If that's what you believe, you should've come to Omaha's First Central Congregational United Church of Christ on 7-12-2015...the day of the eleventh annual Ragtime to Riches Festival.
More about that later.
But first of all...it started with a heckler.
He came into the church's Memorial Hall at about 1:30 PM (Central time); he announced that he was trying to cool off. (It was 95 degrees Fahrenheit here in Omaha at that time that Sunday.)
At that time, Nick Holle (who codirected the 2012 documentary movie "The Entertainers"), Faye Ballard (one of the movie's stars), Daniel Souvigny (old-time piano's newest star), Danny's mom Vicky, and Marc May (nope, football fans, not the one from ESPN; I'm talking about a local free-lance photographer I play alongside in our church's praise band) were in the building with me.
Daniel (one of Faye's students, by the way) was warming up on both R to R pianos- that battle-tested turn-of-the-20th-Century Anderson & Newton upright as well as a brand-new, 2015 Yamaha grand brought in to replace the church's 1920s Mason & Hamlin grand.
Heckler heard Daniel go to town on one piano after the other...then wondered out loud: "Who's that?"
The question-and-answer session continued after Vicky, Faye, and Daniel left to get a bite to eat. Eventually, the questions began to get personal. (One of those was directed at me after Heckler took a look at the cover of one of my CDs: "Did you lose weight?")
Yes, I did. I'd lost weight since December of 2011...when my profile picture was taken.
Take a look at that profile pic. It was snapped at an antiques shop in Omaha's Old Market.
The store had concrete walls, and I was in the Old Market on a cold day...and concrete walls just don't do a good job of keeping the cold out.
To beat all of that, I had on five layers of clothing.
Too bad Mr. Heckler couldn't think about that.
And the Man Who Wanted to Beat the Heat was becoming the Smart Aleck in the Room.
So...it became 1:55 PM. In five minutes, R to R 11.0 would officially begin.
Heckler hadn't made up his mind yet.
I told him: "You can either stay and pay the $10 (admission) or you can leave."
Mr. Smart Aleck left the church.
After Mr. Jerk (well, that's what somebody else called him!) left First Central, an audience began to build...and, at 2:15 PM, Ragtime to Riches 2015 began with a workshop about how Tin Pan Alley worked in the 1920s.
This year's workshop went more smoothly than the 2014 effort...only because, this time around, I buckled down and prepared so that I wouldn't need to keep looking at my note cards.
I didn't want to look like a dork.
In preparing for R to R's 2015 workshop, I went back and reread my post about last year's Ragtime to Riches ("The Tenth Time Around!")...and realized I'd skipped a decade. (In 2014, I talked about the Alley's 1900-1909 period...and I promised that the 2015 workshop would focus on 1910-1919.)
Oops!
So...I went ahead and spotlighted the Roaring Twenties in this year's workshop...and I'd pick up the Taft-Wilson years- okay, the bulk of the Taft years plus the lion's share of the Wilson years- during the Omaha event's first concert (at 3:00 PM, right on the nose).
As things turned out, it all fit nicely. After all, the audience found out that the 1920-1929 period was the most prolific decade in Tin Pan Alley history (all because composers and performers alike wanted to come up with the next "Tiger Rag," what with the 1917 tune's 1918 debut as a recording ushering in the Jazz Age)...and this year's first R to R concert was set up to show how the Ragtime Age morphed into the Jazz Age.
Planned on eleven numbers...but I ended up getting eight of 'em off, starting with 1910's "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" and including 1914's "St. Louis Blues" (the first written blues number ever published) and closing it all out with..."Tiger Rag."
The only other rag in the set was 1910's "Spaghetti Rag."
Well, the audience did enjoy R to R Concert #1...and it ended at 4:00 PM, right on the nose.
Fifteen minutes later, that fourteen-year-old sensation from Hampshire, IL (on the northwest edge of the Chicagoland area) made his Nebraska debut...and took to that brand-new Yamaha grand.
And he rocked it!
Daniel's first number was Adeline Shepard's "Pickles and Peppers," one of the tunes he and fellow World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival participant (and fellow Illinoisan) Nathan Beasley had fun with this past Memorial Day weekend.
