Legends

Yesterday afternoon, I made it out to the Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center (20th and Farnam Sts., Omaha, NE 68102) to check out the River City Theatre Organ Society's (a club I joined in 1984, the year it celebrated its first birthday) annual extravaganza.

Darn right it was a humdinger!

The featured artist was Portland, OR native- and theatre organ legend- Jonas Nordwall. 

Right from the start of the concert, Jonas showed the style that's enabled him to perform on four continents (North America, Asia, Australia, and Europe). It's a style where he's equally adept at both classical playing and pop music.

The outing was titled "A Sentimental Musical Journey," and Jonas started out with (what else?) "Sentimental Journey."

Right after that, he told the Rose Theater's audience (the place was 90% full) that a sentimental musical journey doesn't always have to be confined to the songs of the 1930s and 1940s...then he went out and proved his point by going back to the venue's three-manual, 21-rank Wurlitzer pipe organ (built in 1927) to fire up three tunes that were popular in the 1960s: "Spanish Flea," by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass; "Unchained Melody," which was popularized in the 1950s by Roy Hamilton, Al Hibbler, and bandleader Les Baxter (in separate recordings) before the Righteous Brothers got hold of it a decade later; and Frankie Valli's first smash as a solo artist, "Can't Take My Eyes Off You." 

Jonas didn't leave the 1950s behind, covering that decade with Erroll Garner's most famous tune, "Misty." And the man with thirty highly-acclaimed recordings to his credit jumped into the 1980s by stringing together four numbers from "Les Miserables," including "Bring Him Home" and the one that made a name out of Susan Boyle, "I Dreamed a Dream."  

Just YOU try to tell someone it's impossible to feel sentimental about the Carter-Reagan-Bush the Elder years.  

Jonas showed his classical side by playing Manuel de Falla's "Ritual Fire Dance," and to top off the first half of the extravaganza, our featured artist cued a 1929 silent movie, "Big Business." (In it, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy tried to sell James Finlayson a Christmas tree. And no, Stan and Ollie weren't successful.)

Jonas Nordwall's got the kind of music you can close your eyes and really visualize. 

Well, I like to think so!

The organist for Rip City's First United Methodist Church came back out for the second half of the show by knocking out "Pietro's Return," a 1913 march by accordion legend Pietro Deiro. Jonas- who took up the squeezebox at the age of four- then shared an anecdote about Pietro's brother Guido...who happened to be married for a time to Mae West. (That's right...THAT Mae West!)  

Then Jonas turned the show over to another accordion legend...Omaha's very own Johnny Ray Gomez.

Jonas actually turned it over to a two-man band, for it was Johnny Ray and his namesake son, keyboardist Johnny Ray Gomez IV.

Johnny Ray- actually Johnny Ray III- teamed up with Johnny Ray the Younger to deliver a lighthearted, freewheeling, rollicking set that started out with a mashup of "12th Street Rag" and "The Glow Worm." The Two Gomezes then fused together "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "Only You (and You Alone)," two of the biggest hits recorded by the Platters...the singing group Johnny Ray IV served as music director/pianist during the second half of the 1980s before he came back to Nebraska to start his own music production company, OnTrack, Inc.

Johnny Ray the Elder then stated: "We haven't done a polka."

And that was all the more reason for the Two Johnny Rays to switch the music to the durable "Just Because."

JRG IV got the spotlight next as he and his dad eased on into Floyd Cramer's "Last Date," followed by JRG III musically paying tribute to those veterans (and veterans' spouses) who'd made it to the Rose.

Their last tune together was Vangelis' "Chariots of Fire," featuring the keyboard work of IV.

After that, I was hoping that the three men would take the next tune(s).

Didn't happen yet...for Jonas went back to the Wurlitzer and covered the next two numbers by himself: "My Way" and "The Stars and Stripes Forever," the former a tribute to Joyce Markworth, the RCTOS member (and club president Bob's wife) who unexpectedly passed away this past March. 

