Rediscovery of Ragtime | Gunther Schuller

Gunther Schuller and the Rediscovery of Ragtime:

One Musician’s Career Path, Remembrance, and Tribute

By David Reffkin

Violinist David Reffkin (New England Conservatory, 1973), is the founder and director of The American Ragtime Ensemble. He has worked in diverse areas of music--as a teacher, contractor, orchestrator, print and broadcast journalist, archivist, and administrator. He served as the 25th and 50th Year Class Marshal at NEC Commencements.

For more info, visit https://www.davidreffkin.com/

Preface

To say that someone had a major role in reviving a passé art form is awesome enough. To further mention that he was already an internationally celebrated figure in several other much larger endeavors is beyond reasonable belief. But it’s all true. This is the story of Gunther Schuller’s direct and indirect influences on the rediscovery of an entire genre of music--ragtime.

Writing a brief paper on even one essential aspect of Gunther’s career is a challenge in editing. To set the stage I should point out that this is a personal narrative. Most of the story relates to the organization he created and directed, the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble. I worked on its first and last projects and in many activities through the years. However, this is not a full history or chronology of that organization.

Editorial notes:

The musical terms orchestration and arrangement are similar. An orchestration is a particular type of arrangement. Whereas an arrangement is the rewriting of a piece for an alternate set of instruments (or voices), an orchestration (in this setting) is an arrangement of a piano piece for an ensemble of any size.
The founding name of the group was the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble (NECRE). Years later, the word “Conservatory” was dropped (NERE). The former is referenced when historically relevant; the latter is used otherwise, even if the activity also occurred during the period of the former.
Except when indicated in the text, there are two sources of quotations:
- (1) Dick Wellstood, in Terry Waldo, This is Ragtime, 1976, Hawthorne Books, p 206
- (2) Gunther Schuller, interviewed by David Reffkin, April 21, 1983 for “The Ragtime Machine,” KUSF-FM, broadcast May 23, 30, June 6, 1983; published in The Mississippi Rag, November 1983, pp 9-11

I offer an excerpt from the notes for Essays in Ragtime (2016), my own ensemble’s recording of the complete works of composer/pianist Brun Campbell, a friend of Scott Joplin’s. This dedication to Gunther, who had died the previous year, should give the reader a sense of my perceived inherited knowledge and (perhaps) wisdom:

My efforts for this recording are contributed in respectful memory of Gunther Schuller (1925-2015), a profound influence in my music education and beyond. Among his passions, the most intense was his championing of worthy American composers. His guidance at New England Conservatory and elsewhere sharpened the skills required to produce this project, including research, restoration, orchestration, editing, producing, directing...and writing liner notes: Gunther died as I was organizing the first draft. His conception of "the complete musician" and presidency of a school that supports that stance encouraged a classically trained violinist to consider a future with numerous interesting enterprises, such as a ragtime ensemble.

Setting the stage

In the early 1970s, as will be detailed here, a dormant musical genre that had captivated Americans at the turn of the century was unexpectedly resuscitated into pop hit status. Ragtime is an instrumental and vocal art characterized by syncopated rhythms, catchy melodies, and snappy lyrics. Before being overshadowed by the increasing popularity of jazz, it had spawned its own variety of dances, and made celebrities of talented composers and practitioners; the word itself represents the era in which it flourished. Many of the first jazz pieces that followed were improvisations on the existing ragtime repertory. (The joke about this transition is that jazz was created by ragtime musicians who couldn’t read music.)

A recording that would become one of the major catalysts of ragtime rediscovery was precipitated by a student orchestra concert at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, on May 14, 1972. Gunther Schuller, president of the school and conductor of its Symphony Orchestra, had scheduled a five-day “Festival of Americana: The Romantic Era in American Music.” Festivals were a feature of Gunther’s reign, designed to highlight lesser- known but deserving composers, often native to Boston or New England. This concert was the last in the week’s series, and the concluding works were by ragtime composer Scott Joplin (1868?-1917), simply titled “Selected Ragtime Pieces.”I remember seeing this listing

on the rehearsal board, but it meant little to most of us in the orchestra as the call was for only 12 players. So I took the opportunity to watch the performance in Jordan Hall. It was in fact the preface to a life-altering experience.

In the printed program Gunther noted recent interest in ragtime: “Joplin has just been rediscovered and the Joplin vogue is in full swing.” He undoubtedly had in mind the recent recordings of rag solos by Boston-area pianist Joshua Rifkin, and perhaps a couple of other LPs and publications. From our present point of view, there was much left to discover and the vogue would swing much more fully. He also pointed out that his original intent for the festival was to perform excerpts from Joplin’s 1911 opera, Treemonisha [Tree-mo-NISH-a], but as that material was unavailable due to legal tangles, he deferred to the rags.

