What is Scott Joplin`s Place in American Music?

I`ve been listening to Scott Joplin rags this weekend, on an affordable label, Madacy. It`s 30 rags in a little tin box that cost only $7. This Collector`s Edition, with postcards done by the Creole Choctaw artist, Hambone, is at least in my price range. The recordings sound a little mechanical, like they might be old timey piano rolls. It includes his mega-hits, such as Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer. But the others are equally fun for me, like the Fig Leaf Rag, the Pineapple Rag and Sugar Cane.

Ragtime, for me, is a remote, archaic form of music. It`s very alien to me, even when I consider the history. It`s hard for me to see exactly what is so radical, so liberating about it? I have to study the period more, then a vague silhouette of its significance begins to emerge out of the haze. We have to remember that recorded music wasn`t around then (1900). A household piano, or parlor piano, played by learned house-matron (usually), may have been the only source of entertainment for many people.

Scott Joplin soaked up influences like a sponge. Gospel hymns, spirituals, dance music, plantation songs, syncopated rhythms, blues and even classical were incorporated into his songs. It`s said that improvisation is his strength, so this may be an ace up his sleeve that he passed on to our early jazz pioneers, like Jelly Roll Morton. What do you see as the key ingredient to Scott Joplin`s legacy? Did his rag The Entertainer cinch the film The Sting? Don`t be too silly now…

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