A style of popular music, chiefly American, that flourished from about 1896 to 1918. Its main identifying trait is its ragged or syncopated rhythm. While today it is most commonly thought of as a piano style, during the ragtime period the term also referred to other instrumental music, to vocal music and to dance. The best instrumental ragtime pieces manifested sophisticated musical thought and demanded considerable technical facility of a performer for their fullest realization. Ragtime songs, on the other hand, were generally less concerned with musical values, designed as they were to reach a large and undiscriminating audience.
EDWARD A. BERLIN
Improvisation was common in ragtime, but little of this has been preserved. Our information comes primarily from non-improvised performances on recordings and piano rolls and from published sheet music, sources that reveal a notable standardization of musical tracts. The characteristic syncopated rhythm of ragtime was grafted onto an existing stock of conventions associated with the duple-metre march and two-step. While these conventions are themselves unremarkable, an understanding of their application to ragtime provides a useful vantage point for viewing the musical character of ragtime and its relation to other genres of the time.
Virtually all rags conceived as instrumental pieces follow the formal concept established by earlier duple- and quadruple-metre dances: the march, two-step, polka and schottische. These dances comprised three or more independent 16-bar themes, each divided into periods of four four-bar phrases and arranged in patterns of repeats and reprises. Typical patterns were AABBACCC', AABBCCDD and AABBCCA, with the first two strains in the tonic key and the following strains, known as the ‘trio’, in the subdominant. Common additions or interpolations to the form included a four-bar introduction, a four-bar introduction to the trio, and an interlude between trio themes (or their repeats or variants) consisting most often of four or eight bars, but extending at times to 24 bars in length. Most rags are in the major mode, but when the first strain begins in a minor key, the second is usually in the relative major and the trio in the subdominant of the relative major.
The rhythmic conventions of ragtime were far less rigid than those of form. While rhythmic stereotypes were essential to ragtime's identity, departures from those stereotypes were used to impart individuality. Most rags were written in 2/4 or 4/4. As a general rule, the left-hand part reinforced the metre with a regular alternation of low bass notes or octaves on the beat (or on the strong beats in 4/4) with mid-range chords between. Frequent exceptions included successive octaves, successive mid-range chords, syncopations mirroring the right-hand part, or habanera- or tango-like syncopations. More sophisticated ragtime composers sometimes wrote bass lines of melodic interest. The right-hand part generally provided a melody combining even, march-like rhythms and uneven syncopations. Several rhythmic configurations typical of ragtime are shown in ex.1. The rhythm in ex.1a, in which either half of a bar may be syncopated independently, is found throughout the period but predominated during the early years, especially in pieces termed ‘cakewalk’. Ex.1b, an augmented form of the syncopated half of ex.1a, was also prominent in cakewalks, but quickly lost importance after the turn of the century. In ex.1c the syncopation occurs over the centre of the bar; this figure is occasionally found in rags of the 1890s, but after the turn of the century it gradually became ragtime's most typical trait. The rhythm in ex.1d, termed ‘secondary ragtime’, is notable for being unsyncopated; however, as a repeating three-note melodic pattern superimposed on a duple metre, it creates shifting accents. It was rare before 1906, but quickly gained in popularity thereafter, becoming a cliché by 1910. Dotted notes (exx.1e and 1f) were not considered typical of ragtime until the 1910s, when they gradually found acceptance as ragtime became associated with the foxtrot and other dances making use of such dotted rhythms.
The most important element of ragtime, the rhythmic syncopation that distinguishes it from other contemporary dance music, was recognized as a general trait of African-American music. It was commented upon by various 19th-century writers in reference to performances of vocal and instrumental music by Blacks and was disseminated and mimicked as a stereotype in blackface minstrelsy. By the late 1880s march-patrols for the minstrel stage with syncopated, ragtime-like rhythms were being published in New York, and blackface minstrels in various parts of the country were syncopating songs in a ragtime manner. The conception that ragtime was associated with Blacks became an underlying cause of much criticism directed towards the music.
A signal event in bringing ragtime to a large audience was the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. As the grandest exposition in American history up to that time, it was attended by more than 20 million people, including such ragtime pioneers as Ben Harney, Scott Joplin, Johnny Seamore (or Seymour, a pianist to whom the minstrel entertainer Shep Edmonds referred as ‘the father of ragtime’) and Jesse Pickett. Whether these and dozens of other black musicians actually performed within the fairgrounds or in the surrounding areas is not known, but countless visitors were reportedly thrilled by the jubilant sounds of this ‘new’ – and perhaps still nameless – syncopated music. Consequently, as ragtime spread throughout the USA in the following years, the Chicago World's Fair was frequently cited as its place of origin. The only rag specifically associated with the fair, and thus the earliest known rag, is Jesse Pickett's The Dream. It was not published, but as recorded by Eubie Blake, who learned it from Pickett in 1896, The Dream has a syncopated, habanera-like bass, which may confirm Ben Harney's claim in 1897 that one source of ragtime was Latin-American music.
