Originating Location: United States
Originating Era: 1890-1900
Key Artists
- Scott Joplin
- Joseph Lamb
- James Scott
- Jelly Roll Morton
- George Botsford
- R. Nathaniel Dett
- Jay Roberts
Key Albums
- Marvin Hamlisch - The Sting
History
Ragtime is a branch of modern music of the 1900s descended from African-American music of the late 19th century, and features syncopated rhythm. It's usually in either 2/4 or 4/4 time, and often on the fast side but the tempo usually does not exeed allegro. Many ragtime songs are two-steps. Another form of Ragtime is novelty piano, which is slightly faster and Stride, which is a style developed by African American composers during the Harlem Renaissance. Ragtime reached its peak by the 1920s but slowly became less popular as swing replaced its position. Even in the 1910s, it rivaled with dixieland. It enjoyed a brief resurgence in the 1940s with popular Jazz artists doing arrangements of ragtime songs, although it didn't really stay. In the 1950s, another revival occurred, which was more successful, with new ragtime music actually being written and recorded, though it was typically more on the novelty side of things. In the 1970s, there was another resurgence, but this was again based on new arrangements of old songs, mainly by Scott Joplin, most notably Marvin Hamlisch's performance of "The Entertainer", from The Sting.
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Further Reading
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