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On this day, November 24, 1868, Scott Joplin was born.
Scott Joplin
Joplin in 1903
Born: November 24, 1868; Texarkana, Texas, U.S., or Linden, Texas, U.S. (disputed)
Died: April 1, 1917 (aged 48); Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Burial place: St. Michael's Cemetery
Education: George R. Smith College
Awards: Pulitzer Prize (posthumous, 1976)
Scott Joplin (November 24, 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an American composer and pianist. Dubbed the "King of Ragtime", he composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became the genre's first and most influential hit, later being recognized as the quintessential rag. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls and largely disdained the performance of ragtime as honky tonk music most common in saloons.
{snip}
Revival
Joplin's star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame
After his death in 1917, Joplin's music and ragtime in general waned in popularity as new forms of musical styles, such as jazz and novelty piano, emerged. Even so, jazz bands and recording artists such as Tommy Dorsey in 1936, Jelly Roll Morton in 1939 and J. Russel Robinson in 1947 released recordings of Joplin compositions. "Maple Leaf Rag" was the Joplin piece found most often on 78 rpm records.
In the 1960s, a small-scale reawakening of interest in classical ragtime was underway among some American music scholars, such as Trebor Tichenor, William Bolcom, William Albright, and Rudi Blesh. Audiophile Records released a two-record set, The Complete Piano Works of Scott Joplin, The Greatest of Ragtime Composers, performed by Knocky Parker, in 1970.
In 1968, Bolcom and Albright interested Joshua Rifkin, a young musicologist, in the body of Joplin's work. Together, they hosted an occasional ragtime-and-early-jazz evening on WBAI radio. In November 1970, Rifkin released a recording called Scott Joplin: Piano Rags on the classical label Nonesuch. It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. The Billboard Best-Selling Classical LPs chart for September 28, 1974, has the record at number 5, with the follow-up "Volume 2" at number 4, and a combined set of both volumes at number 3. Separately, both volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks. In the top seven spots on that chart, six of the entries were recordings of Joplin's work, three of which were Rifkin's. Record stores found themselves for the first time putting ragtime in the classical music section. The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award categories: Best Album Notes and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra). Rifkin was also under consideration for a third Grammy for a recording not related to Joplin, but at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category. He did a tour in 1974, which included appearances on BBC Television and a sell-out concert at London's Royal Festival Hall. In 1979, Alan Rich wrote in the magazine New York that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on disc, Nonesuch Records "created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival."
In January 1971, Harold C. Schonberg, music critic at The New York Times, having just heard the Rifkin album, wrote a featured Sunday edition article titled "Scholars, Get Busy on Scott Joplin!" Schonberg's call to action has been described as the catalyst for classical music scholars, the sort of people Joplin had battled all his life, to conclude that Joplin was a genius. Vera Brodsky Lawrence of the New York Public Library published a two-volume set of Joplin works in June 1971, titled The Collected Works of Scott Joplin, stimulating a wider interest in the performance of Joplin's music.
In mid-February 1973 under the direction of Gunther Schuller, the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble recorded an album of Joplin's rags taken from the period collection Standard High-Class Rags titled Joplin: The Red Back Book. The album won a Grammy Award as Best Chamber Music Performance in that year and became Billboard magazine's Top Classical Album of 1974.[101] The group subsequently recorded two more albums for Golden Crest Records: More Scott Joplin Rags in 1974 and The Road From Rags To Jazz in 1975.
Cover of the 1973 film, The Sting,
which featured Joplin's music
In 1973, film producer George Roy Hill contacted Schuller and Rifkin separately, asking both men to write the score for a film project he was working on: The Sting. Both men turned down the request because of previous commitments. Instead, Hill found Marvin Hamlisch available and brought him into the project as composer. Hamlisch lightly adapted Joplin's music for The Sting, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and Adaptation on April 2, 1974. His version of "The Entertainer" reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the American Top 40 music chart on May 18, 1974, prompting The New York Times to write, "The whole nation has begun to take notice." Because of the film and its score, Joplin's work became appreciated in both the popular and classical music world, becoming (in the words of music magazine Record World) the "classical phenomenon of the decade." Rifkin later said of the film soundtrack that Hamlisch lifted his piano adaptations directly from Rifkin's style and his band adaptations from Schuller's style. Schuller said Hamlisch "got the Oscar for music he didn't write (since it is by Joplin) and arrangements he didn't write, and 'editions' he didn't make. A lot of people were upset by that, but that's show biz!"
