Ragtime recordings?

David F.

Apology for the non-GJ question, but have any guitarists made recordings of Scott Joplin rags? Any style, any era; I want to hear these as guitar music. Thanks.

Cuimean

I don't know about Scott Joplin specifically, but I do know that Craig Ventresco has recorded a fair amount of ragtime material on guitar. You can check out some of his stuff here:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/ventresco

scot

Playing Scott Joplin rags on the guitar was very popular in the 1970s, so much so that many guitar shops forbid the playing of "Maple Leaf Rag" along with "Stairway to Heaven"... Some players wrote really unbelievable arrangements of those rags, especially Dave Laibman. His Rounder LP "Classical Ragtime Guitar" is a benchmark for the style with beautiful versions of "Gladiolus Rag", "Silver Swan", Magnetic Rag" plus tunes from other composers like Willialm Balcom's wistful "Graceful Ghost". Googling Dave Laibman will turn up a lot of information.

I learned many of these tunes back then and still play them several times a week just to make sure I don't forget them - and they're fun to play, too. Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop has lot of instructional material, but beware - this style of guitar is tough to say the least.

David F.

scot wrote:

Playing Scott Joplin rags on the guitar was very popular in the 1970s, so much so that many guitar shops forbid the playing of "Maple Leaf Rag" along with "Stairway to Heaven"... Some players wrote really unbelievable arrangements of those rags, especially Dave Laibman. His Rounder LP "Classical Ragtime Guitar" is a benchmark for the style with beautiful versions of "Gladiolus Rag", "Silver Swan", Magnetic Rag" plus tunes from other composers like Willialm Balcom's wistful "Graceful Ghost". Googling Dave Laibman will turn up a lot of information.

I learned many of these tunes back then and still play them several times a week just to make sure I don't forget them - and they're fun to play, too. Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop has lot of instructional material, but beware - this style of guitar is tough to say the least.

Thanks, that's a good lead. I didn't notice anyone in guitar stores in the 70's playing rags--I was too busy trying to learn "Smoke On The Water" back then!

sockeye

I'll second what Scot said -- there are some real fingerbusters in a lot of these ragtime arrangements. Since this is a gypsy jazz forum, I'll mention a player who has some amazing arrangements and performances of classic ragtime, but has also adapted a couple of Django's pieces to fingerpicking: Lasse Johansson. His CD Fingerstyle Guitar Classics is tremendous and includes arrangements of both "Tears" and "Blue Drag."

He has a new DVD out called Early Jazz For Fingerstyle Guitar which I got for Christmas -- I've only watched a little bit, and haven't attempted any of the pieces, but what I've seen looks excellent, and it appears I'll have my work cut out for me in 2009.

Happy new year to you all,

John

Bohemian

Guy van Duser