Scott Joplin: Maple Leaf Rag

Scott Joplin, born in Linden, Texas, in 1867, was a pianist and the most popular artist of ragtime music, the forerunner of jazz. Only Joseph Lamb, among ragtime performers, could rival Joplin’s omnipotence. At the height of ragtime’s popularity, print was the only medium for mass distribution of music, and ragtime compositions proved very popular among amateur musicians. “Maple Leaf Rag,” first published in 1899, sold over seven million copies and remains Joplin’s most popular work.

As player pianos became widely available in the early 1900s, piano rolls became another way of distributing ragtime music. Piano rolls, which were fed into the player piano, triggered the motion of the piano keys and allowed a performance to be accurately reproduced on any player piano at any time. Joplin made a number of piano rolls in 1916 with the selections “Maple Leaf Rag,” “Magnetic Rag,” “Pleasant Moments,” “Something Doing,” and “Weeping Willow Rag.” Through these piano rolls, it is possible to hear the music just as Joplin played it at the time they were produced.

Joplin considered himself a classical composer and sought to elevate ragtime to the status of a respectable art form. Fortunately, pianists such as Jelly Roll Morton and James P. Johnson would pull it back by improvising variations that defied Joplin’s limitations for the music. This improvisation ultimately led to the creation of jazz.

Joplin died in 1917, just as jazz was first being recorded and beginning its infiltration of the American mainland.

Joplin’s music can be heard on several compilations of piano roll recordings.

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