Early self-proclaimed “rags” began appearing in the 1890s, a form of unwritten folk music played on a variety of instruments. The word “ragtime” refers to the feel of the inherent ragged syncopated rhythms. The term was associated with syncopated instrumental and vocal pieces. Soon they were published for solo piano, and the popular sellers also appeared as orchestrations, usually for a standard group of 11 instruments. Joplin’s publisher, John Stark of St. Louis, Missouri, always attentive to current trends, not only actively published and promoted orchestrations, his son Etilman was one of his arrangers. Around 1912, Stark bound together 15 of his best sellers (including the four in the NEC concert) into an octavo folio edition (10” by 7”) with a distinctive red cover. Properly titled Standard High-Class Rags, it quickly acquired the nickname “The Red Backed Book.” (“Backed” is usually shortened to “Back.”) Gunther had received photocopies of pages from this collection from his friend Vera Brodsky Lawrence at the New York Public Library. She had acquired them from New Orleans musician and historian William Russell.

Figure 1

With Gunther’s addition of a tuba to double the string bass part, the student ensemble played four pieces in this order: “The Entertainer,” “The Easy Winners,” “The Chrysanthemum,” and “The Cascades.” (By chance, the opening piece later became the most well-known and emblematic rag of the entire revival.) Gunther’s introductions from the stage briefly placed ragtime in its historical setting. Before the performance of “The Chrysanthemum,” he mentioned Joplin’s printed subtitle, “An Afro-American Intermezzo,” a curious notation for a piece published in Sedalia, Missouri in 1904. All the musicians were students except for the pianist, jazz department faculty member and superstar, Jaki Byard. Noted for mixing jazz styles in his own arrangements, one of his brief solo breaks (in the fourth strain of “The Easy Winners”) suddenly pivoted into a bluesy-stride figure, distinctly noticeable within the march-like ragtime context.

In his comments, Gunther had not focused on the racial identity of Joplin. But due to an unforeseen initiative pertaining to the festival, he decided to add one final remark before the set’s conclusion. Some students had distributed a leaflet protesting recent US involvement in Southeast Asia, calling for a minute of silence for its victims at the conclusion of the John Knowles Paine “Mass” performed earlier that week. A sort of counter-leaflet was distributed by an “undersigned minority” who resented the presence of a political agenda at concerts. This latter group, however, called for the minute of silence in remembrance “whether their country is grateful to them or not.” Gunther felt the need to add a comment, perhaps for the sake of inclusion (an exact quotation, or nearly so): “For the benefit of those people handing out leaflets about this festival, I ought to point out that Scott Joplin is one of two black composers in this festival.” I have carefully checked the festival booklet and could not identify the other black composer. Possibly a late addition or error accounted for the omission of a piece by William Grant Still, whom Gunther also championed. In 1973 Still was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music at the NEC Commencement.

Context

Gunther’s first ragtime presentation should be considered in the context of NEC’s curriculum under his influence, and in the pre-existing recordings of Joplin’s works. In 1969, NEC established the Afro-American Music and Jazz Studies Department. Gunther and others had previously worked out a formulation for what he called “Third Stream,” which encouraged a compositional and improvisational approach to the combining of so-called “classical” techniques with jazz. I recall a course in Baroque music in which a young assistant instructor emphasized the important idea that music throughout much of history was originally created for dance. He went further, telling us that when we played the music of Bach, for example, it should have a lilt, or “swing." Of course, we were not to get carried away with the notion, but that small instruction impressed us as young students who had never associated swing with Baroque music. (So-called “dotted rhythms” [sounded rhythmically as dah-dit dah-dit], either written or implied in art music, are sometimes suggestive of a triplet feel but only hint at the concept of swing.)

The school’s reputation for more liberal inclusion of music beyond the traditional classics was becoming more

firmly established. During this period, the hybrid idea of enlarging the school’s curriculum and revitalizing music

in the community was encapsulated in a fundraising campaign with the slogan “Start a renaissance.”

