Scott Joplin

The great American composer Scott Joplin (1868-1917) was born near Marshall, Texas around 1868. The son of a former slave and a freeborn black woman, Joplin was a remarkably ambitious and creative musician who worked tirelessly throughout his career to expand the formal and expressive possibilities of the ragtime idiom. His most successful piece was the celebrated Maple Leaf Rag (1899), which became the first million-seller in American music history.

Also written in 1899, The Ragtime Dance was intended as a staged dance piece, in effect a "ragtime ballet." Joplin had a great deal of trouble getting the piece produced, and even had difficulty in getting his publisher, John Stark, to issue the piece; Stark felt it was too arcane! The "foot stomp" section is generally regarded as the first notated example of "stop time," which later became an important jazz device. In this case, the improvisers were dancers, who were expected to improvise fancy steps during the breaks.

Bethena. A Concert Waltz (1905) is an interesting example of the scope of ragtime repertoire; the persistent syncopations of this waltz place it in the category of the "ragtime waltz," a genre at least ten years old in 1905, when Bethena was issued. What sets this waltz apart are its unusually sophisticated harmonies and modulations, clearly emulating the techniques of European art music, and showing Joplin's determination to sophisticate his ragtime idiom.

Elite Syncopations (1902) shows Joplin boldly expanding the possibilities of syncopation in different directions, three years after he created the mold for classic rags with Maple Leaf .

Wall Street Rag, with its even more sophisticated and futuristic harmonies and rhythms, is generally regarded as the first of his "experimental" pieces. It's also unusual for the program that is printed above each of the four sections of the work:
(1) Panic in Wall Street, brokers feeling melancholy
(2) Good Times coming
(3) Good Times have come
(4) Listening to the strains of genuine Negro ragtime, brokers forget their cares.

Notes by Roy Wiseman