Danny went on to craft a lively, fourteen-selection set that included several tunes found in the three-time OTPP Junior Division champ's latest CD, "Possibilities." (If you haven't heard this collaboration with noted jazz drummer Danny Coots, you're in for one heck of a treat!)
The R to R audience heard Daniel Souvigny put forth "Possibilities" cuts such as Clarence Wiley's "Car-Bar-Lick Acid," Andy Razaf's and Fats Waller's "Honeysuckle Rose," and "Ham And!"
Then, for his eleventh number, Daniel really broke it open.
He did it by breaking out his violin.
Faye came over to the Yamaha and turned Danny's next offering into a duet...in this case, Scott Joplin's "Bethena," the most famous ragtime waltz ever composed.
Daniel reeled the Memorial Hall crowd in...and won 'em over.
He put an exclamation point at the end of it all by playing Nat Ayer's "King Chanticleer." (On the Yamaha piano, not his violin!)
Two concerts down...one to go.
When Faye took to the Memorial Hall stage at 7:00 PM to run R to R 2015's anchor leg, she wanted to take something from Danny's playbook (she called him "the technician") and something from my own playbook (she termed me "the historian").
What OTPP's contest coordinator (who's also an office manager at the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning at her alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) came up with was a continuation of her "Ragtime 101" concert from last year's turn here in the Big O...and it was still some kind of special.
Faye kicked her set off with two of her all-time favorites: "Sailin' Away on the Henry Clay" and "It Had to Be You."
After using those two numbers to show how songs can be turned into rags, Faye Ballard shifted the music to "Harlem Rag," the first published rag written by an African-American composer (in this case, Thomas Million Turpin).
And following her tribute to ragtime's Big Three (that's right: Scott Joplin, James Scott, and Joseph Lamb), it was Full Circle Time.
That's absolutely right: Faye invited Daniel to come back up. This time, the two Illinoisans reprised a tune Danny did that afternoon, "Pork and Beans," and made it into a duet.
Faye's renditions of May Aufderheide's "The Thriller" and of Julia Niebergall's "Horseshoe Rag" came before her closing number, Zez Confrey's digit-busting "Dizzy Fingers."
All in all, the audience (filling up 40% of Memorial Hall) came to enjoy the eleventh annual Ragtime to Riches Festival, and they'd like to see more syncopated events come to the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area. (Who knows, what with OTPP's future still up in the air? Perhaps this is a real opportunity for R to R to gain more of a following.)
Oh, by the way...the Great Plains Ragtime Society took in $130 from ticket sales this time around.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes continued to come to the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s.
With the contest about to embark on its fourth year as a Decatur, IL event (its fourth year as an indoor attraction after twelve of them taking place outdoors in Monticello, IL), the Monticello Railway Museum decided to pull out.
With that, a new group was needed to put the C&F on...and so, in March 1990, the Old-Time Music Preservation Association (OMPA) was put together. Its purpose, besides overseeing the contest, was to promote the very first form of popular music to ever come out of these United States.
All you needed to become a member of OMPA (besides a love of old-time music) was, at first, an annual fee of $20. And, if you forked over that fee, you'd also get a newsletter called The Old Piano Roll News.
Two months after the organization began, its first major order of business was to ultimately hand six cash prizes (and two championship trophies) to the six most deserving of twenty 1990 OTPP hopefuls- fifteen Regular Division performers and five Junior Division contestants. (In those days, all the JD pianists competed for just one cash prize.)
The Junior Division field that year was almost a family affair (or Family Affair, if you will) thanks to the presence of Tom, Katie, and Carrie Drury...but they and Aaron George couldn't prevent the Dax Baumgartner Express from chugging to a third straight title (and a berth in the Regular Division the next year).
Speaking of Regular Division...two of the contestants came back to the festivities after a long stretch of time away: Bruce Petsche (he won it all in 1980) and Faye Ballard (she almost won it all in 1976...as a twelve-going-on-thirteen-year-old). Plus, as was the case in 1988, the Two Kellers (Sue and her mother Betty) were in search of the Traveling Trophy. Lillian Nelson, Marcy Fruchter, Fran Stowe, and Fletcher St. Cyr were first-time contestants, and they were after the Big Dough.
What's more, Neil Moe was trying to become the first Junior Division titleholder to snag a Regular Division championship.
"Perfessor" Bill Edwards, Marty Mincer, Therese Bradisse, Mark Lutton, and Lorraine Pantalena all came back.
