The Ragtime Skedaddlers - Supreme String Band Ragtime

Sheet music front

Ragtime had its heyday at the dawn of the 20th century, it was the popular music of the time and ragtime composers were busy and had success publishing new ragtime scores that were in great demand by performing musicians as well as amateurs looking for suitable sheet music for home entertainment. An example of a popular ragtime piece from the period is the shown A Ragtime Skedaddle by George Rosey ( - a pseudonym for George M. Rosenberg) that was published in 1899, the same year as Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag. The sheet front subtitles the piece 'March and Cake Walk' pointing to the musical form and further to its proper use as accompaniment to performance of the cake walk, a popular social dance fad of the time.

Sheet front detail (click to enlarge)

If you take a closer look at the sheet front (- a free downloadable copy of the original piano score is available here), you can notice that the piece was available for purchase in various arrangements (se detail above). The standard score of course was designated for piano, but you had also the possibility to buy arrangements for banjo solo, full orchestra and various string band combinations featuring mandolin and guitar. Today ragtime is considered a musical genre performed by a solo piano player, but fact is that  when scores like A Ragtime Skedaddle were published, other instruments were just 

as usual for performance of the music. 'The King of Banjo', Sylvester 'Vess' L. Ossman , recorded the piece the same year it was published and had success with his version as a banjo solo

Sylvester 'Vess' L. Ossman (1868 - 1923) was one of the first popular banjoists to make cylinders and records. Beginning with his first cylinder recording in 1893,  his fame was spread far and wide through his thousands of recordings of popular ragtime and marches. He performed extensively in England as well as the USA. Later in his career, he led his own dance bands in Ohio and Indiana. - A selection of Ossman's recordings is available in streaming audio here 

Vess Ossman, The King of Banjo

A contemporary string ragtime trio from San Francisco has taken its name from George Rosey's popular piece and presents themselves as The Ragtime Skedaddlers.

The Ragtime Skedaddlers, l-r: Mike Schwartz, Dennis Pash,  Nick Robinson

The Ragtime Skedaddlers are Dennis Pash on banjo-mandolin, Nick Robinson on mandolin, and Mike Schwartz on guitar (formerly Dave Krinkel). They play rags, cakewalks, marches, waltzes, and latin-tinge pieces from vintage mandolin and guitar sheet music arrangements. The trio has released three full albums, all available in streaming audio and for purchase here. The latest is approbiately titled The Latest Popular Mandolin and Guitar Music and gives an excellent impression of the repertoire performed by the trio.

CD front sleve illustration (2014)

From a review of one of the albums by The Ragtime Skedaddlers (- accessible here) I like to quote the following:

"Using arrangements published during the ragtime era, the Ragtime Skedaddlers continue the tradition of ragtime string bands. (-) Unlike other “traditional” groups who take their inspiration from various notions of New Orleans jazz or Chicago jazz, the Skedaddlers go back to a time when string ragtime, light-hearted yet propulsive, was America’s true popular music.(-) This trio doesn’t speed up or approach the music with either clownish levity or undue scholarly seriousness. Rather, they are old-fashioned melodists, creating sweet lines that arch and tumble over one another in mid-air. (-) The Skedaddlers are entrancing on their own, and a delightful change from the often heavy ensembles so prevalent in occasions of this sort."

To support this precise description of The Ragtime Skedaddlers, I'll insert some examples of the trio's live performance that have been uploaded at YouTube. - Here is first the trio's version of George Rosey's A Ragtime Skedaddle 

In this video recorded in 2010, Dave Krinkel on guitar was a member of the trio, he is also featured in the next, recorded at at private party in 2013 when The Ragtime Skedaddlers among other pieces also performed an excellent version of Ernesto Nazareth's maxixe titled Dengozo (published 1907)

From the same party session the trio also performed Scott Joplin's Peacherine Rag (published 1901)

To end this small presentation of The Ragtime Skedaddlers, here is the trio's performance of Henry Lodge's Temptation Rag recorded at the Mandolin Symposition earlier this year, Mike Schwartz is the featured guitarist in this video

