Sunday Classics: Let's take care not to underappreciate Scott Joplin

Jazz great Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981) plays Scott Joplin's "Pine Apple Rag" as part of "An Evening with Scott Joplin at the Library and Museum of the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, New York, Oct. 22, 1971. In the click-through we're also going to hear Mary Lou play Joplin's "Elite Syncopations." [audio link for "Pine Apple Rag"]

by Ken

As promised in Friday night's preview, it's all Joplin today. We're going to hear some of the ragtime genius's best-loved compositions in a variety of treatments, not so much showcasing my preferences (though they're apt to show through) as showing some of the music's range. As with much great music, the range of possibilities is built into the music, and part of its greatness, and it's a range that almost surely can't be encompassed in a single performance.

For reasons that I hope are obvious, we're going to highlight the use of several Joplin masterpieces in George Roy Hill's 1973 film The Sting, where Hill and his music man Marvin Hamlisch used them to convey such a dazzling period feel, even if, as we noted Friday, it's the wrong period. And in the click-through we're going to begin by hearing some of what Hill and Hamlisch do with "Pine Apple Rag."


TO CONTINUE WITH OUR FORAY INTO THE
MUSICAL WORLD OF SCOTT JOPLIN, CLICK HERE

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