ragtime from an old ragtime piano player in New Orleans that was a real stickler for playing it the right way. Big Marv tells the story:
I was in High School when I met Clyde Merskin when he played with a band that was the house band of a gin joint. I was underage, but I knew the owners and all the employees and they'd let me in to hear the music, and told me if they ever caught anybody buying me alcohol they'd throw my ass out. Tellin' ya, I was way more into music than booze, so I'd just sip on a sody pop. Anyway, I knew Clyde gave lessons and I asked him if he'd give me some. He agreed, and he told me before my first lesson I needed to get a copy of a small booklet called 'The School Of Ragtime' by none other than Scott Joplin! Clyde told me that ragtime was one of the beginnings of all jazz and modern popular music, and that a lot of players didn't play it like Joplin wanted it played. He went on ranting about that for a while, so I knew it stuck in his craw. I found an old beat up copy of it in the library (this was way before the internet) and studied the six exercises and commentary. Joplin wrote it to help players get the style down, as at the time it was something new.
I learned one of Joplin's rags for my first lesson too, the same one I play on this recording, Elite Syncopations. I thought I was gonna wow old Clyde, but I hadn't got four bars into it when he stopped me. He had a pencil in his hand, and he made me play the syncopations hands alone while he tapped out the tempo. We did that for the entire lesson, didn't get much further along than the first 12 bars. Now I had heard Clyde play plenty of times, never remembered him being so rhythmically strict. But he told me I had to crawl before I could walk. So it's sunk into my head how to play a Joplin rag with respect towards the composer's wishes. Get that rhythm and that hesitating pulse of ragtime right on the button! Strict time! Some other rag composer's rags I give myself more leeway in, but as for a Joplin rag, no way!