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Jo

keepitswinging.domain@gmail.com

Retrospect Keep Swinging (old) Oscar Aleman Choro Music Flexible Records Hit of the Week-Durium Friends of the Keep Swinging blog Keep Swinging Contributions

The Entertainer - HAMADA Takasi, Contemporary Ragtime Guitarist

Sheet music front page

Ragtime dawned in the USA in the late 19th Century as a style of popular music influenced by European classical tradition as well as African rhythm. One of the trademarks of ragtime is syncopation, a characteristic 'delay' in the rhythm pattern generating a certain pulse to the melody line, which is a normal feature in African music - and in jazz. Ragtime was primarily composed by piano players, and today ragtime music is best remembered through the works of ragtime composer-pianists like Scott Joplin, James Scott, Arthur Marshall, Joseph Lamb a.o. - pioneers of the classic ragtime repertoire.

At a time before gramophones, records, radio and modern mass media ragtime became popular in the public through published sheet music scores designated for piano players and home entertainment, however, ragtime was also often performed by brass bands performing in street parades, at sport games and other public events. A branch of ragtime performance was offered by virtuosic banjo players, who played classic ragtime pieces on 5-string banjo in concert, and stringbands composed of various string instruments also performed ragtime music in tent shows and at private parties helping to spread the music to a broad audience and making ragtime a hype that put the swing to things in the era before The Jazz Age of the 1920s.

The public taste gradually changed after WW 1 with the emergence of jazz and other popular genres, however, ragtime never disappeared, but was rediscovered from time to time during the 20th Century. In the 1970s, a very popular movie, 'The Sting', used music by Scott Joplin in the soundtrack and generated a renewed interest for Joplin and ragtime. This time guitar players were also attracted to the music and a selection of the classic rags by Joplin and other ragtime composers were transcribed for solo guitar and mostly performed in the folk club circuit and released on LP records. Ragtime played on solo guitar is a challenging experience and demands great technical skills  - a contemporary master of ragtime guitar shows off the needed dexterity in a performance of Scott Joplin's popular rag, 'The Entertainer'


The featured guitarist in the video is HAMADA Takasi, a Japanese guitar player (b.1964) from Otaru City, Hokkaido Island, Japan. He has specialized in ragtime and ragtime influenced music, and he has transcribed both classic ragtime compositions by Scott Joplin and others for solo guitar and furthermore contributed with several of his own compositions in the ragtime genre. His guitar style is quite unique. He can play in standard tuning, but more often he plays in a special "Otarunay-Tuning" (EbAbCFCEb : 6 to 1) that fits well for arranging piano rags for solo guitar. More info on HAMADA Takasi at his website in English, here

HAMADA Takasi (source: YouTube)

HAMADA Takasi has released several CDs since 1992 featuring both own compositions and compositions by well known American ragtime artists, a selection of his CDs are available for purchase here . - Below I'll insert more examples of his magnificent playing from the videos he has uploaded at YouTube. 

Here is first HAMADA Takasi playing a popular, modern ragtime piece composed by David Thomas Roberts - 'Roberto Clemente'

Last year HAMADA Takasi released his latest CD, Tanne Nay, containing sixteen compositions of solo guitar pieces, from original ragtime to tango, blues, ballad, caprice, including 2 rag-medleys by Blind Boone.

CD front: Tanne Nay (Otarunay Records, OTR-033)

One of the featured original ragtime compositions on the Tanne Nay CD is 'Merry's Fish Market', here performed live in a video recording

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If you like contemporary solo guitar playing of high standard, I recommend HAMADA Takasi's recordings, his skills both as a composer and as a musician are unique. To end this small presentation, I'll insert the uploaded audio track of the title composition from 'Tanne Nay' - a modern classic rag by HAMADA Takasi   

The Tanne Nay CD is available for purchase here

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Jo

keepitswinging.domain@gmail.com

Retrospect Keep Swinging (old) Oscar Aleman Choro Music Flexible Records Hit of the Week-Durium Friends of the Keep Swinging blog Keep Swinging Contributions