New Orleans
and Ragtime
[Tom McDermott photo]
New Orleans has been a part of the story of Ragtime from the beginning of the music.
From Moreau Gottshchalk to Tony Jackson and Jelly Roll Morton, composers drew from a deep well of African American culture the most compelling musical ideas of their time.
Ragtime always was a band-style music in New Orleans, not just piano music like everywhere else. In Mid Century America, when music was evolving faster and faster every year, New Orleans musicians held on to the more syncopated, polyphonic styles, and kept ragtime in their repertoire for dances and festivals.
In the 70's, 80's and 90's New Orleans became a mecca for musicians who were inspired by the Ragtime revival that saw Scott Joplin finally hit the Billboard charts. Some of the greatest compositions of the Terra Verde movement were penned right here in the Crescent City.