As mentioned, recordings of works by Joplin and his contemporaries had previously been issued. In fact, material

from the “Red Back Book” was recorded by jazz trumpeter Bunk Johnson and hisband in one of their last sessions

from 1947. Aside from the Rifkin LPs, a Joplin retrospective was offered by Ann Charters in 1958, and William

Bolcom recorded old and new rags in 1971. Ragtime enthusiasts, few and far between, could find a few recordings

such as these but rarely any live performances. That changed when the New York Public Library (again through the

effort of Vera Lawrence) published the monumental Scott Joplin: Collected Piano Works in 1971. Figure 2

NEC students, including myself, received an inspiring introduction to ragtime in 1971, when the music’s most prolific promoter of all time, Max Morath, gave a lively informal presentation in the student lounge. Later that day, I heard someone playing “Maple Leaf Rag” in a practice room--probably the only student at the time who had already learned it. For an ethnomusicology class, I chose to write a paper on the history of ragtime.

My encounters with Gunther go back somewhat further. I attended his talk on Third Stream as a high school student in Rhode Island in the mid-1960s. In 1969, I was a member of the Music Educators National Conference All-Eastern Orchestra, where he conducted, among other pieces, his “Five Etudes for Orchestra.”

A record-setting year

Initially, there was no plan after the 1972 concert to create a permanent group or expand its repertoire. But a tape of the concert had circulated and found its way to Angel Records in Los Angeles. With their interest and support, plans were made for an album and a modest tour schedule.

In the span of a few days in mid-February 1973, the first big steps were taken. With its new formal name, the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble performed at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History. The connection there was Gunther’s colleague, jazz critic and author Martin Williams, who led the Smithsonian’s American Culture Program. Immediately afterward, on February 12 and 13, evening recording sessions were taped in NEC’s Jordan Hall by the Audio Department (where I was lead student technician). The school had arranged a temporary break from its contracted affiliation with Golden Crest Records; thus, Angel staffer George Sponhaltz was the producer. The LP included eight pieces, two of them recorded a second time in the original piano solo form for the listeners’ comparison. We also taped two works played at the Smithsonian but not included on the LP--Jelly Roll Morton’s “Grandpa’s Spells” (1926), and Claude Debussy’s “Golliwogg’s Cake Walk” (1908). These demonstrated the syncopated connections to early jazz and classical music, respectively.

“The Red Back Book” LP was released in April, 1973, quickly generating brisk sales and excitement around the school. But the most important impact of this disc had yet to be realized, and it wouldn’t take long.

I mentioned that hearing the four pieces in the 1972 concert was the preface to a life-altering personal experience. The weekend of June 1-3, 1973 provided the completion of that experience. Friday, June 1 was the date of the first formal concert of the NECRE. Jordan Hall barely contained an overflow audience. This space is cherished quite rightfully as one of the most acoustically exquisite small halls in the country.

The excitement in the audience was already heightened as the hall filled. When the players walked on stage followed by Gunther, they were loudly cheered like heroes. After a quiet moment, without introduction they began “Maple Leaf Rag,” the piece that exemplifies the ideal of classic Joplin-style ragtime to this day. Four measures in, the crowd, which had probably worn down LP needles listening to the record, erupted into applause and cheers of recognition. The program included all the rags recorded on “The Red Back Book” album plus the Jelly Roll Morton and Debussy pieces. Gunther announced the program from the stage, inserting bits of ragtime history, Joplin’s biographical details, and anecdotes about the pieces. He was careful to relate the narrative to an audience that regularly attended NEC concerts for classical music. In outlining the basic construction of a typical rag, he pointed out that the genius of Joplin was in writing memorable, hummable tunes (“four themes in each rag, multi-thematic music, like Schubert, almost”). On the question of tempo, a famously contentious issue throughout much of music history, he quoted the indication in many of Joplin’s pieces: “Do not play fast.” He asked what that should mean. “Not to play fast doesn’t necessarily mean play slow. I think the answer is they were played in all kinds of tempos.” His conclusion was correct and he hit on a key point: tempo was a source of tension between classic rag players and fans of so-called “ricky-tick” music of the type heard in silent film comedies. It’s still a hot topic among ragtimers.

Several times he referred to the physical music sheets they were reading. Unlike most orchestra music that is either found in a library or purchased, the orchestrations played by the NECRE were multi-generation photocopies of pages in those extremely rare part-books (as described above). The ensemble’s existence was entirely due to the recovery and restoration of the orchestrations. (Gunther’s expertise in music restoration was already legendary; as students we were fortunate to be able to perform many of his projects, often local or world premieres, in the course of his tenure at NEC.)

There was overwhelming demand for encores--four of them. Due to their limited repertoire at that point, they could only repeat selections from the program, which did not in the least faze the audience. They had lost no enthusiasm and no one was leaving the hall. Gunther, conscious of the public perception of NEC’s fragile finances, added this comment between encores: “There are a lot of people who in the last few years have thought that the New England Conservatory was dying or dead. I think you can see tonight that that’s not the case.” More thunderous applause. Before the final piece (“Grandpa’s Spells”), he simply said ‘’Thank you.” The audience showered waves of “thank you” back.

