Listening Room – Ragtime Music | Paragon Ragtime Orchestra

The PRO Listening Room:

RAGTIME –

Truly “America’s Original Music,” Ragtime was the electrifying marriage of ancient African and European musical traditions, both newly-tranplanted to the great American Midwest. Beginning as an underground, improvised black style in the 1880s, by the mid-1890s Ragtime exploded as the nation’s first coast-to-coast popular music “craze” and was enjoyed by people of all races. The eccentric rhythm is the “thing” – listen:

Orchestral Rags –

“Delirium Tremens Rag” (F. Henri Klickmann, 1913)
Paragon Ragtime Orchestra [excerpt]. From the album More Candy.

“A Breeze From Alabama” (Scott Joplin, 1902)
Paragon Ragtime Orchestra [excerpt]. From the album PRO (finally) Plays ‘The Entertainer.’

“The Smiler” (Percy Wenrich, 1907)
Paragon Ragtime Orchestra [excerpt]. From the album Minding the Score.

Piano Rags –

“That Teasin’ Rag” (Joe Jordan, 1909)
Rick Benjamin, piano soloist; Paragon Ragtime Orchestra [excerpt].
From the album Barrelhouse to Broadway.

“The Smiler” (Percy Wenrich, 1907)
Rick Benjamin, piano [excerpt]. From the album Minding the Score.

Vocal Rags –

“The Wedding Glide” (Louis A. Hirsch, 1912)
Colte Juilian, baritone; Bernadette Boerckel, soprano; Paragon Ragtime Orchestra [excerpt].
From the album Midnight Frolic.

“Lovie Joe” (Joe Jordan/Will Marion Cook, 1910)
Bernadette Boerckel, comedienne; Paragon Ragtime Orchestra & Singers; [excerpt].
From the album Barrelhouse to Broadway.

Ragtime Solos for Orchestral Instruments –

“Oh You Drummer!” [a.k.a. “The Ragtime Drummer”] (J. Leubrie Hill, 1910)
Joseph Bracchitta, drum set soloist; Paragon Ragtime Orchestra.
From the album The Whistler And His Dog.

“Hallelujah Trombone” (Henry Fillmore, 1920)
Mike Boschen, trombone soloist; Paragon Ragtime Orchestra.
From the album ‘Round The Christmas Tree.