Taslimah Bey didn't.
Paul Gronemeier didn't, either.
Neither did the reigning RD champion, Julie McClarey.
Her and husband Steve's family was growing...otherwise, Julie might've won the 1990 Reg crown.
That crown went to Marty, an apple farmer from Hamburg, IA...and he became the first Hawkeye Stater to bag OTPP's top prize, with Bill, Sue, Neil, and Betty also getting RD prize money. (And Marty won it all in his grandfather's band uniform.)
By the way...it's a great time to tell you that, if you're going to compete in OTPP, you've got to put on a costume. You've got to compete in something people generally wore during the 1880-1929 period.
This means that men contestants have generally worn period suits, tuxedos, and- more often than not- that familiar white shirt-vest-bow tie-slacks-arm garter combination (the outfit I like to call "bartender's duds"). Sometimes, the OTPP men have added hats to the outfits.
And another exception besides Marty's band uniform (that actually was his granddad's) was the overalls Dale Wells once competed in.
Women contestants usually have donned those long, long dresses from pioneer days or from the turn of the 20th Century...or they'd put on those flapper dresses (or gowns) from the 1920s.
And some OTPP women have worn the bartender's duds themselves...and Jennifer Booker once competed in overalls, while Taslimah went at it in a tuxedo.
In 1991, fifteen pianists total did their thing at Decatur's Holiday Inn Conference Hotel (the venue's then name)...and all but three were in the adult division. (Dax wasn't one of the RDs...and neither was Sue. And that made the '91 competition a one-Keller event, thanks to Betty's presence as a competitor.)
The JD field consisted of newcomers, two of whom we'd be hearing from for years to come. That year, Kris Becker finished third in the Junior Division, Marty Sammon (that's right, blues fans- THAT Marty Sammon) came out second best, and Adam Downey took Dax' place as the best JD ragtimer.
And Adam would go on to his own three-year run at the top of the younger division.
With Sue no longer competing (and, instead, getting ready to embark on a long run of serving OTPP in many other ways- especially as a contest judge), Dale slipped in as one of the 1991 RD finalists; in the process, he joined Betty, Mark, Marty M., and the ol' Perfessor as the Top Five.
This time, the computer programer from the DC area swapped places with the apple farmer from Southwest Iowa...with Bill E. snatching the Big Trophy away from Marty M.
The two of them became not just good friends, but GREAT ones (teaming up from time to time as The All-American Ragtime Boys), and Marty M. and Bill E. went into 1992- the second straight fifteen-player year- having old-time piano fans wondering which man would reign supreme in the Regular Division.
Then Paul G. ended his two-year hiatus from OTPP...and he was joined by Reg newcomers Ginny Kaiser and Brian Holland (sorry, Motown fans...not THAT Brian Holland). Meanwhile, Doris Barnes ended a seven-year stay away from the contest.
In the Junior Division, Adam D. and Marty S. competed against three newcomers, one of whom we'd be hearing about for years to come: Ryan Casteel, a Missourian named Max Schiltz, and a Nebraskan named Julie Ann Smith.
Julie Ann came within three points of derailing Adam in 1992...but she'd go on to make a name for herself another way. Now known as Julie Smith Phillips, she's one of the world's best-known harpists (and a noted harp instructor as well).
If you'd like to know more about this harp giant (she got started on the instrument the year before she made her OTPP debut), go to www.harpjas.com.
As things turned out in the RDs for '92, Dale and Mark kept their places among the division's Top Five...and Marty Mincer came out ahead of Bill Edwards.
And Paul Gronemeier came out ahead of everybody and got the crown he'd been after.
You could bet that Paul was going to come back for 1993...and he did. It was a year in which the field ballooned to nineteen contestants- five JDs and fourteen RDs. What's more, eight newcomers (all but one in the Reg Division) fueled the field's growth.
The lone new JD'er for 1993, Dalton Ridenhour, would come back to Decatur for more. And of the seven RD newcomers, only Bob Milne had any real name recognition in old-time piano coming into that year's OTPP. And like Dalton, Bob would come back to the contest...but in Bob's case, not to compete. (I loved his workshops.)