The two numbers proved to be enough to merit Jonas a well-deserved standing ovation...and that ovation proved to be enough to lead Jonas and the Two Johnny Rays to, at last, team up...for "Sweet Georgia Brown."  

Well, that did it...RCTOS really nailed it. Made those hundred of people at the Rose happy...happy to be witness to three legends.

It All Started with These...

You're looking at the first two records I ever owned in my life. 

The bad news is: I don't have the original 45-RPM singles anymore.

But the good news is this: I went on to find the Four Tops' "Baby I Need Your Loving" and Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" on albums.

It was fifty years ago this month that I started collecting records (with Dad's and Mom's financial help, of course...heck, I was eight-going-on-nine years of age!). 

The real impetus for launching a personal record collection was still going some kind of strong in August 1964...six months after that impetus originally took hold here in America.

That's right...just as Elvis Presley's entry onto the Billboard pop chart in March 1956 ended up causing a boom in the record industry (and transforming everything else), so the Beatles' arrival on that same chart in January 1964 (and- the absolute clincher- their live appearance on TV's The Ed Sullivan Show on 2-9-1964) caused an even longer-lasting boom in the record business (and transformed everything else).

Started collecting records at a time when, to tell the truth, I was actually away from home...and not of my own choosing.

Where I was forced to stay, I heard the records that some of the other children at that same facility had bought and were playing. (Once a week or so, we'd go into the rec room down in the basement and stack that portable record player with 45s; once in a while, an album would get heard...and, more often than not, the LP was "Meet the Beatles!")

At that time, music was on many Americans' minds...especially the minds of the youngest citizens. If it wasn't the Fab Four, it was the Dave Clark Five or the Searchers or Gerry and the Pacemakers or Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas or Manfred Mann or Herman's Hermits or the Animals...to say nothing of the Rolling Stones.

Or it was some of the acts those British bands learned from...like the Miracles and the Contours and the Supremes and the Temptations and Martha and the Vandellas and the Four Tops (to say nothing of Chuck Berry, who'd found his way back on Billboard's charts at that very moment). 

Besides those rec-room moments, the radio was always playing (when the TV wasn't on), and it was always tuned to a Top 40 station...in this case, KWWL in Waterloo, IA. (I lived in Eastern Iowa from January 1964 to June 1967.)

And starting my own record collection helped make that three-and-a-half year period easier to take. 

Me, I didn't want to stop at Motown...or at any one genre of music.

And so, the next three singles I happened upon are now the oldest surviving 45-RPM releases I own: "Come a Little Bit Closer" by Jay and the Americans, "Selfish One" by Jackie Ross, and "Michael," Trini Lopez' remake of the Highwaymen's 1961 Number One smash.  

Anyway, I started buying albums in mid-1967 while continuing to purchase 45s (by then, I was receiving an allowance); over the next fifteen years, my collection grew, slowly-but-steadily.

By 1982, the cache exploded.

It was all because I found out about Kanesville Kollectibles (530 S. 4th St., Council Bluffs, IA), the biggest used record-tape-CD store in the Hawkeye State.

I got to the point where I'd go shop at Kanesville once a month. (Now I'm lucky to stop in twice or three times a year.)

Thanks to Kanesville Kollectibles and the chance to go to record shows every year since 1984, I now own roughly 2,000 records, tapes, and CDs. 

And since 2007, I've been working on digitizing these records and tapes, burning them onto a hard drive and converting the vinyl to compact discs. What's more, thanks to online music services like Rhapsody and eMusic, the computer I'm using to type this post now has about 5,000 items...and the items have been saved to a flash drive.  

One thing about this fifty-year (and counting) journey: This is one addiction I'm proud to have.

I'm Jim Boston, and thanks for reading this blog!

Dear Speaker Boehner:

I'm furious with you. I'm just going to come right out and say it.

The night of 1-20-2009, you and Mitch McConnell got together and called a meeting of your fellow Washington Republicans to get them NOT to work with the man who'd just gotten through raising his right hand and repeating after John Roberts.

You know who I'm talking about.  

