Section from chapter 1895-1905: The Ragtime Era Begins   [ return to introduction ]

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By Mervyn Cooke • 325 illustrations,
82 in full color • 256 pages • 8-1/2 x 8-1/2"
Cloth • ISBN 0-7892-0399-5 • U.S. $45.00
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The title page of Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag (1899). [ view larger image ] (Reproduced from the collections of the Library of Congress, Washington)
Ragtime

The popularity of syncopation in black music of the 1890s is apparent in ragtime, which derives its name from the image of "ragged" rhythmic patterns. Unlike the blues (and unlike later jazz), ragtime was pre-composed and circulated in printed form. The genre reflected the higher musical aspirations of the new generation of black musicians seeking to broaden their horizons after emancipation: along with their widespread commercial success, composers of ragtime such as Scott Joplin ultimately hoped that they would create a new black American classical music.

The ragtime style first appeared in songs with banjo (later piano) accompaniment, but became famous when adapted for solo piano. Its pianistic origins lie in nineteenth-century salon music, especially in the work of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who based some of his pieces on slave melodies; its sectionalized, repetitive structures were borrowed from the march idiom popularized by John Philip Sousa, composer of The Stars and Stripes Forever. A typical ragtime texture consists of regular "oom-pah" patterns set up by the pianist’s left hand (sometimes termed "boom-chick" after the alternating bass-drum and cymbal strokes in march rhythm), over which the right hand plays a highly syncopated melodic line. The harmony of ragtime may seem tame when compared with classical music of the same era, but the importation of blue notes from the blues (• p. 27) marked the next important step toward the early jazz style.

Ragtime disappeared in the early 1920s when it was rapidly supplanted in popularity by New Orleans jazz, but it enjoyed revivals in the 1940s (• p. 116) and 1970s (• p. 180). It also directly spawned the most important of early jazz piano styles--the Harlem stride school (• p. 46) of the 1920s.