[Dixielandjazz] Steeplechase Rag

[Dan Augustine]

Folks--
     On Sunday at the concert by the Austin Traditional Jazz Society 
All-Stars, Brian Holland played the "Steeplechase Rag" by James P. 
Johnson, which i had never heard before.  It's a rouser and very 
difficult, but Brian pulled it off splendidly, and of course brought 
down the house, to wild appause.  (To see and hear him play it, go to 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7-dpyYYXRw.)  Apparently Johnson 
wrote this when he was but 16 years of age, but didn't publish it 
till much later, and then it also had a different (or alternate) name 
of "Over the Bars" (not to be confused with another song of that name 
by Theo. Moelling, with which i'm sure you're intimately familiar -- 
uh, what?).  (Brian's website is at 
http://www.hollandentertainment.com/, where you can get his CDs.)
     Anyway, being me, i immediately felt an urge to play this song 
myself, but since i can't play the piano, this feeling got translated 
into a desire to write an arrangement of it so i could at least play 
the bass-line on my tuba.  I'm contemplating an arrangement for 
either dixieland band or brass quintet (i've already arranged over 20 
of the Scott Joplin rags for brass quintet, and published "Pine Apple 
Rag").
     My question to the list is, has anyone ever heard or played a 
band arrangement of this piece?  (No sense re-inventing the wheel . . 
.)  Is it in fact (in your opinion) playable by a band, or is it too 
pianistic?

     Dan

P. S. By the way, the rest of the concert was very fine, with Bob 
Krenkel from Dallas playing marvelous clarinet, soprano sax, and bass 
sax; Bud Dresser (also from Dallas) playing trombone, flugelbone, and 
sousaphone (he and Bob have a CD out for ragtime piano and sousaphone 
which is great); Larmon Maddox belting it out on cornet; listmate 
Dave Stoddard announcing and playing fine solos on tuba; and Budge 
Mabry on drums (and not enough washboard).  Tommy Griffith even sat 
in on piano for a couple of numbers.
-- 
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**  Dan Augustine  --  Austin, Texas  --  ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu
**  "The less a science is advanced, the more its terminology tends
**   to rest on an uncritical assumption of mutual understanding."
**             -- Willard V. Quine in _Word and Object_
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