Rags and Research at
Scott Joplin House

by David Reffkin

A weekend of ragtime in the form of a panel discussion, concert and talk took place Sept. 13-14 at the Scott Joplin Historical Site in St. Louis, Mo. The two-day event opened with a discussion of several prepared questions formed by the House caretakers. As director of The American Ragtime Ensemble, I was a participant in a panel of historians which included Joplin biographer Ed Berlin and pianists Dick Zimmerman and Trebor Tichenor. The prepared questions and those asked by the  audience covered the status of research into Joplin's life and family members, the effect of the revival in recent decades, information yet to be found, and the finer points of interest concerning performance styles and composition of new rags.

An evening concert featured a segment by pianist Dick Zimmerman and another by me on violin, accompanied by Dave Majchrzak. Majchrzak is head of the Friends of Scott Joplin, an organization in St. Louis that partly produced the event. Some of the music was specifically selected to highlight ragtime history in St. Louis. Zimmerman is in the midst of production of a folio to accompany his Gems of St. Louis Ragtime recording. I played a variety of little-known rags, blues and other pieces directly descended from the ragtime era, showing some of its lineage to modern times, and I also included pieces by Joplin and Joe Lamb.

The Sunday morning event, a gathering at the gravesite of Louis Chauvin, was cancelled due to hurricane-related weather. (Chauvin's hard luck just does not stop.) Ed Berlin delivered a talk in the afternoon on his continued research on Joplin, titled "The Scott Joplin Biography: Recent Discoveries and Stories I Was Afraid to Tell."

Among the crowd at these events were some distinguished guests as well, including one of the creators of the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival, Larry Melton, with his wife, Karen. The full house turnout included a number of members of the Friends organization, and others from out of town who could not pass up this unique opportunity, weather or not.

October 2008 issue | © 2008 The Mississippi Rag

P.O. Box 19068, Minneapolis, MN 55419.