for self-promotion, the little man from Cherry Street produced an unparalleled body of popular songs and show tunes. He’s been called America’s Most Beloved Composer, but I think the real object of all that affection was not the songwriter himself, but his music. Berlin possessed a genius for reading the public mood, then writing tunes that crystallized and expressed societal sentiments. He gave people what they wanted. But his biographies are saddening. As successful as he was, he seems never to have been satisfied. No amount of adulation was too much; any expression of admiration for another composer’s work was too much. Came the 1960s, and a generation appeared that the old composer could not read. The Peace-and-Love Kids disdained his music as corny and old-fashioned, and at the Washington premiere of his last show,
Mr. President
, he suffered the indignity of seeing Jack Kennedy arrive late and leave early. By the late ’sixties, Berlin was eighty, and resented it mightily. For the final two decades of his life, insecurity and paranoia ruled his behavior. He became increasingly reclusive and hostile, often meeting requests of any sort with abusive outbursts. Regarding financial matters, he could be unreasonable, even miserly. Since the public would no longer value his music, he would offer them nothing in its place, and spent his last years as a geriatric Achilles, sulking in his tent. Unlike Achilles, he never relented. It would be difficult not to admire Berlin, equally difficult to love him.

***

Bartlett Tabor, Robert Miras, Fannie Solomon, Dubie Harris, Detective Ciccone, Patrolman Flaherty, Jasper Billings, Isaac Stark, and Clarence and Ida Barbour were products of my imagination. They bear no resemblance to any person in my real world.

***

So, who really was The King of Ragtime?

We know what Scott Joplin thought; we know what Irving Berlin thought. Both men are on the record.

What do I think?

Musicologists and historians are sharply divided as to whether ragtime songs should in fact be acknowledged as ragtime. Most definitions of the form mention syncopation as an important feature, and while almost all vocal ragtime composed and performed between 1890 and 1910 featured syncopation, the music of Irving Berlin contained very little. Thus, some authorities hold that Berlin never wrote ragtime at all. “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” has often been called a song about ragtime, not a song in ragtime. Eubie Blake said, “Funny thing about [‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’], there’s no ragtime
in
it. No syncopation at all! Still it’s a great tune, and it sure was what the public wanted.”

I think Eubie was on the mark. Who ever was better than Irving Berlin at giving the public what it wanted? As long as people wanted ragtime, Berlin would give them ragtime—or at least what he called ragtime. Perhaps “Tin Pan Alley Ragtime” had its origin in a marketing ploy. Insist long enough and hard enough that a magpie is a nightingale, and you’ll likely convince a lot of people. You might even convince yourself. And if I shake my head and say, “Gee, that just doesn’t sound like a nightingale,” you’ll reply, “It’s a new breed of nightingale, better than the original. Get with it. ‘Everybody’s Doing It Now.’”

In a contest to select the King of Tin Pan Alley or Broadway, Irving Berlin probably would get my vote. But the great tunesmith’s outrageous assertion that “…such songs of mine as ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band,’ ‘That Mysterious Rag,’ ‘Ragtime Violin,’ ‘I Want To Be In Dixie,’ and ‘Take A Little Tip From Father’ virtually started the ragtime mania in America” rings like a cracked bell. By itself, that should disqualify him from any competition for the ragtime throne.

What of Scott Joplin’s claim? After all, it was “Maple Leaf Rag” that truly ‘started the ragtime mania in America,’ and at the same time set the standard for a new form of musical art. Joplin was a major, if not
the
major, influence for a whole generation of musicians, one of whom was Joseph Lamb. He was generous in his teaching and support of young composers. He constantly pushed musical frontiers, composing ragtime of increasing complexity, and sought to extend his idiom into operatic and symphonic music.

But Joplin is not a unanimous choice as the greatest ragtime composer. Pianist Ron Weatherburn (among others) selected Joe Lamb, stating that Joplin’s rags are “as good as anything ever written, but not in the same class as Lamb’s greatest.” Weatherburn went on to explain that Joplin’s rags are more “simple,” and that Lamb’s work is more impressive as classical piano music. Trebor Tichenor did not rank the two composers as to degree of greatness, but remarked that Lamb’s music is “…unlike Joplin’s incredibly beautiful melodies, of intensely rustic folkishness that only he could create…By [Lamb’s] later work he advanced and extended the entire idiom of classic ragtime as far as it would go.”

