{"title":"Ragtime","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"joplin-the-complete-works-for-piano-dick-hyman","title":"Joplin: The Complete Works for Piano \/ Dick Hyman","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNo better Joplin cycle exists, and its first complete appearance on CD is long overdue.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBetween January and April 1975, the classically trained, multi-award-winning jazz pianist and composer Dick Hyman – whose astounding résumé includes playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman, writing and arranging for Count Basie, and scoring most of the films of Woody Allen – went into RCA’s Studio A in New York City and set down the definitive recording of ragtime legend Scott Joplin’s piano works. In 1988, an hour-long selection from the five LPs was released on CD. Now at last, Sony Classical is issuing Hyman’s entire Joplin album on three well-filled silver discs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis really is Joplin’s complete piano output. It even includes the six short exercises that form his 1908 School of Ragtime, with their printed prefatory remarks read by the 92-year-old Eubie Blake, a friend of Joplin and a distinguished ragtime player in his own right. Also here are Joplin’s less familiar marches and waltzes. And there’s a bonus: the set contains Hyman’s own twelve delightful improvisations on themes by Joplin, which he designed to demonstrate the composer's influence on the development of jazz harmony and melody. When the LPs were first released, Gramophone’s jazz critic wrote that “the eminently musical quality of Hyman’s playing is in evidence throughout the collection; he has the ability to characterize perfectly each piece and somehow to pinpoint every little harmonic subtlety and melodic felicity without in any way detracting from the conception as a whole.... He pays as much attention to matters of tempo, texture, phrasing and dynamics as though he were doing the twenty-four Chopin Preludes. Two for instance I particularly enjoyed were Cascades with its rippling lightness of touch and Scott Joplin’s New Rag in which Hyman’s cleanness of articulation and rhythmic exuberance are a joy. … Joplin well deserves this very handsome and well-recorded tribute.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCONTENTS\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMaple Leaf Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOriginal Rags\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSwipesy\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePeacherine Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Easy Winners\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSunflower Slow Drag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Entertainer\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eElite Syncopations\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Strenuous Life\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Breeze from Alabama\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePalm Leaf Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSomething Doing\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWeeping Willow\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Chrysanthemum\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Cascades\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Sycamore\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Favorite\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLeola\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Ragtime Dance\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEugenia\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLily Queen\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGladiolus Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNonpareil\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHeliotrope Bouquet\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSearch-light Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRose Leaf Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFig Leaf Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePine Apple Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSolace\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSugar Cane\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStoptime Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEuphonic Sounds\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCountry Club\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWall Street Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFelicity Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eParagon Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSilver Swan Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKismet Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMagnetic Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eReflection Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAntoinette\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCleopha\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMarch majestic\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCombination March\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRosebud\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGreat Crush Collision\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSchool of Ragtime (Exercises Nr. 1-6)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBethena (Concert waltz)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBinks' Waltz\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePleasant Moments\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAugustan Club Waltz\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHarmony Club Waltz\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNew Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e+Dick Hyman-Improvisation on Peacherine Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Entertainer\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eElite Syncopations\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Breeze from Alabama\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSomething Doing\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGladiolus Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHeliotrope Bouquet\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFig Leaf Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStoptime Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNew Rag\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePleasant moments\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEW\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe ragtime genre came into full flower from the mid-1890s through the end of World War I, spearheaded by Scott Joplin (1868-1917), whose 1899 composition Maple Leaf Rag became the template and standard bearer for classic through-composed rags. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw newfound interest in Joplin as a serious composer, starting with the New York Public Library’s publication of Joplin’s collected works. Joplin’s 1902 rag The Entertainer figured prominently in the soundtrack for the 1973 Academy Award-winning film The Sting, launching a floodgate of Joplin releases. Even classical artists as unlikely as Itzhak Perlman, James Levine, and E. Power Biggs hitched their stars to the Joplin bandwagon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eHowever, the most comprehensive, intelligently produced, respectful, and artistically satisfying collection of Joplin’s complete piano works came from RCA Victor in a five-LP boxed set, featuring pianist Dick Hyman. No better Joplin cycle exists, and its first complete appearance on CD is long overdue.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe music is presented by genre, with the rags arranged in loose chronological order by composition, followed by marches and waltzes. Also included is Joplin’s charming “School of Ragtime” Etudes complete with Joplin’s introductory remarks read by composer\/pianist and Joplin colleague Eubie Blake, who was 92 when he faced the microphone to speak. Hyman also offers the Grand Crush Collision march both in its original text and in his own ragtime transformation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAlthough Hyman’s pianism embraces the entire history of jazz piano, his effortless virtuosity is firmly rooted in classical training. As Rudi Blesh aptly stated in his brilliant and insightful original booklet annotations, the pianist “takes ragtime seriously without becoming solemn and portentous, more as one must do in approaching, say, much of Mozart.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eTwo further qualities make Hyman’s Joplin stand out: his intelligent tempo choices, and his ideal fusion of classical projection and jazz time keeping. Take Joplin’s 1899 hit Maple Leaf Rag, for example. Hyman’s vigorous pace, dynamic contrasts, and clear articulation convey pure joy with a soupçon of brashness, so unlike Joshua Rifkin’s effete and rhythmically stiff traversal. The Cascades’ descending runs are as crystalline and transparent as Rubinstein’s Chopin. By contrast, Hyman’s measured tempo and ear-catching inflections of phrase in Elite Syncopations give shape and breathing room to Joplin’s polyphony.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eNote, too, Hyman’s lovely legato touch and subtly lilting rubatos in Weeping Willow, Gladiolus Rag, and Solace, while Something Doing is pure lightness and effervescence. The pianist’s characterful animation keeps the episodic Bethena concert waltz afloat and moving. And although Hyman clearly respects Joplin’s texts, the pianist is not above filling out the texture with discreet octave reinforcements in the left hand, as he does in the difficult Euphonic Sounds, a rag that foreshadows elements of stride piano. Because Hyman approaches each piece on its own terms, one gleans more variety and expressive scope from Joplin’s oeuvre than we experience from most other Joplin interpreters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe original LP edition devoted the tenth side to twelve of Hyman’s improvisations on Joplin themes, which here are spread across the three CDs, most likely for timing considerations. They are sheer delights, from The Entertainer’s bi-tonal coda to a brief and unbuttoned Peacherine Rag that brilliantly burlesques Art Tatum’s 1940 recording of Harold Arlen’s Get Happy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eA Breeze From Alabama is pure, unadulterated barrelhouse and boogie-woogie, while in Joplin’s New Rag Hyman can’t resist interpolating Juventino Rosas’ Over the Waves–better known as the summer camp ditty “George Washington Bridge”. In short, Dick Hyman and Scott Joplin unquestionably belong to the coterie of symbiotic performer\/composer pairings that include Schnabel\/Beethoven, Gould\/Bach, Gieseking\/Debussy, Larrocha\/Albéniz, and Hamelin\/Alkan.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFull disclosure: I met Dick Hyman nearly 60 years ago when I was eight years old, and he has been a friend, a colleague, and a musical father figure to me ever since. We even played two pianos together in several concerts. I vividly remember hearing Dick preparing these Joplin pieces at the time of the 1975 sessions, and marveled at his absolute commitment to the material, his focus and his flexibility in the process of getting all of the music under his awesome fingers. Thanks to Sony\/BMG for reissuing and gorgeously remastering an important recording project that belongs in every serious collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e-- ClassicsToday.com (10\/10; Jed Distler)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sony Masterworks","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44624414736618,"sku":"196587923624","price":22.48,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4389407-3299547.jpg?v=1749224960"}],"url":"https:\/\/arkivmusic.com\/collections\/ragtime.oembed","provider":"ArkivMusic","version":"1.0","type":"link"}