[Dixielandjazz] Bob Milne's wisdom on playing well

[Don Kirkman]

On Tue, 24 Jun 2003 17:24:54 -0400, Eli Newberger wrote:

>Dear List:
>Bob Milne sent me the following message.  Because it was so provocative,
>and important to keeping this music alive, I asked for his permission to
>post it here.  
>Eli Newberger

>    If I may be so bold, I'd like to share with you my own perspectives
>with you on playing ragtime.  My only excuse for my kind of playing is
>that I did whatever had to be done in order to keep from being fired.
>I've made my living (feeding myself, finding shelter, etc.) from playing
>pianos since 1964.  Piano playing has been my one and only source of
>income for almost 40 years now, so I developed my own "rules" to survive
>by.

>    In 1964 there was no printed music for ragtime. 

This is my only quibble with the entire message, which I enjoyed reading
immensely.  Printed ragtime was available starting in 1897 with William
Krell's Mississippi Rag.  Tom Turpin's Harlem Rag came later the same
year, the first by a Black composer.  Scott Joplin's Original Rags came
out in early 1899, and the smash hit Maple Leaf also appeared in 1899
from a different publisher.  There were thousands of rags from dozen of
nationwide (US) publishers by the end of the ragtime era around 1920,
and most ragtimers, even casual ones, have copies of sheet music
published well before 1964.

Perhaps Bob Milne meant there was none available to him in 1964--I know
I didn't own any copies until after that time..

[...]
-- 
Don
donkirk at covad.net