Richard Ramsey, Chuck Bregman, Patty Davis, David Galster, Erma Ryan, and I rounded out the rookie field. There we were, thirteen RDs trying to take Paul's long-sought crown away...and four JDs trying to prevent Adam's clean sweep (something Julie Ann almost did a year earlier).
While I stank out the Holiday Inn, Bob lived up to his reputation as a top-notch pianist...and Richard was a revelation.
Richard and Bob joined Bill, Marty M., and Mark in the RD finals...and in the process, pushed Paul out of the money line. Somebody else would win the contest's top cash prize- now $1,200- as well as the Traveling Trophy.
Marty M. was that someone else...and he became the first champion in either division to get the crown back after watching someone else take it away. And that made him the OTPP version of Muhammad Ali.
About 24 hours earlier, Adam D. punched his ticket into the Regular Division. But his closest competitor this time wasn't Julie Ann S. or Marty S.
After sitting out 1992, Kris came back to place second in the JDs.
I didn't do as well as I'd hoped (all the juniors beat me)...but I learned a lot from that first OTPP experience (including learning to play "Tickled to Death" after hearing the then thirteen-year-old Julie Ann Smith nail it).
Even so, Dale, Brian, and other contestants- as well as other OTPP fans- encouraged me to come back for 1994.
I did.
Dalton did, too.
In fact, he and I were the only two 1993 newcomers who also weighed in as competitors the following year.
Marty M., Bob M., Bill E., and Brian H. came to Decatur's Holiday Inn during 1994's Memorial Day weekend...but not to compete. (Matter of fact, Bob and Bill ran some workshops that weekend. And theirs were the very first workshops in contest history.)
Meanwhile, the field shrank enormously...to ten, five in each division. On top of that, each division boasted just one newbie.
The lone first-time JD contestant this time was Cecilia Fleisher (whose version of "American Beauty" I really loved)...and the only new RD contestant blew everyone away.
Quebec native Mimi Blais came into the 1990s as a classical pianist. She got the ragtime bug soon after, and then...and then...ended a four-year absence from performing arts centers to launch a concert called "Around Scott Joplin."
That did it.
Thanks to playing ragtime, Mimi received the acclaim that couldn't come from playing classical music...and by 1994, she was ready to see what she could do in the best-known ragtime competition in America.
Mimi skunked everybody. Matter of fact, the last competition piece she played, Scott Joplin's "The Crush Collision March," nailed it for me.
You talk about unstoppable!
It was a year I'll never forget...not only because it was the year all five Regular Division hopefuls (Mimi, Mark, Dale, Adam D., and I) made it to the semifinals AND finals, but, most importantly, it was when Marty Sammon became the Junior Division kingpin...and Mimi Blais raised the bar exponentially in the Regular Division.
So was Tony (in 1982)...a couple of years before Virginia entered.
I'm talking about the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival...an event that, at long last, has a database.
And the credit goes to three people: Dan Mouyard (the first Junior Division champion to become a Regular Division champ at the Illinois event), Judy Leschewski (a 1977 contestant who found out she could make more of an impact by becoming the celebration's first contest coordinator- a job she held for decades), and Dale Wells (a 1994 Regular Division finalist whose own stint as an OTPP contestant ran from 1986 to 2010).
Dan emailed me a couple of weeks ago; in his post, he added a link to the C&F database...and once I got on there, my eyes were some kind of full.
Lots of great, great memories!
I'd first heard of the contest in 1979. I was in college at the time, and one Saturday afternoon that May, I hurried back to my dorm room, turned on my TV set, and...watched the tail end of NBC Nightly News (Saturday edition, of course), where the last report showed Dorothy M. Herrold banging away on an antique upright piano placed on a caboose in front of the Monticello Railway Museum. (That's right...the contest was held outdoors back then.)
The reporter called Dorothy (who'd just become OTPP's first three-time undefeated champion after besting the previous titleholder, 1975-76 standardbearer Joybelle Squibb) "The Chopin of Ragtime."
Two years and seven months earlier, I'd walked inside a church and decided to give the ol' 88s another chance (after a reluctant start in 1965).
After watching that TV report in which the old teacher from La Porte, IN showed the crowd how old-time piano really works, I'd never given attending the C&F (let alone actually entering it) any sort of thought.
Until 1993...thirteen years after the database starts.
