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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Sunday Classics preview: Scott Joplin, "The Entertainer"

Initially as piano solist, then as arranger, Marvin Hamlisch gave us two very different takes on Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" for the opening credits of George Roy Hill's glorious 1973 film The Sting.

[The Sting] is noted for its musical score -- particularly its main melody, "The Entertainer," a piano rag by Scott Joplin, which was lightly adapted for the movie by Marvin Hamlisch (and became a top-ten chart single for Hamlisch, when released as a single from the film's soundtrack). The film's success encouraged a surge of popularity and critical acclaim for Joplin's work.

-- from the Wikipedia article on the film

by Ken

It's pointed out, rightly enough, that The Sting takes place in the heart of the Great Depression, in the '30s, whereas the heyday of ragtime was the '00s. Scott Joplin, who was born around 1867, died in 1917. "The Entertainer" was written in 1902. But even in 1973 moviegoers weren't exactly history buffs, and nearly 40 years farther down the pike (my goodness, can the film really be that old?) there are probably still fewer living souls who know the difference between the '00s and the '30s. Never mind that the world had, after a fashion, survived one world war and begun the run-up to a second. The Joplin music gave the film a "period" feel that delighted throngs of viewers.

There's no question that, as the Wikipedia article says, The Sting (including the Best Picture Oscar) "encouraged a surge of popularity" for Joplin's work, but I'm not so sure about a surge of "critical acclaim," since by 1973 the Joplin revival had taken hold solidly. The landmark for me was the release of the then 26-year-old Joshua Rifkin's first Nonesuch LP of Joplin, recorded in September 1970. (There would eventually be three Joplin LPs.) After the click-through we're going to hear two more takes on "The Entertainer," including Rifkin's.


FOR THE REST OF THIS EVENING'S
"ENTERTAINER"-MENT, CLICK HERE

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[10/30/2011] Let's take care not to underappreciate Scott Joplin (continued)

"Pine Apple Rag" from the Sting soundtrack album


AS PROMISED, WE'VE BEGUN WITH SOME OF THE
USE THAT THE STING MAKES OF "PINE APPLE RAG"

I assume the above clip is from the soundtrack album. What I would really like to have offered is this clip from the film, for which embedding is unfortunately disabled. It's a dazzling dialogueless sequence in which Henry Gondorf (Paul Newman) begins pulling his sting together. He starts by having young grifter Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) get a proper haircut over a Hamlisch piano-solo performance of "Pine Apple Rag." Then the music switches to Hamlisch's ensemble version.


THE STING's JOPLIN "BIG THREE" (PLUS:
INTRODUCING DICK HYMAN'S JOPLIN)

The film's Joplin trinity is made up of two rags, "The Entertainer" and "Pine Apple Rag," and the lovely, more discursive "Solace -- A Mexican Serenade." We already heard "The Entertainer" Friday night, but I thought this would be a good opportunity not only to hear it again but to introduce the important five-LP set, Scott Joplin: The Complete Works for Solo Piano, recorded in 1975 by musical polymath Dick Hyman (born 1927) -- composer, arranger, and pianist in a wide range of musical genres. According to the entertaining and informative booklet notes by ragtime expert Rudi Blesh, co-author with Harriet Janis of They All Played Ragtime, the Hyman recordings were made over a nine-month period, and the care shows; I find that the performances, which aren't necessarily my favorite kind but represent really well considered statements, hold up quite well. Alas, I don't see any trace of them on CD except a single RCA Gold Seal CD. We're going to hear Dick's performances of all our selections, and also read some of Rudi Blesh's necessarily brief (given the quantity of material he had to cover) album notes on the individual pieces.

Here, for starters, is Dick Hyman's attractive, stylish "Entertainer." (The photo is from around 2005. Here, by the way, is Dick's official website.)

Dick Hyman, piano. RCA, recorded 1975 [audio link]


NOW, TO RETURN TO "PINE APPLE RAG" (1908)

The first two themes are lively, lyric, and innocent, with upward-sweeping figures like dance steps. With the trio the music plunges into an American red-light bacchanal -- darkly "barrelhouse" and stomping over a continuous contrapuntal bass. In the final theme the mood moves into ringing triumph and ends with two strong, heavy chords. -- Rudi Blesh

Dick Hyman, piano. RCA, recorded 1975 [audio link]
Joshua Rifkin, piano. Nonesuch, recorded January 1972 [audio link]


NEXT, "THE BRILLIANT AND 'INTOXICATING' RAG THAT
THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF AMERICAN MUSIC"

I mentioned Friday night that Joshua Rifkin's 1970 Nonesuch Joplin LP seems to me the landmark in the Joplin revival, and I still love the performances. Many listeners complain about the slow or slowish tempos, but Rifkin seems to me to be hearing in the music an ambition to do for ragtime what great European composers like Liszt and Chopin did for European dance forms: to elevate them into a resonant-across-time art form. This wasn't just a matter of tempo, though. Rifkin (who was only 26 at the time he recorded that first Nonesuch Joplin LP, and has gone on to a noteworthy career as musicologist and conductor -- the photo is from around 2008) clearly placed a lot of value on the sheer sound of the music, which resonates in a way I've never heard from any other pianist in this music. Note in particular the sweet, beautifully ringing sound he coaxes in the keyboard's upper reaches, an often startling contrast to the honky-tonkish sound usually produced by more pop-oriented players. (We should probably note that the recordings were all made in Rutgers Presbyterian Church, on West 73rd Street in Manhattan.)

