I often tell people that a lot of those musicians, people like Joe Jordan, were writing, you can hear, you can look at his ragtime pieces from 1903, and you hear him in 1929, his ragtime pieces in 1903 sound like music from 1903. It was jazz, but it was an early form of jazz. What I’ve realized is that ragtime was progressing to what maybe is called jazzed. And the chords, basically the chords are the basis for improvisation. Ragtime has a character where it has all these emotions that are in the music as you play it. Robinson:Additional Quotes from Reginald R. Listen and subscribe to Chicago Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.Īdditional Quotes from Reginald R. Ragtime artists full#“And I’ve uncovered some long-forgotten musicians.”īe sure to tune into the full episode as Reginald tells Mayor Emanuel about ragtime’s pivotal role in the history of Jazz, the highs and lows of his own career, Scott Joplin’s creative drive, and some of the lesser-known ragtime artists everyone should check out. “When you look at newspapers, you see where this composer, that song, is listed under their name,” Reginald said. To find who they were, Reginald has delved into newspapers from the day. Part of the reason is that - while some of their music had been recorded by popular singers - as composers they themselves weren’t given credit. “These are black musicians, they traveled around the country, even had music published and did theater, but they are long forgotten.” “What I’m really interested in is finding the unknown,” Reginald told Mayor Emanuel. In addition to being a performer and composer, Reginald has also become one of the country’s preeminent ragtime scholars. “I was so happy about that, because it was 88-keys,” Reginald recalled, “I was like, ‘man, I’m really going to teach myself.’” “I was not trying to be self-taught - I wanted a teacher - but my mom and dad couldn’t afford that,” Reginald told Mayor Emanuel.įortunately, Reginald’s mother was able to obtain a small keyboard for her son, and then later a full-sized piano. Yet, while Reginald is known for being self-taught artist, it wasn’t by design. Reginald also treated Mayor Emanuel to a rendition of one of his own works, “Sweet Envy.”īorn in 1972, Reginald grew up in Chicago’s West Side and South Side Neighborhoods, and first encountered ragtime after hearing Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” during a 7th-grade school presentation called “From Bach to Bebop.” Robinson to learn about his unlikely career as a self-taught artist, ragtime’s place in American music history, and what it was like to receive the MacArthur “Genius” grant. On this week’s episode of “Chicago Stories,” Mayor Emanuel welcomed ragtime pianist, composer, and scholar Reginald R.
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