The earliest known printed use of the term ‘rag’ is in black, Kansas newspapers from 1894, with reference to both dance and piano styles. In 1896, rag appeared in sheet music to describe syncopated arrangements of ‘coon songs’, and in 1897 it found its way to the titles of instrumental pieces. The first such instrumental rag was The Mississippi Rag, a patrol in the minstrel style by the bandleader William H. Krell. Several ragtime patrols by other composers followed, but the instrumental style that dominated the late 1890s was the Cakewalk.
The cakewalk dance, derived from plantation dances performed by black slaves, had become popular in the early 1890s as a theatrical presentation and as a ballroom dance. The music as published was usually unsyncopated, but from 1897 it assumed the syncopations associated with ragtime. More than 100 cakewalks were published between 1897 and 1900, most with descriptive labels such as ‘cake walk march’, ‘two-step’, and ‘ragtime cake walk’. Among the best known were Kerry Mills's At a Georgia Camp Meeting (1897) and Abe Holzmann's Smoky Mokes (1899). These works appeared in the repertory of such notable bands as that of John Philip Sousa, and were performed both in the USA and in Europe. (One example of the influence of the syncopated cakewalk in Europe was Debussy's Golliwogg's Cake-Walk, 1908.)
Concurrent with the cakewalk was a style of ragtime that was both more pianistic and had a richer rhythmic language, making prominent use of syncopation over the centre of the bar. An outstanding early example is Harlem Rag (1897) by the St Louis saloonkeeper Tom Turpin (see ex.2), the first black composer to publish instrumental ragtime. His music shows a sophistication and stylistic maturity far beyond that of the contemporary cakewalks, suggesting that, for him, ragtime had long been a familiar language. Turpin's saloon, the Rosebud Bar, was a centre for ragtime players in St Louis. Composers associated with him (the most prominent being Joplin, whose The Rosebud March of 1905 was dedicated to Turpin) are grouped by some modern writers in a loosely defined school known as ‘classic’ or ‘St Louis’ ragtime composers. Neither of these interchangeable terms really refers to a school in a stylistic or chronological sense, since the classic composers manifested diverse styles and were active from the 1890s to the early 1920s. Nor is there agreement as to the membership of the school apart from Joplin and his colleagues and associates, including James Scott and the Eastern white composer Joseph F. Lamb. There is no doubt, however, that most classic ragtimers wrote ragtime of a superior quality.
During the first decade of the 20th century the term classic ragtime had a more precise meaning. It was at this time that the publisher John Stark (who issued works by Joplin, Lamb, Scott, Artie Matthews, Paul Pratt and J. Russel Robinson, among others) began to advertise his publications as classic rags, comparing their quality to that of European art music. Joplin, when dealing later with other publishers, retained the term classic for his works as an expression of his artistic aspirations. May Aufderheide of Indianapolis, a composer not associated with Stark, adopted the term for her own Joplin-influenced compositions. Historically then, classic ragtime referred to rags composed by Joplin, by Aufderheide and those published by Stark.
Despite the central position today of classic ragtime, the term was not widely known during the ragtime years and its recognition was limited. Notwithstanding the phenomenal success of Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag (1899; see illustration), classic compositions were less popular with the public than the simpler, more accessible rags of such figures as Ted Snyder, Percy Wenrich, Henry Lodge, Charles L. Johnson and George Botsford. It was Johnson's Dill Pickles (1906) that popularized the secondary rag figure; this was quickly adopted by Botsford and others, becoming a standard ragtime figuration before the decade was out (see ex.3).
Major accretions to the ragtime language developed in the 1910s. The new dance styles added dotted notes, at first in syncopated formations but eventually, in the last years of the period, also without syncopation. A second important development was the blues. Blue notes had long been idiomatic to some ragtime composers, and the 12-bar blues progression appeared in rag strains as early as 1904 (One o' Them Things, by James Chapman and Leroy Smith). But the publication of W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues (subtitled ‘A Southern Rag’) in 1912 brought blues into the popular ragtime mainstream. Thereafter, ragtime-blues hybrids were common.
