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Ragtime Sources
by Ted Tjaden
Set out below is
information on sources of ragtime music,
organized into the following categories:
1) Ragtime books and magazines
2) Print
sources of ragtime sheet music
3) Online
sources of ragtime sheet music
4) Essential
recordings of ragtime music
5) Ragtime
organizations
6) Major
ragtime websites
1) Ragtime books and magazines [top]
The following books on
ragtime music and the ragtime era
represent some of the more important
titles in the ragtime literature:
- Badger,
Reid. A Life in Ragtime: A
Biography of James Reese Europe.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1995
[Internet Archive
version].
- Barile, Mary et al. Merit
not Sympathy Wins: The Life and
Times of Blind Boone.
Kirksville, MO: Truman State University
Press, 2012.
- Batterson,
Jack. Blind Boone: Missouri’s
Ragtime Pioneer. Columbia,
MO: University of Missouri Press, 1998 [Internet Archive
version].
- Berlin,
Edward. Ragtime: A Musical and
Cultural History. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press,
1980.
- Berlin,
Edward. Reflections and Research
on Ragtime. Brooklyn, NY:
Institute for Studies in American Music,
Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College
of the City University of New York,
1987.
- Binkowski, Carol. Joseph
F Lamb: A Passion for Ragtime.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012 [book details].
- Blesh,
Rudi & Harriet Grossman Janis. They
All Played Ragtime. 4th ed.
New York: Oak Publications, 1966.
Citations on this website to this book
are to the 4th edition. The book was
first published in 1950 by Alfred A
Knopf [Internet Archive
version].
- Curtis, Susan. Dancing
to a Black Man's Tune.
Columbia, MO: University of Missouri
Press, 1994 [Internet Archive
version].
- DeVeaux,
Scott & William Howland Kenney, eds.
The Music of James Scott.
Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution
Press, 1992.
- Frew,
Timothy. Scott Joplin and the Age
of Ragtime. New York:
Friedman Fairfax, 1996.
- Gilbert, David. The
Product of Our Souls Ragtime, Race,
and the Birth of the Manhattan
Musical Marketplace. Chapel
Hill, NC: The University of North
Carolina Press, 2015 [book details].
- Gilmore,
John. Swinging
in Paradise: The Story of Jazz in
Montreal. Montreal, QC:
Vehicule Press, 1988.
- Jasen, David. Ragtime:
An Encyclopedia, Discography, and
Sheetography. New York:
Routledge, 2007.
- Jasen,
David & Gene Jones. Black
Bottom Stomp: Eight Masters of
Ragtime and Early Jazz. New
York: Routledge, 2001 [Internet Archive
version].
- Jasen, David &
Gene Jones. Spreadin' Rhythm
Around: Black Popular Songwriters,
1890-1920. New York:
Schirmer Books, 1998 [Internet Archive
version].
- Jasen,
David & Gene Jones. That
American Rag: The Story of Ragtime
from Coast to Coast. New
York: Schirmer Books, 2000 [Internet Archive
version].
- Jasen,
David & Trebor Jay Tichenor. Rags
and Ragtime: A Musical History.
New York: Dover Publications, 1978 [Internet Archive
version].
- Jennings Haydon,
Geoffrey & Richard Lawn. A Study
of the Exchange
of Influences
between the Music
of Early
Twentieth
Century
Parisian Composers
and Ragtime,
Blues, and
Early Jazz.
Thesis/dissertation: University of Texas
at Austin, 1992.
- Karp, Larry. Brun
Campbell: The Original Ragtime Kid.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company,
2016. [book details]
- Lerma,
Dominique-Renede & Vivian Flagg
McBrier. The Collected
Piano Works of R Nathaniel Dett.
Evanston, IL: Summy-Birchard, 1973.
- McBrier, Vivian
Flagg. R
Nathaniel Dett: His Life and Works
(1882-1943). Washington,
DC: The Associated Publishers, 1977.
- Milan, Jon. Detroit:
Ragtime and the Jazz Age.
Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing,
2009.
- Morath,
Max et al. The Road to Ragtime.
Virginia Beach, VA: Donning Company
Publishing, 1999.
- Ping-Robbins,
Nancy. Scott Joplin: A Guide to
Research. New York: Garland
Pub., 1998.
- Rose, Al. Eubie
Blake. New York: Schirmer
Books, 1979.
- Schafer,
William & Johannes Riedel. The
Art of Ragtime: Form and Meaning of
an Original Black American Art.
Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State
University Press, 1973 [Internet
Archive version].
- Stewart, Philip. The
Music of Charles Leslie Johnson: A
Collector's Journey.
Addison, TX: Aquila Media Productions,
2009.
- Sutton,
A. Cakewalks,
Rags and Novelties: The
International Ragtime Discography
(1894-1930). Denver, CO:
Mainspring Press, 2003.
