Billed as the first published rag, Mississippi Rag is really no different from many of the tunes of its time, including, the ones called “cakewalks.” William H. Krell, a white bandleader from Chicağo, composed it from Neğro folk melodies he heard while touring the Mississippi Valley region It just oes to show that the rağ rhythm was already in the air in 1897 and accessible to the white musicians who had an ear for it. William Albright (b. 1944) gives a strong, straightforward performance of this early piece, emphasizing its banjo qualities much in the style of Louis Moreau
Gottschalk’s The Banjo. Without doubt the best white rağtime composer, Joseph F. Lamb (1887-1960) was a non-performer from Brooklyn who, on the surface, seemed to be singularly ill-equipped to take his place among the ragtime greats. But pieces like Ragtime Nightingale speak for themselves. Although Lamb claimed he was inspired by Ethelbert Nevin’s Nightingale Song, the ascending left hand at the beginning, is also reminiscent of Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude. Lamb wrote sometimes dense, often romantic, and always individual music in the style of his hero, Scott Joplin. Albright plays a strongly rubato version with more of the introspectiveness we heard in Gladiolus and the gentle, aesthetic approach of a salon piece by Nevin himself.
A Missouri native like Joplin, James Scott (1886-1938) ”big three” names in ragtime, with Joplin and Lamb. His work was technically difficult but not necessarily musically intricate. In Peace and Plenty, Scott presents none of the romance or moodiness of the other two greats, preferring to show instead a dazzling and metallic brightness glinting with sharp edges. Albright gives a powerful performance, meeting, the challenge to keep the rhythm going despite its stop-and-go quality He turns it into a show piece with his own embellishments.
Charleston Rag is a very exciting and difficult rag with an innovative, pre-boogie-woogie walking bass, written by a virtuoso for virtuosi. It is awesome to realize that Eubie Blake (1883-1983) wrote
Charleston when he was a kid of l6 who sneaked over the back fence from his mother’s respectable house to play piano at another sort of house in the Red Light district of Baltimore. Albright takes on this blockbuster with skill and aplomb.
Slippery Elm is a quiet, unassuming rag that Albright plays with a clean simplicity that matches the innocence of the tune. H. Clarence Woods (1888-1956) was a little-known white composer who also &ave us another bluesy beauty called Sleepy Hollow.