John Stark published the first ragtime blockbuster, then spent his last twenty-eight years publishing and promoting classic ragtime and the composers who wrote it. Had Stark stayed in his music store in Sedalia in 1899, it’s possible “Maple Leaf Rag” might have never been published, Scott Joplin might have remained in obscurity all his life, and ragtime music might have been no more than a passing fad. By continuing to force ragtime into the public view until the time of his death, Stark kept the form at least marginally visible until it caught the attention of the revivalists in the 1940s. If titles really are to be conferred, Stark would seem a strong candidate for Defender of the Crown, or perhaps High Priest.

Tom Turpin? Turpin’s “Harlem Rag,” from 1898, was the first published ragtime tune by a Negro. His Rosebud Café was for many years the center of Black music in St. Louis, and Turpin provided important support to ragtime composers and musicians, Scott Joplin included.

Ben Harney? In 1897, the Kentuckian composer and entertainer claimed to be the originator of ragtime.

Mike Bernard, who won ragtime-playing contests in New York (most of which included only White contestants), and was designated “Rag Time King of the Whole World?”

The incomparable Eubie Blake?

No.

Ragtime is a joyously anarchic territory, only partially explored, and with ever-shifting borders. It’s populated by a divided but enthusiastic company of women and men who compose the music, play it, listen to it, study it, research it, write about it, love it. Those among them who’ve grabbed for a glittering crown have found themselves in the end to be holding only a handful of ashes.
Ars longa, vita brevis.

In the Land of Ragtime there is no king.

That’s not a statement of fact. It’s just what I think.

What do
you
think?

Ragtime Resources

RADIO SHOW:

“The Rag Time Machine,” David Reffkin, Host. KUSF-FM, San Francisco, Monday, 9-10 pm. Streaming at
www.live365.com/stations/kusf

WEBSITES:

Edward A. Berlin’s Website of Ragtime and Scholarship.
www.edwardaberlin.com/index.htm

Jack Rummel’s Ragtime Music Reviews.
www.ragtimers.org/reviews/

“Perfessor” Bill Edwards’ Ragtime MIDI, Sheet Music, Nostalgia and Ragtime Resource.
www.perfessorbill.com/

The Mississippi Rag.
www.mississippirag.com/

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project.
www.cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/

Parlor Songs MIDI Collection.
www.parlorsongs.com/

The Ragtime Ephemeralist.
http://home.earthlink.net/~ephemeralist/index.html

West Coast Ragtime Society.
www.westcoastragtime.com/

Scott Joplin International Ragtime Foundation.
www.scottjoplin.org/

Selected Bibliography

RAGTIME HISTORY

Berlin, Edward A.
King of Ragtime
. Oxford University Press, New York, 1994.

Berlin, Edward A.
Ragtime, A Musical and Cultural History
. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1980.

Berlin, Edward A.
Reflections and Research on Ragtime
. ISAM Monographs: Number 24, Institute for Studies in American Music, Brooklyn NY, 1987.

Berlin, Edward A. “A Biography of Scott Joplin.” Electronic publication, written for the exclusive use of the Scott Joplin International Foundation, 1998.

Berlin, Edward A. “On Ragtime: A Different Perspective on Tin Pan Alley.”
CBMR Digest
, Spring 1991, pp. 5-6.

Berlin, Edward A. “On Ragtime: Ragtime and the Church.”
CBMR Digest
, Fall 1991, pp. 6-7.

Berlin, Edward A. “On Ragtime: Scott Joplin, the Educator.”
CBMR Digest
, Spring 1990, pp. 3-4.

Berlin, Edward A. “Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha Years.”
American Music
, Fall 1991, pp. 260-276.

Blesh, Rudi and Janis, Harriet.
They All Played Ragtime
. Grove Press, New York, 1959 (originally published by Knopf, 1950).

Cassidy, Russell E. “Joseph F. Lamb: A Biography.”
Newsletter of the Ragtime Society of Canada
, Summer 1966, pp. 29-42.

Conn, Patricia Lamb. “Patricia Lamb Conn in an interview with David Sager.” Library of Congress, 2006.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200035773/full.html

Conn, Patricia Lamb. Personal correspondence.