- Swanson, Adam. Robert
R Darch's Golden Reunion in Ragtime:
The First Complete Study of a
One-of-a-kind Recording Session.
Thesis/dissertation: MM Peabody
Conservatory, 2016.
- Tracy, Steven. Hot
Music, Ragmentation, and the Bluing
of American Literature.
Tuscaloosa: Univ of Alabama Press, 2015
[book
details].
- Williamson, Michael
Noel. 'Ragging the Classics': An
Examination of Ragtime in Piano
Compositions by Claude Debussy,
Percy Grainger and Igor Stravinsky.
Thesis/dissertation: Parkville,
University of Melbourne, 2013.
The Silent Film Sound &
Music Archive has digitized most of
the issues of the following ragtime
magazines:
In addition, the New York Public Library
has digitized the following ragtime
magazine:
The Hathi Trust has also
digitized a few issues of the following
ragtime magazine:
The Etude Magazine
(1883-1957) is now online here from Gardner Webb University.
For a current periodical discussing jazz,
swing, and ragtime, see:
2) Print sources of ragtime sheet music [top]
An excellent compilation
of published sheet music is available
online in a downloadable Excel spreadsheet
through the efforts of Michael Mathew and
a number of volunteer contributors. See:
The foregoing Ragtime
Compendium is an excellent resource to
verify the existence of a ragtime
composition or find out is publisher and
whether the piece has been published.
Michael
Chisolm has started at project at Ragtime Sheet Music
that hopes to digitize a large collection
of otherwise hard to source ragtime sheet
music. Pending that work being completed,
he has provided an extensive list of
"found" ragtime sheet music compositions
that are projected to be digitized and put
online.
In addition, a number of libraries,
primarily American, have large collections
of ragtime-era sheet music that have not
been digitized (for online, digitized
sheet music, see below).
The following libraries have large sheet
music collections (in print):
3) Online sources of ragtime sheet music [top]
There
are a number of excellent online sources
of digitized sheet music collections
that include large selections of rags
and ragtime era music.
The
most comprehensive starting point would
be the Sheet Music Consortium at UCLA:
The
foregoing site is a clearing house for
the following individual sites:
-
American University
Library, Historical Sheet Music
Collection
- Auburn
University, Piano Bench Digital
Collection
- Baylor
University, Frances G Spencer
Collection of American Sheet Music
- Duke
University, Digital Collections
(Historic American Sheet Music
- Indiana
University, Starr Sheet Music
Collection
- Johns
Hopkins University, Lester S Levy
Collection of Sheet Music
- Library
of Congress: Historic Sheet Music
Collection (1800 to 1922)
- Maine
Music Box
- Mississippi State
University, Charles Templeton
Digital Sheet Music Collection
- National
Library of Australia
- Temple
University, Sheet Music Collections
- University
of Colorado: Digital Sheet Music
Collection
- University
of Mississippi, Sheldon Harris Sheet
Music Collection
- University of
Missouri, Kansas City Sheet Music
Collection
- University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
19th-Century American Sheet Music
- University
of Oregon, Historic Sheet Music
- University
of Washington, Pacific Northwest
Sheet Music Collection
- University
of Tennessee, Sheet Music Collection
- Washington
University in St Louis
- York
University Libraries, Sheet Music
Collections (Toronto)
In
addition to the foregoing sites, there
are a number of other digital
collections that contain sheet music
from the ragtime era that have not yet
been harvested by the Sheet Music
Consortium or are otherwise useful as
individual links:
The following
collections also contain (free) digitized
sheet music, including some ragtime, but
to a much lesser extent (set out below in
alphabetical order):
For a Canadian online
seller of sheet music with an interesting
collection of ragtime era music for sale,
see Tredwell's Music.
Finally, you can usually find extensive
sheet music for sale on eBay, which can be
another way of obtaining hard to find
ragtime sheet music:
In addition to the
foregoing sources of online ragtime sheet
music, readers may be interested in (free)
online sheet music to the Brazilian tango
music for the piano by Ernesto Nazareth and Chiquinha
Gonzaga (my goal is to write a
separate essay on this website on Brazlian
piano tango music and its interplay with
American ragtime music):
4) Essential recordings of ragtime music [top]
On each of the separate
essays I have written on ragtime music (see
the table of contents to these essays) I
have included recommended commercial
recordings of ragtime related to each essay.
In addition, there are a number of free MIDI
recordings of ragtime music on the Internet,
including the following sites:
Additional ragtime MIDI
links can be found here.
Two other sources of ragtime music include
the following:
- Stingray Music:
Ragtime Memories: In Canada, at
least, many cable TV subscriptions may
include a subscription to Stingray Music
on your TV which also includes the
ability to listen on a mobile device
where one can "filter" music by genre,
with one of those filters on your mobile
device being ragtime music.
5) Ragtime organizations [top]
6) Major ragtime websites [top]
Set out below is a
select list of ragtime-related websites by
ragtime performers or publishers:
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