I was an usher stationed at the first door to the right of center (this detail will return most poignantly later). As I watched the NECRE performance, I thought, “That is what I want to do.” As it turned out, that is what I did do. The concert was two days before my graduation in that same hall, and I thought it was remarkable to have decided on one of my career goals just before receiving my diploma. Life altering. (My career path is not the subject here, of course, but these events led a half century later to the writing of this story.)

“The Sting” of reality

The day after graduation (the founding day of my group, The American Ragtime Ensemble-- expanding on the term “New England”), I drove across the country on a planned vacation to San Francisco. With me were my violin and copies of the first violin and piano parts of the eight “Red Back Book” pieces. On this trip I was given to performing on the street and in local bars for fun and gas money. The capacity to play all sorts of music was helpful, but it was the rags, even without accompaniment, that drew attention. On one such night in a Michigan bar the local rock band was thrilled to meet someone who was connected to an exciting LP they had just bought. This was my first indication that our recording was very special and important.

Pianists were becoming familiar with ragtime LPs by Joshua Rifkin and others. [Figure 3] But, as often happens in our culture, it was a movie that brought Joplin’s name and music to the masses. In 1973, film director George Roy Hill, who had liked the sound of ragtime, hired Hollywood composer Marvin Hamlisch to arrange Joplin rags for the score to “The Sting.” The film was released in December; the soundtrack LP and subsequent recordings of its main title theme, “The Entertainer,” joined the NECRE recording in setting pop chart records over the next year.

There was some conflict behind the scoring of “The Sting.” Gunther told me that director Hill had asked him to work on the film, but he was too busy with commitments at the Tanglewood Music Center and a forthcoming production of Joplin’s opera, Treemonisha. So the project went to Hamlisch, whose score was based in part on Gunther’s own editions. Certainly, the sound of the orchestrations contributed to the film’s popularity, and Hamlisch won an Oscar for score adaptation. But Gunther was not credited in the film, though he was listed on the soundtrack LP.

Figure 3

“The Sting” served as a whimsical reference point for the passage of time. This realization became apparent to me over the 30-year span of my radio program, “The Ragtime Machine.” When it launched in 1981, I asked my interview guests how they happened to get into ragtime. The usual answer was

“From the movie ‘The Sting.’”

Later, that changed progressively to

“My parents told me about ‘The Sting.’”

“I found an old VHS tape...”
“A Blu-Ray at a garage sale...”
“My grandparents...”

Finally, when I casually referred to “The Sting” in another context around 2010, the reply I received--from a ragtime guitarist, no less--was

“What’s that?”

A slight detour here to offer an anecdote concerning the sequel, “The Sting II” (1983), and another link in the chain going back to Gunther. Before production, I was called by on-screen pianist Mike Lang, who asked if I had a period orchestration for “Heliotrope Bouquet,” a 1907 piano rag by Louis Chauvin and Scott Joplin. They were planning to use it for the main title. I was certain that it did not exist, but I offered to write one in that style (a generous response, yes?). He politely turned down the offer. The film’s composer, Lalo Schifrin, wrote a sweepingly full orchestral version that was far from the original period style, but it fit the glossy look of the production; the film ultimately flopped.

In 1974, the popularity of ragtime continued without pause: chart-topping successes, ensemble tours, and most surprisingly, a Grammy award for “The Red Back Book” in the category of--wait for it--Chamber Music Performance! In the spring of that year, Gunther’s “Red Back Book” orchestrations were published by Belwin-Mills. Being the only modern printing available at the time, it was in demand by community and school orchestra directors. The company informed me that my purchase was among the first; both my student and professional ragtime groups performed it that May. Gunther would later issue several more rag arrangements with his own publishing company, Margun Music.

The larger point here is the remarkable string of events up to this time, in which Gunther was the intentional or accidental instigator: performance of four short, obscure pieces in a conservatory concert, a hit LP recording, a historic debut concert, inspiration for an award- winning score of an extremely popular film, record-setting Billboard listings for the year, a Grammy award, and sales of printed music to public school, college, and professional orchestra libraries.