And, not long after his- Barack Obama's- signature legislation became law, and it was time for the employee mandate to kick in, you begged him to delay it a year.  

AND NOW YOU WANT TO SUE THE PRESIDENT BECAUSE HE WENT AHEAD AND DELAYED THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT'S EMPLOYEE MANDATE!!  

You and your fellow Republicans have been after this man right from the start. McConnell couldn't get his wish to turn Obama into a one-term chief executive, so now you and your House Republicans are trying this. 

Hmph.

This stunt wouldn't even take place if you and your fellow Elephants had resolved to take care of the business America's citizens- not America's 500 largest corporations- had asked you and other politicians to work on.

People want to see this country's minimum wage increased. They want to see this country's borders secured. They want Americans of both genders to realize complete access to health-care products and services. Americans want better, more effective gun-control laws. They also want this nation's infrastructure repaired.

Mr. Boehner, your very district is one of way too many with bridges on the brink of collapsing.

AND YOU DON'T EVEN CARE!!!  

Matter of fact, the ONLY thing you and the other Washington GOPers care about is kicking the first non-Caucasian American to run this country's government out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

You'd do the same thing to Jim Clyburn or Cory Booker or Sheila Jackson Lee or Maxine Waters or Bobby Rush...let alone to Bill Cosby or Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey. 

I remember when Steve King was cracking on some Mexican children and talking about how their thighs supposedly are "as big as cantaloupes," the better to hide illegal drugs.

I was hoping you'd get up the courage to reprimand this bigot from Kiron, IA.

YOU DIDN'T!!  

In fact, I feel you're very proud of the extremists in your party. 

After all, these extremists transformed you from House Republican leader into the Speaker of the House.

Mr. Boehner, I wish you'd find courage before you wrap up your tenure as a US representative from Ohio, let alone House Speaker.

And I wish SOMEONE in Cincinnati or its Ohio suburbs would get the courage to challenge you.  

Throw away your cowardice and start getting your fellow House Republicans to vote on the things rank-and-file Americans are worried about.

You and your fellow Republicans are the biggest threats to American democracy today. 

And it's all because you REFUSE to offer real solutions to get the country back on its feet. All you offer is opposition to any efforts to get the United States really humming again.

And the rest of the world can see that!  

Do you really care?

Sincerely, Jim Boston

The Tenth Time Around!

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.  

We're Much the Better for It

It happened fifty years ago tonight.

A man who spent his first 26 years in Washington (beginning in 1937) sticking up for Jim Crow had a change of heart...and stuck his neck out for America.

Not his own political legacy. Not his Democratic Party.

Lyndon Baines Johnson stuck his neck out for his country when, on 7-2-1964, he signed into law the first really meaningful civil rights legislation in this country's history. 

It happened thirteen months after Johnson's predecessor and old boss (that's right- John Fitzgerald Kennedy) made the initial pitch to get this bill put together and put before Congress. And to even make that pitch required Kennedy to show his own change of heart.

On 1-20-1961, JFK gave one of the most famous and most memorable inaugural addresses in American annals. In it, the youngest chief executive ever elected called for the United States to spread democracy all over the globe. 

Too bad he didn't call for the spread of democracy throughout these fifty states. 

Yeah, I know...if Kennedy had mentioned just one domestic issue during his inaugural speech (including That One), those Southern Democrats in the Senate [like Georgia's Richard Russell, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond (that's right- Thurmond was still a Donkey back then), and the Mississippi duo of John Stennis and James Eastland] would've torn the new president to pieces. 

Maybe at the Inaugural Ball.  

It took lots of events- before and after JFK got in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue- before he could understand that a country whose name supposedly means freedom and wants to expand it all over the planet ought to ensure freedom for all its citizens.  

That understanding was probably one of the reasons Lee Harvey Oswald ended the presidency of a man born in Brookline, MA 1,036 days after that term of office began.  

And so, from the time LBJ raised his right hand, he decided to make the passage of the Civil Rights Act a top priority. 

The man from near Stonewall, TX was going to finish JFK's unfinished business.  