According to the database, three contestants went after the crown DMH had just vacated: John McElhaney, Paul Gronemeier (as things turned out, a longtime OTPP hopeful), and- as things also turned out- the first man to get the Big Trophy, a Californian named Bruce Petsche.
At first, OTPP was a one-day competition in which each pianist had to prepare three selections. And the audience joined a panel of judges in selecting the champ.
In those days, Ted Lemen's claim to fame had no Regular Division-Junior Division setup; everybody, regardless of age, competed for the top prize. (Bruce pocketed $250 for winning it all.)
So, in 1981, the field shot up to twelve hopefuls...including little Jennifer Booker, Paul G., and defending titleholder Bruce.
Even Dorothy came back to Monticello, IL to fight to get her crown back. (Can't do that today if you've topped the RDs three straight years.)
Instead, Mark Haldorson (a man from Illinois' Peoria area) inaugurated his own three-year stint ruling old-time piano.
And Tony Caramia (now one of the big names in ragtime piano) was one of ten 1982 performers trying to end Mark's reign.
Two years later, 31 other pianists (Jennifer and Paul were two of them) fought to claim the title Mark had just vacated.
One of those musicians was...Virginia Tichenor, who's now one of ragtime's big names as well.
Nope...pianist-drummer Virginia didn't take the crown.
That championship went to a professor from Peoria's Bradley University, Janet Kaizer. (By the way...another of the contestants Janet had to get past to make it to the top was her own husband, Ed, himself a Bradley prof.)
Well, after that mini-marathon, the Monticello Railway Museum made some changes to its Number One fundraiser.
First of all, OTPP was turned into a two-day event, with prelims on the first day and finals on the second day. Then the field was busted into two pieces- a Junior Division (for pianists eighteen or younger) and a Regular Division. With this new format, the JD champion was determined on the first day, and the top five RD performers would come back to play the next day for that division's title.
So, with a new format for 1985, Janet got to keep her Reg crown, while Neil Moe became the first Junior titleholder.
Funny thing: Neil WAS the Junior Division for 1985.
The next year was the final outdoor C&F (due to the weather turning bad and due to an event called "Hands Across America")...the only year the event was staged at the football field at Monticello High School...and the first year all RDs had to go through qualifications for a spot in the division's semifinals before five finalists could be winnowed out.
In the RD field (fourteen performers strong), Janet and Ed were still in there, and Paul was still knocking on the door. They were joined by two newcomers who'd each go on to embark on a long association with the contest: Michigan's Dale Wells and Wisconsin's Linda Harmon.
And a third RD newcomer would really shake things up: Ron Trotta.
Meanwhile, eight teens/preteens would make sure Neil wouldn't get to enjoy a second straight year of being the sole JD contestant. They included sisters Heather and Kori Wilken...as well as Ed's and Janet's son, Joe.
And Jeremy Lehmen, who joined Jennifer in sitting out 1985, joined her in coming back to Monticello in '86 to challenge Long Tall Neil.
Neil pushed all his challengers aside to keep the Junior Division crown.
Then, with circumstances producing a six-member Regular Division finals contingent, Janet was on her way to becoming the third performer to wrap up three adult titles in as many years...while Ed (holding down second place coming into the RD finals) was trying to make sure the two biggest cash prizes would go to the Kaizer family.
But Ron snatched all of that away, charging from fifth (RD prelims) to third (RD semis)...all the way to the very top.
With twelve World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contests in the books, the Monticello Railway Museum had some new questions to answer about its pet project as the museum prepared for 1987.
The questions included: "Can Ron Trotta keep his hands on the championship trophy?" "What's Paul Gronemeier got to do to get that title?" "Has Neil Moe got one more title left in him?" "Are the Kaizers coming back?" "Will Linda Harmon come back? She's great...especially when she's playing upside down!"
The biggest question was: "Where's the contest gonna be held NOW?"
I'll tell you what happened in Part Two of this post.
I'm Jim Boston, and thanks for finding this blog!
Well...we did it.
On Sunday, 7-13-2014, at Omaha's First Central Congregational United Church of Christ, the Great Plains Ragtime Society staged the tenth version of an event called the Ragtime to Riches Festival.
Okay...we didn't completely fill up the church's Memorial Hall. But we did get more of an audience this time around than in 2013.
And right from the time the doors opened (1:00 PM Central time), the place was jumpin'.
