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Axel Christensen: The
Czar of Ragtime and his Ragtime Review
Chapter 1: The Czar of Ragtime: Axel Christensen
By Ted Tjaden
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Axel
Christensen (1881-1955) is given relatively prominent
discussion in both They All Played Ragtime (Blesh and Janis, 1966) and That
American Rag (Jasen and Jones,
2000), in addition to being given an entry in Grove
Music Online (Hasse). This
prominence is likely due more for his ragtime
instruction methods than his compositions. Unlike Scott Joplin, James Scott and Joseph Lamb – whose legends live
on primarily through their music – Axel Christensen's
legend lives on through his influence of spreading the
popularity of ragtime through the United States.
Christensen was a great proselytizer of ragtime music
through his instruction manuals, his ragtime schools
and his monthly magazine, the Ragtime Review,
which ran from 1914 to 1918 before being merged with Melody
magazine (Walter Jacobs) in 1918.
A few quick
facts about Christensen's life:
- Axel
Waldemar Christensen was born in Chicago on March
23, 1881, and died in Los Angeles on August 17,
1955, at the age of 74.
- Christensen
studied piano as a youth; Jasen and Jones (2000: 124-25) describe him as
only an average player as a child who was "shown up"
by a "nerdy" teenage boy on the piano at a party who
wowed the girls with ragtime music compared to the
parlour pieces that Christensen was playing at that
time. This caused Christensen to take up ragtime
with a passion. Jasen and Jones (2000:
125) note that Christensen composed his first
rag in 1902, being Ragtime Wedding March (Apologies
to Mendelssohn).
- He opened
his first ragtime instruction school in 1903 in
Chicago at the age of 22, advertising it as "Ragtime
Taught in Ten Lessons." The school expanded and by
1909 he opened a branch school in San Francisco
(Jasen and Jones: 2000: 126),
followed later by branches in Cincinnati and St
Louis. By 1918, Jasen and Jones (2000:
126) report that there were schools in over 25
cities, including 4 branches in Chicago alone.
- Three of
his more well known teachers, who also composed
rags of their own, were Robert
Marine (New York), Bernard
Brin (Seattle), Edward
Mellinger (St. Louis), and Marcella
Henry (Chicago). Jasen and Jones (2000: 127-28) describe in some
detail the success that Edward Mellinger had at
his St Louis schools where it "was not uncommon
for 500 or more to attend [student recitals] and
to cheer as the students played in various
combinations and as teachers played solos and in
duets with their pupils" (128).
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Left: Advertisement
from the back page of Progressive
Rag advertising several
Christensen publications.
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- Christensen published a very successful instruction
manual in 1906 entitled Christensen's Instruction
Book No 1 for Rag-Time Piano Playing. This
manual was revised and expanded five times between
1906 and 1915 (Jasen and Jones: 2000:
125). Christensen also adapted his instruction
manuals to incorporate new trends in music (such as
"Jazz and Novelty" in 1927 and "Modern Swing Music" in
1936). Two of Christensen's teaching manuals are
available in Chapter
5.
- Jasen and Jones (2000: 130)
suggest that Christensen's school were eventually hit
hard by the Great Depression and started to close
during the 1930's but that Christensen continued to
operate a small number of schools and to continue to
publish his instruction manuals. It also appears that
Christensen continued to perform in vaudeville and as
an entertainer at banquets.
For vaudeville, where his time is naturally limited
to not more than 20 minutes, his routine is usually
as follows:
1. Novelty Piano Solo.
2. Pianologue – A
Reminder of Bert Williams, in colored dialect.
3. Monologue – Skandinavian
atmosphere in dialect and full of laughs.
4. Piano Solo – Medley
of popular tunes, played in his own style, with
plenty of breaks, fills and embellishments to
delight the modern music lover.
5. Encore: His impression of a tobacco chewing
old soldier telling a duck story.