To do all that, Johnson had to pull out all the tricks that served him in good stead as the Senate Democratic leader (LBJ was minority leader from 1953-1955, then majority leader from 1955-1961). He knew what the US senators he left behind when he joined Kennedy's administration wanted...and he knew how to appeal to that.

Yes, it got coarse...but Johnson got it done.

And when it was all over, 27 of the 34 Senate Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act. Meanwhile, 46 of the 66 Democrats then in this country's Senate went all in.  

With the Voting Rights Act passing in 1965 and the Fair Housing Act getting signed into law three years later, America began to open up...at long last.

And that even with so many Democrats who didn't want the new legislation to get on the books switching over to the GOP.

Thurmond was one of the defectors...and he helped shape the current Republican tone. (That's right...that angry, blustery, obstructionist tone that keeps making headlines.)

What today's Republicans- the ones the 1948 Dixiecrat presidential nominee left behind when he passed away in 2003- don't accept and don't understand is this:

A nation works best when ALL its citizens get to have their say...whether it's at a polling place during an election or someplace else where people can get their opinions noticed. 

I'm glad the Civil Rights Act of 1964 got the ball rolling.

"I Didn't Even Know It Was Sick!"

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!

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! (5-25-2014, That Is!)

It's gone from an event held outdoors and subject to at least the worst atmospheric conditions Central Illinois tends to face in late May to an event held in hotels that keep getting better. (Every time this event has to find a new venue, the next venue tends to work out better than the old one.) 

At first, it was a contest hurting for participants. Then it got to the point where so many contestants entered that a limit was eventually put on the field (26 is now the max). 

When the event began, pianists of all ages competed for one prize. Then in 1985, a Junior Division was created so that players 17 or younger could go for the glory. (Now, performers in that division and the Regular Division fight for ten cash prizes...and the winner in each sector gets a trophy.) 

And it's gone from a competition whose first five championships went to two women (1975-76 champ Joybelle Squibb and 1977-79 titleholder Dorothy Herrold) to an event whose biggest prize hasn't gone to a woman since Mimi Blais added the 2000 title to the championship she won in 1994 to a contest where its Regular Division hasn't had a female participant since 2012...the first (and- thus far- only) year Tennessee's Diana Stein went for the Big Trophy.  

This year, people who spent Memorial Day weekend at Illinois' Embassy Suites East Peoria missed out on the chance to hear a Texan named Melissa Roen Williams show off her old-time piano skills. 

And that's how eleven RD contestants (to go with seven Junior Division participants) ended up competing in the 40th annual World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival.  

After 13-year-old Daniel Souvigny got his Junior Division crown back on 5-24-2014, it was up to contest judges Brian Holland, Patrick Holland, and Terry Parrish to eliminate one Regular Division contestant and send the remaining ten into the next day's semifinals.  

This year's unlucky so-and-so was...was...was...

Well, actually, all eleven RD players moved on to the OTPP semifinals!  

As was the case in the previous day's prelims, Damit Senanayake went first. I didn't get to find out what his first semifinal piece was (maybe one of you reading this blog can disclose the answer)...but I do know his second selection was "Blue Room." 

Another thing about OTPP: You get fifteen minutes of rehearsal time before it's your turn to play the contest piano, that 1883 Weber upright better known as "Moby Dink." (As contest coordinator Faye Ballard- who spent the 1976-2010 period as a contestant before becoming just the second coordinator in C&F history- likes to say: "If you snooze, you lose.")

I put in the rehearsal time...after hearing Michael J. Winstanley pump out his two semifinal tunes during his own rehearsal time: "If You Knew Susie" and "Smiles and Shuffles."  

And so, while Michael J. went to River E and F (the combined space where the actual competition took place) to perform his two semifinal selections, I took over at the rehearsal piano (a 1960s Hamilton studio piano placed just outside the Green Room).

To tell you the truth...I felt more comfortable during the semifinal round (my first semis since 1994!) than I did during the 2014 prelims. This round, I picked out "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" and an obscurity from 1902, "Robardina Rag," a number written by a St. Louis composer named E. Warren Furry.  

