Wednesday, July 31, 2019

A tale of two ragtime festivals (Part 2)

Just going on how the Saturday session of this year's Ragtime to Riches Festival went, I had high hopes about the Sunday leg- the 7-14-2019 turn at Omaha's First Central Congregational United Church of Christ.

In a nutshell, we didn't get the kind of crowd that assembled at the Pink Poodle Steakhouse the day before.

But all four of those who paid to come to see the First Central leg of R to R 2019 still had fun.

At 2:00 PM (Central time), I was supposed to give a workshop. 

I gave it, all right...but it wasn't the one I hoped to conduct.

Ever since last year, I've been wanting to showcase some of the work of four ragtime composers: Sadie Koninsky (1879-1952), Charlotte Blake (1885-1979), Julia Niebergall (1886-1968), and May Aufderheide (1888-1972).

I brought notes with me.

Yours truly forgot to bring sheet music.

So...I went the autobiographical route instead. (Next year, I want to build my concert around works like Sadie's "Eli Green's Cakewalk," Julia's "Hoosier Rag," May's "Dusty," and Charlotte's "That Poker Rag." And leave the workshop to another performer.)

Speaking of concert...Faye Ballard was the first to give one at this year's R to R.

Hers was a workshop in itself; the Champaign, IL native started her concert with favorites "The Entertainer," "Puttin' on the Ritz," "Sailin' Away on the Henry Clay," and "It Had to Be You."

The former University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana office manager put her tribute to ragdom's Big Three smack dab in the middle: Scott Joplin's "Pineapple Rag," James Scott's "Frog Legs Rag," and Joseph Lamb's "Cleopatra Rag." 

Faye went ahead and did one of May's followups to "Dusty" ("The Thriller") and followed it up with Adaline Shepherd's "Pickles and Peppers." "Raggity Rag" and "12th Street Rag" closed Faye's sixth R to R concert out.

Faye's mom, Erma, gave me the inspiration for my own concert.

Last year, Erma wanted to hear "Angry," a 1925 hit for a singer-pianist named Art Gillham, from me. I didn't have the sheet music with me at the time.

Fixed that here in 2019.

Matter of fact, my version of "Angry" led off a concert consisting of tunes whose titles have just one word apiece: Fellow 1925 hits "Cecilia" and "Collegiate," two compositions from 1927 ("Chloe" and a tune that somebody should've had a hit record with, "Beautiful"), 1920's "Margie," and two rags- Nellie M. Stokes' 1906 "Snowball" and another piece Scott J. came up with in 1902, "Cleopha." 

I felt better about my concert than my workshop, I'll tell you that. I'm glad the concert worked out.

Marty Mincer accompanying Buster Keaton's 1920 short, "One Week," worked out great.


We were hoping Erma and Faye would come back for the 7:00 PM showing of "One Week," and Marty vamped for a while so that the Two Ballards could see the film in its entirety.

Oh, well...

But the audience enjoyed "One Week..." as well as Marty's handling of the music.


The apple farmer from Hamburg, IA had time left in his set to fire off his version of "The Entertainer" before he took R to R 15.0 out in style with "The Stars and Stripes Forever."

Well...now it's back to the drawing board to get the word out about Ragtime to Riches 2020.

Hope you can make it!

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