Curtis, Susan.
Dancing to a Black Man’s Tune
. University of Missouri Press, Columbia MO, 1994.

Gammond, Peter.
Scott Joplin and the Ragtime Era
. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1976.

Haskins, James.
Scott Joplin
. Doubleday, New York, 1978.

Hasse, John Edward, ed.
Ragtime, Its History, Composers, and Music
. Schirmer Books, New York, 1985.

Jasen, David A. and Jones, Gene.
That American Rag
. Schirmer Books, New York, 2000.

Jasen, David A. and Tichenor, Trebor Jay.
Rags and Ragtime
. Dover Publications Inc, New York, 1978.

Lamb, Joseph, with Mike Montgomery. “Joseph Lamb: A Study in Classic Ragtime.”
Smithsonian Folkways Archival
. Folkways Records FG 3562, 1960/2007.

Montgomery, Mike. “Joseph F. Lamb—A Ragtime Paradox.”
The Second Line
, March-April 1961, pp. 17-18.

Rose, Al.
Eubie Blake
. Schirmer Books, New York, 1978.

Schafer, William J. and Riedel, Johannes.
The Art of Ragtime
. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1973.

Scotti, Joseph. “Joe Lamb: A Study of Ragtime’s Paradox.” PhD diss, University of Cincinnati, 1977.

Waldo, Terry.
This is Ragtime
. Da Capo Press, New York, 1991.

Wolf, Rennold. “The Boy Who Revived Ragtime.
The Green Book Magazine
, August 1913, pp. 201-209.

IRVING BERLIN

Bergreen, Laurence.
As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin
. Viking Penguin, New York, 1990.

Friedland, Michael.
Irving Berlin
. Stein and Day, New York, 1974.

Furia, Philip.
Irving Berlin: A Life in Song
. Schirmer Books, New York, 1998.

Hamm, Charles.
Irving Berlin: Songs from the Melting Pot: The Formative Years, 1907-1914
. Oxford University Press, New York, 1997

Whitcomb, Ian.
Irving Berlin and Ragtime America
. Century Hutchinson Ltd., London, 1987.

TIN PAN ALLEY

Goldberg, Isaac.
Tin Pan Alley: A Chronicle of the American Popular Music Racket
. The John Day Company, New York, 1930.

Jasen, David A.
Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song
. Routledge, New York, 2003.

Witmark, Isidore and Goldberg, Isaac.
From Ragtime to Swingtime
. Lee Furman, Inc., 1939.

AMERICAN BLACK MUSIC

Brooks, Tim.
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry 1890-1919
. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago IL, 2004.

Riis, Thomas L.
Just Before Jazz. Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890-1915
. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London, 1989.

Shaw, Arnold.
Black Popular Music in America
. Schirmer Books, New York, 1986.

Southern, Eileen.
The Music of Black Americans
. Norton and Company, New York, 1983.

NEW YORK CITY, 1916

Adams, Michael Henry.
Harlem, Lost and Found
. Monacelli Press, New York, 2002.

Burns, Ric and Sanders, James.
An Illustrated History of New York
. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1999.

Diamonstein, Barbaralee.
The Landmarks of New York II
. Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1993.

Jackson, Kenneth L.
The Encyclopedia of New York City
. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1995.

Oppel, Frank, comp.
Tales of Gaslight New York
. Castle Books, Edison NJ, 2000.

Phillips, David Graham. “The Delusion of the Race Track.”
The Cosmopolitan
, January 1905, pp.289-300.

Simmons, Peter.
Gotham Comes of Age
. Pomegranate Communications, San Francisco, 1999.

MISCELLANEOUS

Anonymous. “Lester A. Walton Biography.” New York Public Library Digital Collection, undated.

Beeson, Paul B. and McDermott, Walsh.
Textbook of Medicine
. W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia, 1975.

Dooner, Kate E.
Telephones, Antique to Modern
. Schiffer Publishing Ltd., Atglen PA, 2005.

Fowler, Gene.
Schnozzola
. Viking Press, New York, 1951.

Walsh, Jim. “History of the Peerless Quartet.” Hobbies Magazine, December 1969, pp. 127-130.

Yater, Wallace Mason.
The Fundamentals of Internal Medicine
. Appleton-Century, New York, 1941.