On October 22, 1971, excerpts from Treemonisha were presented in concert form at Lincoln Center, with musical performances by Bolcom, Rifkin and Mary Lou Williams supporting a group of singers. Finally, on January 28, 1972, T.J. Anderson's orchestration of Treemonisha was staged for two consecutive nights, sponsored by the Afro-American Music Workshop of Morehouse College in Atlanta, with singers accompanied by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Robert Shaw, and choreography by Katherine Dunham. Schonberg remarked in February 1972 that the "Scott Joplin Renaissance" was in full swing and still growing. In May 1975, Treemonisha was staged in a full opera production by the Houston Grand Opera. The company toured briefly, then settled into an eight-week run in New York on Broadway at the Palace Theatre in October and November. This appearance was directed by Gunther Schuller, and soprano Carmen Balthrop alternated with Kathleen Battle as the title character. An "original Broadway cast" recording was produced. Because of the lack of national exposure given to the brief Morehouse College staging of the opera in 1972, many Joplin scholars wrote that the Houston Grand Opera's 1975 show was the first full production.
1974 saw the Birmingham Royal Ballet under director Kenneth MacMillan create Elite Syncopations, a ballet based on tunes by Joplin and other composers of the era. That year also brought the premiere by the Los Angeles Ballet of Red Back Book, choreographed by John Clifford to Joplin rags from the collection of the same name, including both solo piano performances and arrangements for full orchestra.
Copyright attorney Alvin Deutsch worked with Vera Brodsky Lawrence to make sure the Joplin estate owned the rights to his work. Deutsch negotiated with New York Public Library to get Treemonisha copyright and got the Joplin estate $60,000 in the '70s when someone infringed on that copyright. Their work helped to mount the show Treemonisha via Dramatic Publishing.
{snip}
Joplin in 1903
Born: November 24, 1868; Texarkana, Texas, U.S., or Linden, Texas, U.S. (disputed)
Died: April 1, 1917 (aged 48); Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Burial place: St. Michael's Cemetery
Education: George R. Smith College
Awards: Pulitzer Prize (posthumous, 1976)
Scott Joplin (November 24, 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an American composer and pianist. Dubbed the "King of Ragtime", he composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became the genre's first and most influential hit, later being recognized as the quintessential rag. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls and largely disdained the performance of ragtime as honky tonk music most common in saloons.
{snip}
Revival
Joplin's star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame
After his death in 1917, Joplin's music and ragtime in general waned in popularity as new forms of musical styles, such as jazz and novelty piano, emerged. Even so, jazz bands and recording artists such as Tommy Dorsey in 1936, Jelly Roll Morton in 1939 and J. Russel Robinson in 1947 released recordings of Joplin compositions. "Maple Leaf Rag" was the Joplin piece found most often on 78 rpm records.
In the 1960s, a small-scale reawakening of interest in classical ragtime was underway among some American music scholars, such as Trebor Tichenor, William Bolcom, William Albright, and Rudi Blesh. Audiophile Records released a two-record set, The Complete Piano Works of Scott Joplin, The Greatest of Ragtime Composers, performed by Knocky Parker, in 1970.
In 1968, Bolcom and Albright interested Joshua Rifkin, a young musicologist, in the body of Joplin's work. Together, they hosted an occasional ragtime-and-early-jazz evening on WBAI radio. In November 1970, Rifkin released a recording called Scott Joplin: Piano Rags on the classical label Nonesuch. It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. The Billboard Best-Selling Classical LPs chart for September 28, 1974, has the record at number 5, with the follow-up "Volume 2" at number 4, and a combined set of both volumes at number 3. Separately, both volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks. In the top seven spots on that chart, six of the entries were recordings of Joplin's work, three of which were Rifkin's. Record stores found themselves for the first time putting ragtime in the classical music section. The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award categories: Best Album Notes and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra). Rifkin was also under consideration for a third Grammy for a recording not related to Joplin, but at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category. He did a tour in 1974, which included appearances on BBC Television and a sell-out concert at London's Royal Festival Hall. In 1979, Alan Rich wrote in the magazine New York that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on disc, Nonesuch Records "created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival."
In January 1971, Harold C. Schonberg, music critic at The New York Times, having just heard the Rifkin album, wrote a featured Sunday edition article titled "Scholars, Get Busy on Scott Joplin!" Schonberg's call to action has been described as the catalyst for classical music scholars, the sort of people Joplin had battled all his life, to conclude that Joplin was a genius. Vera Brodsky Lawrence of the New York Public Library published a two-volume set of Joplin works in June 1971, titled The Collected Works of Scott Joplin, stimulating a wider interest in the performance of Joplin's music.