For club entertainments this routine is
lengthened out to about 30 minutes by adding a
character monologue in English dialect, such as:
6. The Honorable Bassington-Bassington talks on
Physiology.
7 . Monologue – Mrs.
Gilhooly's experience with the bottles, in Irish
dialect.
8. Piano Solo – A
syncophonic version of the Overture "Poet and
Peasant," or "An Alpine Storm."
For
full evening programs he delves deeper into his
repertoire and gives serious pianologue readings
such as James Whitcomb Riley's "An Old
Sweetheart of Mine" and "The River Smi!e." This
is followed by selected piano solos,
interspersed with pianologues, monologues,
stories, etc., etc.
Anyway,
when the evening is over you'll say you've been
ENTERTAINED.
I have
found that the easiest way to sell laughs is to
take the customer by surprise. For instance if
the customer (or guest) thinks that the speaker
who is being introduced is going to try to sell
a lot of dry and uninteresting ideas (about a
business that he would prefer to forget for the
moment altogether) he will be doubly pleased
when he discovers that this same man is a laugh
dealer. On the other hand, when a speaker is
introduced as a humorist the immediate reaction
in the mind of the listener is something like
this: ''Well this fellow had better be good."
"We'll see." "I wonder what old bromides this
fellow is going to pull", etc. The speaker is
received with some polite applause, his first
few quips get some obliging laughter and he is
often half way through with his routine before
he wins the whole-hearted interest of his
listeners, most of which have been joked to
death at previous banquets.
However,
the element of surprise can make this same
speaker's routine a hundred percent efficient,
and that's why I always try to do my laugh
manufacturing incognito at the speakers' table
to start with.
For
example: At a recent convention in Chicago, I
was on the speakers program as "Count Anton
Carlson, President of the Such and Such Bank of
Stockholm, Sweden" for an address on "Banking
Conditions in the Scandinavian Countries".
Before
sitting down to dinner I was introduced
individually to as many of the members as
possible, and during the dinner I had to answer
questions (in dialect) about banking conditions
in my "native" country. The ladies at the table
were evidently so thrilled at the idea of
talking to "a real count," that they took turns
sitting next to me and making me feel thoroughly
at home.
Finally,
"Count Anton Carlson", was introduced by the
toastmaster in a manner fitting to his station,
upon which the entire audience stood up as a
tribute to this honored guest from abroad.
Can you
imagine a more perfect setting for a humorous
speaker?
Well, I
began my talk in a rich Scandinavian dialect
that was funny in it-self. Of course, at the
beginning I made a few remarks on banking, so
that for a time it looked like the real thing,
and no one expected anything more than a few
dull platitudes and some dry statistics.
Gradually, however, I infused more and more
humor into my talk, until at last it was just
one long series of laughs after another.
At
first of course, some of the people didn't
really dare to laugh out loud, because they were
afraid they might offend their "distinguished
visitor." But when they did get wise, they let
out all their suppressed laughter and some more
too. As you can imagine, the results were almost
deafening. And "a good time was had by all,"
judging from the wonderful manner in which the
audience treated me.
- Blesh
and Janis (1966: 140)
describe Christensen's impact on the ragtime
industry through the sheer number of students who
were trained under Christensen's system: 200,000
registered students from between 1903 and 1923; a
cumulative total of 350,000 students by 1930; and
around 500,000 students by 1935.
- In 1950,
when They All Played Ragtime was first
published, Christensen was still alive (nearing
seventy) and is described by Blesh and Janis (1966: 140) as "still a
sought-after pianist, monologist, and homespun
philosopher at conventions and banquets."
Research
references:
- Blesh, Rudi & Harriet
Grossman Janis. They All Played Ragtime. New
York: Oak Publications, 1966.
[Internet Archive version]
- Jasen, David & Gene Jones
(2000). That American Rag: The Story of Ragtime
from Coast to Coast. New York: Schirmer Books,
2000.
[Internet Archive version]
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work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
License.
This
site created by Ted Tjaden.
Page last updated:
January 2025.
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