The first event right after the doors of First Central's Memorial Hall open is an open-piano session.
So glad someone else got it going.
And, at this year's open-piano hour, Brent Watkins (he competed in the early 2000s at the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival, then went on to coproduce the first documentary about the event) got the ball rolling on one of the two pianos at Memorial Hall. (Brent did "Maple Leaf Rag" on the hall's 1920s Mason & Hamlin grand; eventually, he tried the other piano...a 1900s-or-so Anderson & Newton upright.)
I'm glad Brent went up to bat first, because I was still nervous about the second R to R event...something I was still furiously preparing for.
People started coming in while the man from Iowa City (by way of Cedar Rapids, IA) continued to knock out rags. And by 2:00 PM, we got our biggest audience of this year's festival.
And those thirteen people watched me switch between contemporaneous speaking, the use of note cards, and a few turns on that A&N upright...as I delivered a workshop about how Tin Pan Alley sounded during the 1900-1909 period.
The main message I tried to get across was that, when the 20th Century started to kick in, America's music publishing industry started to grow and grow and grow...not just physically, but also in influence, what with more and more people coming over from other lands to get in on the bounty America had to offer. (And in many cases, the newcomers of the early 20th Century met with real resistance, too...just like the newcomers right here in the early 21st Century.)
Plus: The resistance of 100-110 years ago showed up in lots of Tin Pan Alley songs.
And...did I mention that Broadway was starting to become an entertainment force at that very moment, thanks to composers like George M. Cohan?
Originally, this workshop was to stop at 1919...but to cover nineteen years in sixty minutes felt more like a fly-by overview. (Even so, chopping off the 1910s turned the presentation into a drive-by summary. But the crowd- including an official from the Nebraska Department of Education, John Sieler- liked it.)
They liked it even more when Faye Ballard took to the stage.
The OTPP contest coordinator/collegiate office manager from Champaign, IL delivered a concert that doubled as Ragtime 101. In her first Ragtime to Riches, Faye turned in a set that emphasized the music of ragtime's Big Three (that's right- Scott Joplin, James Scott, and Joseph Lamb).
And for good measure, this star of "The Entertainers" (the movie Brent coproduced) threw in Zez Confrey's "Dizzy Fingers," Jelly Roll Morton's "Grandpa's Spell," and three of her signature numbers: "Sailin' Away on the Henry Clay," "Mack the Knife," and "It Had to Be You." (Maybe you've seen Faye's version of "Mack the Knife" on YouTube.)
When Faye's 14-tune concert wrapped up, we showed...that's right, we showed "The Entertainers."
Now if eight of those thirteen people had stuck around to see the film...they would've loved it, too.
At the end of each showing of the now two-year-old documentary, there's a question-and-answer session. Usually, Nick Holle (he was here in Omaha for this year's R to R) conducts it; sometimes, his fellow "Entertainers" codirector, Michael Zimmer, does the honors (which was the case when the movie was shown in San Diego on 3-14-2014). And the rest of the time, Michael and Nick team up to field audience questions.
This time, the Q-and-A involved an audience of one: A local pianist named Kevin Robinson. (Check out his "Play Me, I'm Yours" videos on www.youtube.com.)
Still, this Q-and-A session was no less effective than previous ones. (And I remember when Redd Foxx talked about being able to entertain a one-person audience!)
Well, another open-piano session took place (with Faye and Brent taking to both pianos); after that, Nick, Brent, Faye, and I ate dinner (we got take-out food from a neighborhood restaurant called Crescent Moon Ale House; it's at 3578 Farnam St., 68131).
Then, at 7:30 PM, it was time for the last event of the 2014 Ragtime to Riches get-together.
Last year, I built my own concert around the memory of some of the big-name newsmakers and big-name celebrities who passed away in 2012, focusing on the Number One recording on the day this or that personality came into the world. (For instance, "For Me and My Gal," recorded by the duo of Van & Schenck, hit the top spot on the pop charts on 7-17-1917...the very day Phyllis Diller was born. And I even ragged up "So Much in Love," the leading pop hit on the Billboard charts on 8-9-1963...Whitney Houston's birthdate.)
For 2014, since this year's R to R would be the tenth one, I wanted to call up tunes whose titles had a T, an E, and an N...in that order.