With Harlem ‘stride’ ragtime (see Stride) came changes equally significant, although because of the virtuoso demands of the style they were less widespread. Stride was developed in New York in the 1910s by such pianists as Eubie Blake, Luckey Roberts and James P. Johnson. As revealed in their few (and simplified) publications during the ragtime years, in piano rolls made in the late 1910s, and in recordings from the early 1920s, they expanded the stereotyped rhythmic language of ragtime and fostered tempos considerably faster than those of dance-oriented rags. Their stride style was a direct forebear of later jazz piano styles.
Ragtime declined in popularity during the late 1910s and, by the end of World War I, had been replaced by jazz (see Jazz, §2), the new American syncopated popular music. The change was at first primarily one of terminology; musically there was no distinct break, and many ragtime musicians, including Jelly Roll Morton and Robinson, merely began to call themselves jazz musicians.
Some modern writers extend the ragtime period into the 1920s and 30s, referring to the styles of popular piano composition of those decades as novelty ragtime. This is a modern term dating from the early 1970s, and has little historical justification. By the 1920s ragtime was outmoded both as a style and as a term, and popular piano styles were called either jazz or Novelty piano.
Many types of popular song current during the ragtime era, including coon songs and blues, were referred to as ragtime songs. This music was more familiar to the general public than instrumental ragtime. The first of these song types, the racially denigrating Coon song, came to prominence in the 1890s. Important early examples are The Bully Song (1895) by Charles E. Trevathan and Harney's Mister Johnson turn me loose (1896), both becoming popular after interpolations by May Irwin in Broadway musicals. While most ragtime coon songs were soon forgotten, a few are still familiar today, such as A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight (1896) by Theodore Metz, Hello! Ma Baby (1899) by Joe Howard and Ida Emerson, and Bill Bailey, won't you please come home? (1902) by Hughie Cannon. Black composers and lyricists also contributed to the repertory, their offerings frequently amounting to a racial self-mockery. The black community, at first accepting of coon songs, gradually turned against the style, especially songs with offensive lyrics. But the rejection of the black dialect song was not total; some prominent spokesmen argued that non-disparaging dialect lyrics were a cultural heritage to be treasured and preserved. Artistically, the genre reached its peak in the dialect songs of black songwriting teams such as Bob Cole and the brothers J. Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson (Under the Bamboo Tree, 1902) and Will Marion Cook and Paul Laurence Dunbar (Darktown is out tonight, 1898). Between 1905 and 1910 the ragtime song gradually lost its exclusively racial character, and any American popular song of a strongly rhythmic nature was apt to bear the description ragtime. Thus typical representatives of ragtime songs were That Ragtime Suffragette (music by N. Ayer, 1910), Ragtime Cowboy Joe (L.F. Muir and M. Abrahams, 1912), Waiting for the Robert E Lee (Muir, 1912), and Irving Berlin's Alexander's Ragtime Band (1911). The last-named song, though virtually unsyncopated, was viewed by many of the public as the greatest of ragtime hits, and probably influenced the acceptance of nonsyncopated ragtime. Blues, already a part of the ragtime style, became a recognized sub-genre after the success of Handy’s Memphis Blues in 1912. The use of the term ragtime became increasingly pervasive and indiscriminate until, around the time of World War I, it was replaced by the new catchword, jazz.
Distinctions between ragtime songs and instrumental ragtime pieces are usually considerable, for the songs adhere less consistently to the principles of ragtime syncopation and are generally cast in a two-part verse–chorus pattern. Overlaps between the categories, however, are also significant. Developments in one were quickly adapted for the other: songs were routinely performed in instrumental versions, song choruses were frequently appended as final strains to early instrumental rags, and many works were published both as instrumental pieces and as songs (true even of the most famous of instrumental rags, Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag of 1899, which was published in a song version in 1903). However, despite their many points of convergence, the historical paths of instrumental and vocal ragtime remained distinct; the instrumental rag led inexorably to instrumental jazz, while the ragtime song merged with other American popular song forms (see Popular music, §I, 3).
Ragtime has passed through several stages of revived interest. The first was in the 1940s, during the revival of traditional or dixieland jazz, whose foremost exponent, Lu Watters, included many forgotten piano rags in his band's repertory. By the end of the decade Pee Wee Hunt's recording (1948) of Euday Bowman's 12th Street Rag was a bestseller. Complementing the efforts of performers was Blesh and Janis's book They All Played Ragtime (1950), the first historical study of the genre, which elevated classic ragtime to a place of honour among a newly developed audience. Throughout most of the 1950s ragtime was presented as a novelty – a brittle honkytonk piano music – by such performers as Joe ‘Fingers’ Carr (Lou Busch) and Crazy Otto (Johnny Maddox). A broader view was offered by Max Morath in a succession of television and theatre productions (beginning in 1959) that portrayed ragtime in its social context; and Eubie Blake, at an advanced age, came to prominence as a leading rag pianist and lecturer.