In mid-February 1973 under the direction of Gunther Schuller, the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble recorded an album of Joplin's rags taken from the period collection Standard High-Class Rags titled Joplin: The Red Back Book. The album won a Grammy Award as Best Chamber Music Performance in that year and became Billboard magazine's Top Classical Album of 1974.[101] The group subsequently recorded two more albums for Golden Crest Records: More Scott Joplin Rags in 1974 and The Road From Rags To Jazz in 1975.
Cover of the 1973 film, The Sting,
which featured Joplin's music
In 1973, film producer George Roy Hill contacted Schuller and Rifkin separately, asking both men to write the score for a film project he was working on: The Sting. Both men turned down the request because of previous commitments. Instead, Hill found Marvin Hamlisch available and brought him into the project as composer. Hamlisch lightly adapted Joplin's music for The Sting, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and Adaptation on April 2, 1974. His version of "The Entertainer" reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the American Top 40 music chart on May 18, 1974, prompting The New York Times to write, "The whole nation has begun to take notice." Because of the film and its score, Joplin's work became appreciated in both the popular and classical music world, becoming (in the words of music magazine Record World) the "classical phenomenon of the decade." Rifkin later said of the film soundtrack that Hamlisch lifted his piano adaptations directly from Rifkin's style and his band adaptations from Schuller's style. Schuller said Hamlisch "got the Oscar for music he didn't write (since it is by Joplin) and arrangements he didn't write, and 'editions' he didn't make. A lot of people were upset by that, but that's show biz!"
On October 22, 1971, excerpts from Treemonisha were presented in concert form at Lincoln Center, with musical performances by Bolcom, Rifkin and Mary Lou Williams supporting a group of singers. Finally, on January 28, 1972, T.J. Anderson's orchestration of Treemonisha was staged for two consecutive nights, sponsored by the Afro-American Music Workshop of Morehouse College in Atlanta, with singers accompanied by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Robert Shaw, and choreography by Katherine Dunham. Schonberg remarked in February 1972 that the "Scott Joplin Renaissance" was in full swing and still growing. In May 1975, Treemonisha was staged in a full opera production by the Houston Grand Opera. The company toured briefly, then settled into an eight-week run in New York on Broadway at the Palace Theatre in October and November. This appearance was directed by Gunther Schuller, and soprano Carmen Balthrop alternated with Kathleen Battle as the title character. An "original Broadway cast" recording was produced. Because of the lack of national exposure given to the brief Morehouse College staging of the opera in 1972, many Joplin scholars wrote that the Houston Grand Opera's 1975 show was the first full production.
1974 saw the Birmingham Royal Ballet under director Kenneth MacMillan create Elite Syncopations, a ballet based on tunes by Joplin and other composers of the era. That year also brought the premiere by the Los Angeles Ballet of Red Back Book, choreographed by John Clifford to Joplin rags from the collection of the same name, including both solo piano performances and arrangements for full orchestra.
Copyright attorney Alvin Deutsch worked with Vera Brodsky Lawrence to make sure the Joplin estate owned the rights to his work. Deutsch negotiated with New York Public Library to get Treemonisha copyright and got the Joplin estate $60,000 in the '70s when someone infringed on that copyright. Their work helped to mount the show Treemonisha via Dramatic Publishing.
{snip}
Sat Apr 22, 2023: On this day, April 22, 1944, Joshua Rifkin was born.
Like many people, I know him for his Scott Joplin albums on Nonesuch. He has such a command of Joplin. The performances are magnificent.
Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin (born April 22, 1944 in New York) is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist, currently a Professor of Music at Boston University. As a performer he has recorded music by composers from Antoine Busnois to Silvestre Revueltas, and as a scholar has published research on composers from the Renaissance to the 20th century. He is famed among classical musicians and aficionados for his increasingly influential theory that most of Bach's choral works were sung with only one singer per choral line. Rifkin argued: "So long as we define 'chorus' in the conventional modern sense, then Bach's chorus, with few exceptions, simply did not exist." He is best known by the general public, however, for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s, with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records.
{snip}
Rifkin and Joplin
A 1901 edition of Joplin's work
Rifkin's Joplin albums (the first of which was Scott Joplin: Piano Rags in November 1970 on the classical label Nonesuch)—which were presented as classical music recordings—were critically acclaimed, commercially successful and led to other artists exploring the ragtime genre. It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. The Billboard "Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for September 28, 1974 has the record at No. 5, with the follow-up "Volume 2" at No. 4, and a combined set of both volumes at No. 3. Separately both volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks. The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award categories: Best Album Notes and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra), but at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category. Rifkin's work as a revivalist of Joplin's work immediately preceded the adaptation of Joplin's music by Marvin Hamlisch for the film The Sting (1973). In 1979 Alan Rich in the New York Magazine wrote that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on record Nonesuch Records "created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival."
