New Orleans
and Ragtime
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. New Orleans piano "professors" like Tony Jackson, Clarence Williams and Jelly Roll Morton played ragtime with and with and without other instruments, always put their own personal style into the music, and almost always played to danceable tempo, often slow and relaxed. They mixed in Latin rhythms and blues inflections, and built the sounds that defined the city's music for the next century.
In the 30's, 40's and 50's, dance music was changing rapidly, but New Orleans held onto not just many favorite compositions, but also to the polyphonic mix of composition and improvisation that was beloved in the ballrooms, bars, and street parades. Ragtime held its place in the hearts of musicians and music lovers at a time when it was being relegated to cartoon music elsewhere.
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. The New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra, founded by Swedish emigre Lars Edegran and featuring some of the original ragtime musicians in the city, inspired a whole generation.