In the 1960s ragtime acquired a small but active coterie of aficionados who formed organizations and assiduously collected, researched and performed the music. But it was the attention of several classical and academic musicians and scholars, focussing primarily on the works of Joplin, that spurred the ragtime explosion of the 1970s. A classically orientated recording of piano music by Joshua Rifkin (1970), a recording of works for a 12-piece ensemble conducted by Gunther Schuller (1973), and a two-volume collection of Joplin's music published by the New York Public Library (1971) brought ragtime to the attention of performers and scholars in the classical music world. From these sources Joplin's music reached Hollywood, and was used in the highly popular film The Sting (1973). A number of collected editions of piano rags also appeared in the 1970s, making the music, which had long been out-of-print and had become rare, now available to performers. As a result of these events, a music several generations old was again popular and found itself anachronistically positioned alongside current rock hits on the surveys of best-selling popular music. This revitalized interest unleashed a flood of performances, inspired such composers as William Bolcom and William Albright to merge ragtime and modern idioms, and opened a new field in American musical scholarship.
E.B. Marks and A.J. Liebling: They All Sang, from Tony Pastor to Rudy Valee (New York, 1934)
W. Sargeant: Jazz Hot and Hybrid (New York, 1938, 3/1975)
I. Witmark and I. Goldberg: The Story of the House of Witmark: from Ragtime to Swingtime(New York, 1939)
R. Blesh and H. Janis: They All Played Ragtime (New York, 1950, rev. 4/1971)
A. Lomax: Mister Jelly Roll: the Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton (New York, 1950)
T. Fletcher: 100 Years of the Negro in Show Business (New York, 1954)
Ragtimer (1962–86)
Ragtime Review (Jan 1963–April1966)
W. Smith and G. Hoefer: Music on My Mind: the Memoirs of an American Pianist (New York, 1964)
P. Bradford: Born with the Blues (New York, 1965)
Rag Times (Grass Valley, CA, 1967–)
E.S. and S. Walker: English Ragtime: a Discography (Woodthorpe, Mastin Moor, Derbyshire, England, 1971)
D. Jasen: Recorded Ragtime 1897–1958 (Hampden, CT, 1973) [discography]
R. Kimball and W. Bolcom: Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake (New York, 1973)
W.J. Schafer and J. Riedel: The Art of Ragtime (Baton Rouge, LA, 1973/R)
T. Waldo: This is Ragtime (New York, 1976)
J. Scotti: Joe Lamb: a Study of Ragtime’s Paradox (diss., U. of Cincinnati, 1977)
E.A. Berlin: ‘Ragtime and Improvised Piano: Another View’, Journal of Jazz Studies, iv/2 (1977), 4–10
D. Jasen and T.J. Tichenor: Rags and Ragtime: a Musical History (New York, 1978)
A. Rose: Eubie Blake (New York, 1979)
E.A. Berlin: Ragtime: a Musical and Cultural History (Berkeley, CA, 1980/R1984 with addenda)
J.E. Hasse: The Creation and Dissemination of Indianapolis Ragtime, 1897–1930 (diss., Indiana U., 1982)
J.E. Hasse, ed.: Ragtime: its History, Composers, and Music (New York, 1985)
D.L. Joyner: Southern Ragtime and its Transition to Published Blues (diss., Memphis State U., 1986)
E.A. Berlin: Reflections and Research on Ragtime (New York, 1987)
T.L. Riis: Just Before Jazz: Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890–1915 (Washington, 1989)
E.A. Berlin: ‘On Ragtime: Understanding the Language’, CBMR Digest, iii/3 (1990), 6–7
E.A. Berlin: ‘On Ragtime and the Church’, CBMR Digest, iv/2 (1991), 6–7
W.H. Kenney: ‘James Scott and the Culture of Classic Ragtime’, American Music, ix/2 (1991), 149–82
E.A. Berlin: King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and his Era (New York, 1994/R)
E.A. Berlin: ‘On Ragtime: That International Rag’, CBMR Digest, vii/2 (1994), 3–4
R. Badger: A Life of Ragtime: a Biography of James Reese Europe (New York, 1995)
R. Winter: Crazy for Ragtime, CD-ROM, Calliope Media (Santa Monica, CA, 1996)
C. Hamm: Irving Berlin: Songs from the Melting Pot: the Formative Years, 1907–1914( New York, 1997)
D. Seroff and L. Abbott: ‘The Origins of Ragtime’, 78 Quarterly, no.10 (1999), 121–43