lecture notes for Ragtime & Boogie Woogie

1. Ragtime
African-American songs known as “Coon
Songs” (1830s-),“Cakewalk” (1890s)
Ragtime (1897)

2. Coon Songs 1830-1910
Used as Required Composition for the
“Ragtime Championship of the World 1900

3. Cakewalk
A Popular Dance, “high-steppin”
Competition: Madison Square
Garden 1892
Expression “That Takes the Cake”

4. Cake Walk Photo 1890s

5. Ragtime (1897-1917)
African American Piano Style
Definition:
• Syncopated piano music
• Two beats per measure, 16 measure sections
• Right hand plays syncopated melody often in the
pattern: 3-3-2, 2xs faster that left hand
• Left hand plays “boom-chick” (bass note-chord)
• Rondo form

6. Classic Ragtime: Scott Joplin
(1869-1917)
Term used to distinguish from “Tin Pan” alley
compositions
Most famous Ragtime Composer
“Maple Leaf Rag” (1900)
Also wrote a ballet and 2 operas
Most famous opera is “Treemonisha”

7. Scott Joplin: Maple Leaf Rag
Form AABBACCDD
A - first melody
B - second melody
C - third melody
D - fourth melody

8. Ragtime Bands
Bands arranged piano rags
“At A Georgia Camp Meeting” (Sousa)
“Castle Cake Walk” (Europe)

9. James Reese Europe
Clef Club Orchestra
Chosen by Dancers Vernon & Irene Castle
WW I Conducted 369th Hellfighter’s Band,
brought “jazz” to France

10. James Reese Europe

11. Vernon & Irene Castle

12. Classic Ragtime to Stride Piano
Classic Ragtime usually considered
pre-jazz because it was written(without
improvisation)
Stride Piano was 1st jazz piano style
began to fade in late 1930s
• Left hand “boom-chick” (bass - chord)
• Right hand improvised melody

13. Stride Piano
James P. Johnson
‘Father of Stride”
• “Carolina Shout”
(1921), often
considered 1st jazz
piano recording
• Also wrote classical
compositions

14. Stride Piano
Thomas Fats Waller
Master showman
• “Handful of Keys”
• “Christopher
Columbus”
Wrote important
jazz tunes

15. Stride Piano Fats Waller

16. Stride Piano Fats Waller

17. Boogie Woogie
Piano Style beginning in 1928
The term pre-dates the piano style
Left hand plays repeated pattern “Eight to
the bar”
Usually in Blues Form
1st recording is Pinetop Smith
Jimmy Yancy
Pete Johnson 1938 Concert