As a result, the fans who hung around got to hear numbers like "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," "Listen to the Mockingbird," "After You've Gone," and "Hardhearted Hannah." There was also a 1952 song from composers Johnny Lange and Hy Heath, "There'll Be No New Tunes on This Old Piano." (Tennessee Ernie Ford put it on his 1962 album, "Here Comes the Mississippi Showboat." And I even saw him sing it on his old TV show when I was little.)
Two rags were in there, too: "The Entertainer" and something I wrote in 2001 (on an old piano, of course): "Stompin' at the Children's Museum."
I'd never performed my own rags at any R to R before...and I was relieved to find out the audience liked my ode to the nine years (1997-2006) I spent not only banging the 88s at the Omaha Children's Museum, but watching the children themselves (and some adults) show off their own skills on the old upright.
Some of Faye's (and some of my) offerings at the festival made it onto YouTube. (Just type in "Ragtime to Riches Festival.")
Man, we had a ball at R to R 10.0, and we raised $140 for the Great Plains Ragtime Society.
Don't know how the eleventh annual festival will shape up...but I do know this:
I hope you'll be able to check out next year's Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue ragtime outing. We think you'll have a ball, too.
Last week, I received my copy of the Old-Time Music Preservation Association's newsletter, The Old Piano Roll News. And, unlike previously copies of this quarterly publication, this quarter's edition came in two pieces.
The first piece was the actual newsletter. (This time, the main article in there sang the praises of this year's World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival.)
The second piece was a letter from the man who cooked up the Memorial Day weekend event, none other than Ted Lemen.
It was a good news-bad news situation.
The bottom line was: OTPP, which just got through having its 40th iteration (and first at the Embassy Suites in East Peoria, IL), is gasping for breath.
When I read Ted's letter, I felt stunned.
I didn't even know the contest was sick...let alone on its death bed.
Attendance was down from 2013 (the second and last year the C&F took place at Peoria's Sheraton Four Points Hotel), not as many people attended the Saturday night event called "Dinner with the Champion" or the Monday morning Red, White, and Blue Brunch, and not as many people purchased contest T-shirts or other OTPP souvenirs.
But revenue was down from last year...and that was enough for Ted to take emergency measures to rescue this one-of-a-kind event.
He's looking for solutions to take to the OMPA board next time the association convenes.
If you've got any answers to making sure there'll be a 41st annual Old-Time Piano Contest and Festival (and MANY more), call Ted at 815 922-3827 and/or send him an email at hi_jeanx@yahoo.com.
If you love old-time piano, now's your chance to let 'em know!
During this past Friday's kickoff event for the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area's exhibition of the "Play Me, I'm Yours" painted-piano project, local artist Kim Reid Kuhn approached me about playing the keys during an exhibition she and fellow artist Steven Walsh were going to put on that evening at their place of business, Sweatshop Gallery (2727 N. 62nd St., 68104).
Steven and Kim painted up their own old upright (or maybe it was one donated to them).
One thing's for sure: Sweatshop Gallery wasn't on the list of "Play Me" piano sites.
And that's why Omaha Creative Institute executive director Susan Thomas laughingly labeled it a "rogue" piano...one of several on display here in the area while "PMIY" continues (through 9-8-2013).
So...at 7:11 PM (Central time), I came out to the gallery (in Omaha's Benson neighborhood) to play...and I found a really cool 1916 Bush & Gerts upright.
And I stayed and played it for two hours...and on top of that, I had just as much fun that night as I had that morning and early afternoon at Memorial Park.
The people who passed by liked the music (well, most of them did)...and I even received some tip money.
Well, anyway, the music ran the gamut from an early rag called "Tickled to Death" to a blues called "That's All Right" to Prince's "Purple Rain."
Kim, Steven, and Co. liked it so much that they invited me to come back and play on 9-6-2013.
So...look out, Bush & Gerts!
Well, it's here!
In fact...it arrived two days ahead of schedule. (If you're a regular of YouTube and you've been following the world's street-piano scene, you've probably seen videos of it already.)
I'm talking about the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area serving as the world's 34th metro area to host that international phenomenon, Luke Jerram's "Play Me, I'm Yours."
Yesterday, the ten street pianos set up for the Omaha Metro were installed in as many public places.
And those passersby watching crews from Omaha's Transfer 88 just as quickly got their fingers on those keys once the pianos were anchored into place.