Plus: I was so pumped up about making the semifinals that I did the same thing that Sunday as the day before: I ran to the stage.  

And, just like the day before, Ted Lemen had to tell me: "No running!" 

Domingo Mancuello was next up to bat...and he DID hit it out the park, with "I Get the Blues When It Rains" and "She Was Just a Sailor's Sweetheart."  

William McNally followed, playing Joseph Lamb's "Topliner Rag" and the weekend's second edition of "Limehouse Blues." 

Then came the man with the only other "Limehouse" rendition: Ethan Uslan.

Whereas William M. came out in a different tuxedo than the one he put on for the prelims, Ethan hit the stage wearing a...straw hat, striped T-shirt, swim trunks, and a life preserver. 

And when Kate's husband (and Ben's and Henry's dad) got to the Embassy Suites stage in that getup, I figured: "That did it. Give Ethan the trophy!"  

Ethan made it stick by stroking out "By the Beautiful Sea" and one called "Yack-a-Hula-Wicki-Doola."  

All of that gave William Bennett a tough, tough act to follow.

And the Ann Arbor native did it, too! His semifinal entries were "How'd You Like to Spoon with Me?" and "Hothouse Rag."

David Cavalari brings some interesting, off-the-beaten-path numbers to the contest, and this round was no exception. In it, David rocked out "Impecunious Davis" and "Running Water."

"Perfessor" Bill Edwards followed up with "Swampy River" and "Old Folks at Home." (That's right...THAT "Old Folks at Home!")

John Remmers carries Ann Arbor's banner, too (he used to teach at the University of Michigan). With that great style of his, you know you can count on John reaching the semis year after year. And this time, he staked his claim with James Scott's "Prosperity Rag" and one titled "The Whistler and His Dog."

Now it was Samuel Schalla's turn to round out the 2014 OTPP second round...and I like what this physics student did with Joe Jordan's "That Teasin' Rag" and Luckey Roberts' "Nothin'."

When the semifinals were finished, Brian, Patrick, and Terry went off to do some more ciphering; Ted and fellow emcee Adam Swanson kicked back for a while; and the audience did some kicking back all its own...either inside River E and F or just outside the two combined rooms.

After all the judges' ciphering came to an end...Bill Edwards came back onstage to tackle ol' Moby Dink.

And tackle that 1883 Weber upright he did, hammering out "Red Raven Rag" and "The Blues (My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me)," a 1920 number made famous by Ted Lewis, the bandleader famous for "Is Everybody Happy Now?"

This year's wildcard theme was (drum roll)...color!

As things turned out, the other Bill ended up getting in line to get paid. As a result, we got a chance to hear the now four-time New Rag kingpin do "Green River Blues" and Maceo Pinkard's "Liza." 

Bill McNally was followed by one of old-time piano's most passionate performers. (You guessed it...Domingo!)

After Domingo got the crowd a date with "Me and My Shadow," he invited the fans to say "Hello, Bluebird."

Adam and Ted regaled the OTPP audience with tunes (as well as old-time piano pointers) after Domingo's and the Two Bills' final sets. And after one last clinic, the two hosts turned it over to David...who turned in Duke Ellington's and Bub Miley's "Black and Tan Fantasy" as well as the romping "Shreveport Stomp."  

This left Ethan as the last finalist...and he came out dressed like Abraham Lincoln (right down to the black suit, stovepipe hat, and fake beard). 

Ethan picked up the Stephen Foster baton that "Perfessor" Bill ran with in the semifinals, and the 2007 and 2012 RD titleholder nailed "Old Black Joe" and "Oh, Susanna."

Well, in a nutshell, Bill E. finished fifth and won $250, David got fourth prize and earned $400 for it, Domingo outdid his 2013 showing by grabbing off third (that meant $550), and Bill M. won second place...and walked away with $800.

And Ethan racked up his third Regular Division title, good for $1,350 and that Ted Lemen Traveling Trophy.

And so it's time to practice up for next year...and to see what 2015 will bring. .