Ragtime Composers

Half the original musical arrangements recorded and published by Download2MP3 are described as Ragtime. That means that they were composed in the United States of America from the 1880s to the 1920s. Their popularity was spread by the wide spread publication of affordable sheet music for pianos although they were picked up and arranged for small bands and the guitar. Many of the early rags were dance music - typically Two Steps or cakewalks. There is also a strong vein of Marches but latterly an Intermezzo form emerged.

Many Rags were absorbed into the Jazz tradition where they provided a basis for free variations and interplay between soloists and the earliest example of this is Irving Berlin's Alexander's Ragtime Band. There were also a number of novelty ragtime pieces. But the star of the Rag time show was Scot Joplin and we have our own arrangements of thirty of his pieces. The composers on the rogues gallery are represented by one or two tunes each except for Charles L Johnson whose work can be found in our Gamelan Collections. These were produced when an excellent emulation of the Bali Gamelan Orchestra became available which we harnest to our interpretation of many rgatime pieces.

Scott Joplin	Charles Johnson	Clarence Wiley Carbarlick Acid Rag	Percey Wenrich Red Rose Rag Skeleton Rag
Euday Bowman 12th Street Rag	Harry Linclon Bees-Wax Rag	Eduardo Nazareth Odeon	Zez Confrey Dizzy Fingers Greenwich Witch
May Auferheide The Richmond Rag	Harry Tierney Crimson Rambler Rag	Ruby Wiedoeft Sax-O-Phun Sax-O-Trix Rubenola	EJ Stark Billikin Rag