This morning, the Omaha Creative Institute and the "Play Me, I'm Yours" organization got together to host a community event that served as the official kickoff for the local exhibition of "PMIY." This kickoff event took place at Memorial Park, the landmark on the other side of the main campus of the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Lots and lots and lots and lots of work goes into every "Play Me" project...and OCI executive director Susan Thomas thanked a planeload of people, especially her fellow OCI staff members, the "Play Me" crew (represented by Sally Reay, AKA "Sally Street Piano"), the local government officials who okayed the project, those whose financial contributions helped bring the project to America's 58th-ranked metropolitan area, and the artists who decorated the seven older uprights (including the one pictured; it's right there at Memorial Park), two spinets, and the lone studio piano.
And then...the music began. (Oops...I mean it resumed.)
The first pianists to get a crack at the park's century-old H.P. Nelson upright- during today's community event, that is- were students and instructors from the Omaha Conservatory of Music. (One memorable duet- by Anne Madison and Yulia Kalishnikova, and I hope I've got their names right- made in onto www.youtube.com.)
Omaha City Councilmember Pete Festersen got into the act; he sat down and played a little bit of that Mannheim Steamroller favorite, "Fresh Aire."
Next, five members of the Omaha-based Ballet Nebraska danced around the old upright while one of the accompanists for the troupe played. (Check that out on www.youtube.com, too!)
The good-sized crowd also heard from a local legend, a saloon pianist named Jim Snyder. And his infectious brand of boogie-woogie playing made it onto- you guessed it- www.youtube.com.
I got a chance to go up following Jim. [Nope...my ragtime version of "Do Re Mi" (from "The Sound of Music," not the one from Lee Dorsey) didn't make it to YouTube at this writing. But I still had lots of fun.]
Basically, after that, Jim, a young pianist named J.D. Mossberg, two teenage girls and their younger brother, and I traded turns at the piano.
Also, I met back up with another local ivory tickler, the California-born Steven Raphael. (I hadn't seen Steven since the early 2000s, about the time he had a show on public-access TV right here in America's 43rd largest city...not counting the suburbs.)
Man, Steven and I had a good, good conversation as we talked about old times and caught up with each other.
Steven sent me an email last year about pursuing help from the "PMIY" folks rather than setting up a local street-piano exhibition Denver style.
He knew the right route to making Omaha and Bellevue just the second and third sizable Nebraska cities (after Kearney) to put at least one piano out there in a street for passersby to play.
By the way...in Denver, you can find a dozen spinets and older uprights lining the Mile High City's 16th Street Mall. And they're out there much of the year- a real departure from the way Luke, Sally, and Co. do things.
Still, for us here in Karrin Allyson's and Buddy Miles' birth city, the way Luke, Sally, and Co. do things is better than nothing at all. Way better.
Having a ball during the early going of the Omaha Metro's "Play Me, I'm Yours," and I'm looking forward to coming back to Memorial Park tomorrow morning to not only get some playing in...but also to listen to other pianists of one skill level or another. [And I'll also be back tomorrow night to listen to- and share- stories about each other's musical journeys (and stories about Memorial Park).]
Here's the rest of my schedule:
8-27-2013: Aksarben Village's Stinson Park, 9:00-11:00 AM
8-31-2013: Bayliss Park, Council Bluffs, IA, 9:00 AM-12:00 Noon
9-1-2013: ConAgra Plaza, 1:00-3:00 PM; Lewis and Clark Landing, 4:00-6:00 PM
9-2-2013: Tree of Life Sculpture, 9:00-11:00 AM; Fontenelle Forest, Bellevue, NE, 1:00-3:00 PM
9-3-2013: Rockbrook Village Shopping Center, 9:00-11:00 AM
9-7-2013: Village Pointe Shopping Center, 1:00-4:00 PM (alternate date: 9-8-2013, 4:00-6:00 PM)
9-8-2013: Florence Park, 1:00-3:00 PM
If you live here in the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area (or are visiting), check out our "Play Me" street pianos. And if you'd like to learn more about Luke Jerram's claim to fame, just visit www.streetpianos.com. And if you'd like to see what we're doing in the River City and environs, log on to http://omahapianos.com.
I'm Jim Boston, and thanks for reading this blog!
