Birth of Jazz, Ragtime

Sam Rushing

Ana Lawson

11-6-11

Birth of Jazz, Ragtime

Not many people around my age have heard of the awesome piano based music Ragtime. It was created in the 1890’s to the 1920’s and had a second coming in the 1970’s. Ragtime music was often created by African Americans from

“ragging” tunes turning some songs in to choreographic songs. There were many geniuses that created many Ragtime songs such as Will Marion Cook, George Walker, and the Johnson Brothers. Not only people alone there was a ragtime group called Tin Pan Alley that composed Ragtime music. There was one though that was called the “King of Ragtime” and his name was Scott Joplin. One of his songs, Maple

Leaf Rag, was able to sell a million copies in the 1890’s to 1900’s.

            Scott Joplin made many types that young people would love to hear his songs, one of his songs was based on the terrible historic tragedy known as Crash at Crush. In Crush, Texas 1896, the idea was to stage two trains to look as though they crash into each other. Sadly the boilers from the trains exploded and maimed and killed a few people. Historians have no idea whatsoever, whether Scott was there at the crash or not. Some music though could not be found such as Morning Glory.

            Sadly historians could not find a lot about Scott Joplin’s life, for example where exactly he was born and when he was born. Historians do know that Scott Joplin’s lived in Sedalia, Missouri for a certain amount of years, but would have a huge impact with his life. Which helped contribute his ragtime music, since ragtime music was popular in New Orleans, and St. Louis. Then his family moved to Texarkana. Scott first taught himself to play the piano at a white owned house where his mom worked at. Then a German born man who was a musician named Julius Weiss. He then taught Scott how to truly play the piano. The first reported sign of his start of his musical career was the summertime of 1891, in Texarkana. Scott Joplin had many types of gigs and went to music classes at the George R. Smith College at Sedalia. Due to Julius’s teachings he was able to compose a concerto and called it Treemonisha, dedicating the song to his mother. Sadly the first time Scott played it was known as a failure,(this hyperlink is not his original this one was finished with the chorus this time).

            Just like Jazz, and also the Blues, Ragtime music also had a choreographic style, Scott Joplin made some of his songs for the pastime African American dance, “The Cake Walk”. It was actually created around the times of slavery, and for entertainment was couples would “strut around” and whoever won would win the cake. Examples of one of his cakewalk songs is the Swipsey Cakewalk. Besides this song that was a big influence on Ragtime music. At the beginning of the Jazz age, the Charleston came and took over.

            Around the year 1895, the group that had a huge impact on the music industry was the famous ragtime Tin Pan Alley Group. Among one of the publishers and also editor, was the famous Irving Berlin a Jewish Russian immigrant, who is known as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. What he did for the Tin Pan Alley was he categorized into four different categories, ballads, novelty songs, ragtime, and show songs, that way it would be easier to organize. Irving was not just a publisher, his ragtime song the Alexander’s Ragtime Band was known as a ragtime worldwide phenomenon. (Reason for the name Alexander was used was it was used for black characters).  Scott Joplin was known as the King of Ragtime, but Berlin was known as America’s Chief Ragtime Composer.

   

                                                                 Tin Pan Alley

                                                                 Crash at Crush