In August 1990, Rifkin recorded a CD for the Decca label (catalog number 425 225) featuring rags by two of the other major composers of ragtime, Joseph Lamb and James Scott, and also tango compositions by the Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth.
{snip}
Joshua Rifkin (born April 22, 1944 in New York) is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist, currently a Professor of Music at Boston University. As a performer he has recorded music by composers from Antoine Busnois to Silvestre Revueltas, and as a scholar has published research on composers from the Renaissance to the 20th century. He is famed among classical musicians and aficionados for his increasingly influential theory that most of Bach's choral works were sung with only one singer per choral line. Rifkin argued: "So long as we define 'chorus' in the conventional modern sense, then Bach's chorus, with few exceptions, simply did not exist." He is best known by the general public, however, for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s, with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records.
{snip}
Rifkin and Joplin
A 1901 edition of Joplin's work
Rifkin's Joplin albums (the first of which was Scott Joplin: Piano Rags in November 1970 on the classical label Nonesuch)—which were presented as classical music recordings—were critically acclaimed, commercially successful and led to other artists exploring the ragtime genre. It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. The Billboard "Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for September 28, 1974 has the record at No. 5, with the follow-up "Volume 2" at No. 4, and a combined set of both volumes at No. 3. Separately both volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks. The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award categories: Best Album Notes and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra), but at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category. Rifkin's work as a revivalist of Joplin's work immediately preceded the adaptation of Joplin's music by Marvin Hamlisch for the film The Sting (1973). In 1979 Alan Rich in the New York Magazine wrote that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on record Nonesuch Records "created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival."
In August 1990, Rifkin recorded a CD for the Decca label (catalog number 425 225) featuring rags by two of the other major composers of ragtime, Joseph Lamb and James Scott, and also tango compositions by the Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth.
{snip}
Scott Joplin: Piano Rags
CD re-release cover (artwork as on the LP)
Studio album by Joshua Rifkin
Released: November 1970
Genre: Ragtime
Length: 32:40
Label: Nonesuch Records
Scott Joplin: Piano Rags is a 1970 ragtime piano album, consisting of compositions by Scott Joplin played by Joshua Rifkin, on the Nonesuch Records label. The original album's cover states the name as Piano Rags by Scott Joplin, as contrasting the album's spine. The record is considered to have been the first to reintroduce the music of pianist and composer Joplin in the early 1970s. It was Nonesuch Records' first million-selling album.
{snip}
CD re-release cover (artwork as on the LP)
Studio album by Joshua Rifkin
Released: November 1970
Genre: Ragtime
Length: 32:40
Label: Nonesuch Records
Scott Joplin: Piano Rags is a 1970 ragtime piano album, consisting of compositions by Scott Joplin played by Joshua Rifkin, on the Nonesuch Records label. The original album's cover states the name as Piano Rags by Scott Joplin, as contrasting the album's spine. The record is considered to have been the first to reintroduce the music of pianist and composer Joplin in the early 1970s. It was Nonesuch Records' first million-selling album.
{snip}
I didn't hear of the album at the time. It wasn't until about 1973 or 1974, after Treemonisha had been revived, that Scott Joplin flew onto my radar.
In this rare video, Joshua Rifkin sits down to play at just about 32:08.
A Ragtime Symposium at Jazz at Lincoln Center
9,778 views • Nov 18, 2017
Jazz at Lincoln Center's JAZZ ACADEMY
186K subscribers
Hosted by Terry Waldo, featuring Max Morath, Joshua Rifkin, Mike Lipskin, and Dick Hyman.
Learn more at the Jazz Academy - http://academy.jazz.org
9,778 views • Nov 18, 2017
Jazz at Lincoln Center's JAZZ ACADEMY
186K subscribers
Hosted by Terry Waldo, featuring Max Morath, Joshua Rifkin, Mike Lipskin, and Dick Hyman.
Learn more at the Jazz Academy - http://academy.jazz.org
Dan LaCourse
1 year ago
This is the only live recording I've seen of Rifkin. I think his playing here is even better than on the Nonesuch recordings.
1 year ago
This is the only live recording I've seen of Rifkin. I think his playing here is even better than on the Nonesuch recordings.
Fri Nov 24, 2023: On this day, November 24, 1868, Scott Joplin was born.
Fri Apr 22, 2022: On this day, April 22, 1944, Joshua Rifkin was born.
Thu Apr 22, 2021: On this day, April 22, 1944, Joshua Rifkin was born.
1 replies
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