Eventually there were three Rifkin Nonesuch Joplin LPs, with eight selections each. It wasn't a vast quantity of music per side, but at Nonesuch's budget price no one complained, and it was a great format for appreciating the individual pieces. For better and worse, Nonesuch has boiled the original 24 selections down to a single CD containing 17: all 8 from Volume I (recorded in September 1970), 5 from Volume II (recorded in January 1972), and 4 from Volume III (recorded in September 1974). Rather remarkably, that CD appears to have been in the catalog continuously since 1990, a tribute to the performances' durability. (I've never heard Rifkin's later recording of nine Joplin rags for EMI, filled out with instrumental-ensemble versions of six more rags played by the Southland Stingers, but I've ordered a copy.)

For this great piece, I think we've got an especially interesting range of performances. (Dick Hyman is in a very frisky frame of mind!)

SCOTT JOPLIN: "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899)

This is the brilliant and "intoxicating" rag that changed the course of American music. Despite all imitations -- and there were many -- it was, and remains, unique. Its themes, its harmonies, with their superb cadences at the theme endings, and its seemingly unfadeable freshness and élan -- all of these, somehow, have kept it current in the more than 75 [now 112!] years since its publication. Mr. Hyman realizes all of these attributes in a striking performance. -- Rudi Blesh

Dick Hyman, piano. RCA, recorded 1975 [audio link]
William Bolcom, piano. New York Public Library, recorded live, Oct. 22, 1971 [audio link]
Joshua Rifkin, piano. Nonesuch, recorded September 1970 [audio link]


TO COMPLETE THE STING TRINITY:
"SOLACE -- A MEXICAN SERENADE" (1909)


Marvin Hamlisch's "Solace" from the Sting soundtrack album

Unique as the only tango in Joplin's work (although there are tango episodes in certain rags). Solace is like a tribute to Lottie Stokes, whom he had just married. It is indescribably romantic and intimate. Few pieces of piano music can match its particular mood of slow, deep, inward passion. Hearing it and thinking of Lottie, one realizes that she was solace to him and more -- certainly, inspiration. The years 1908-10 are studded with Joplin rags -- Sugar Cane, Wall Street, and others -- all of a similar quiet, intimate amorousness.-- Rudi Blesh

William Bolcom, piano. New York Public Library, recorded live, Oct. 22, 1971 [audio link]
Dick Hyman, piano. RCA, recorded 1975 [audio link]
Joshua Rifkin, piano. Nonesuch, recorded January 1972 [audio link]


FINALLY, I GUESS WE SHOULD PROBABLY
SAY SOMETHING ABOUT "SYNCOPATION"

The rhythmic device of syncopation is crucial to ragtime, and I'm finding it easier to point to than to describe, so let's give Wikipedia a shot:

In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter (pulse). These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be stressed. "If a part of the measure that is usually unstressed is accented, the rhythm is considered to be syncopated."

More simply, syncopation is a general term for a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm; a placement of rhythmic stresses or accents where they wouldn't normally occur.

As long as we're talking about syncopation, here's --

SCOTT JOPLIN: "Elite Syncopations" (1902)

The cover of this rag depicts flirtation in the Gibson Girl era. He and She are sitting at a not unbridgeable distance apart on the musical staff as though it were a fence. The musical expression indication is dolce (as in "La Dolce Vita"), and the flirtation goes on with Cupid, below, beating the cymbals. Inside, in the music, the dialogue continues: first theme is He in bold, assertive accents; two is She answering more softly but no less surely. He comes back and then She in the trio, and the final theme is of triumphant union. -- Rudi Blesh

Mary Lou Williams, piano. New York Public Library, recorded live, Oct. 22, 1971 [audio link]
Dick Hyman, piano. RCA, recorded 1975 [audio link]
Joshua Rifkin, piano. Nonesuch, recorded January 1972 [audio link]


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[10/28/2011] Preview: Scott Joplin, "The Entertainer" (continued)

In the video clip, we hear one sort of performance of "The Entertainer." Now we're going to hear a rather different sort, from the aforementioned first Joshua Rifkin Nonesuch LP.

SCOTT JOPLIN: "The Entertainer"

Joshua Rifkin, piano. Nonesuch, recorded September 1970 [audio link]


IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

It's all Joplin!


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