Ragtime marches on

Throughout the ensemble’s 25 years of tours and expanding repertoire, it naturally sparked local activity in its path. Foreign tours brought it to several countries, notably the Soviet Union in 1978. The NECRE altered its name in 1980 to the New England Ragtime Ensemble, as all its members had by then graduated from the Conservatory. The instrumentation increased from 12 to 16 players, accommodating the increased use of more complex period arrangements. Parallel to all this, ragtime was taking its place in concert programing, clubs, dance halls, composition contests, recording playlists, college courses, Ph.D. dissertations, fan clubs, and festivals. Research continued into the history of ragtime, its impact on popular culture, and obscure composer biographies. About a dozen books appeared; many of them were derivative, though a few were very thoroughly researched academic texts. Before that, the only serious book on ragtime history had been They All Played Ragtime, by Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis, published in 1950. It’s still considered an important reference, though some of the factual content is now out of date and the narrative is a rather romanticized account.

The ensemble played at music festivals and celebrations. It is worth noting that participants and attendees at such events can be sticklers for hearing what is deemed to be authentic turn-of-the- century ragtime. But the NECRE was not re-creating any such group from the early years. In fact, there were no “ragtime ensembles” at that time; dance and theatre orchestras, usually comprised of ten to 25 players, were the major purchasers of orchestrations. Also, judging by the recordings of the era, the playing was not what we consider polished and brilliant. Gunther’s intention was to show off the pieces in their bright, well-rehearsed form so they could be appreciated for the works of art that they were.

Some scholars and musicians still disagree with Gunther’s approach. The issue relates to technical musicality versus period authenticity. Some critics and performers were even offended by polished performances, whether by a solo pianist or a group. One such person was Dick Wellstood, a very well respected solo and band pianist in the jazz and stride traditions. His comments are typical of the criticisms:

“I think the current Joplin revival is the victim of too many academics...It’s being inflected to death currently by the Juilliard graduates.”(1)

As a conservatory graduate, I was a bit unnerved to hear that the NERE played too well in tune. And I have sometimes been “informed” that I should play solo versions in the style of fiddle music, not violin music. For the curious reader, there are many examples of criticism and opinion in the music journals and trade magazines of the period. They are so interesting and diverse, I have given talks on this topic.

Among Gunther’s ragtime activities beyond work with the NERE was his commission to orchestrate and conduct Joplin’s 1911 opera, Treemonisha, for Houston Grand Opera. The work was not properly premiered in the composer’s lifetime, but he did leave a piano score on which several productions have been based since the 1960s, each with its own new orchestration. Gunther’s score is considered the most fully developed in the manner of classical opera, in line with the entire production, which was presented in 1975 and eventually staged on Broadway.

In the mid-1980s, annual festivals were occurring in several cities, and sheet music collectors were swiftly researching and discovering details about the pieces and composers. Activists investigated local histories where ragtime had flourished in the early years. I was among the few who continued to collect that rarest of ragtime music artifacts--authentic period orchestrations (extending to virtually all styles of popular, dance, theatre, and salon music of the time). Compared to piano and vocal sheet music, these were printed in smaller quantities because there were a limited number of orchestras to play them, and therefore they are much harder to locate. In my case, they comprised the library for my own ensemble. Some collectors were merely engaging in a hobby, with two disparate effects: preserving the music for history, but, unhappily, taking it out of circulation. Gunther amassed a small but tidy collection for the NERE. He wrote new orchestrations of certain pieces (often based on the period arrangements), including the few modern rags in their repertoire.

Joining the band

The early 1990s brought my association with the NERE full circle when Gunther asked me to join them as first violinist. I was a member of the group for several tours near the end of its run. Among the most interesting and engaging parts of the experience was playing for Gunther, having last done so as a student in the NEC Symphony.

The beginning of the first rehearsal was especially memorable. We started with “Maple Leaf Rag.” Gunther spent extra minutes on my bowing and phrasing in the last strain, instruction which was a bit more intense than I was anticipating. It seems I had experienced Gunther’s version of a ‘new member stress test.’ By the end of that tour he was very complimentary, recognizing that I had been playing this music for years with my own ensemble and listened to thousands of recorded and live performances. Any of his students and disciples will tell you that approval from Gunther generated a feeling of relief.

These tours generated several happy outcomes. Aside from more conversation time with Gunther, I had plenty of opportunity to speak with the players, individually and as a group. On one occasion I brought a tape recorder to collect comments for “The Ragtime Machine.” We gathered in a hotel room and simply passed the microphone around as each player contributed anecdotes and impressions. It was obvious that Gunther was central to their participation and memories. A second group activity took place on the bus, where I took it upon myself to compose one measure of a rag and pass the page around for each player to contribute the next measure in turn. I reserved the final measure for Gunther, who graciously interrupted his own composing to quickly write what was, of course, a perfectly resolving finish to our collective phrase. (The piece he was working on was “Of Reminiscences and Reflections,” which eventually won the Pulitzer Prize. Our spontaneous creation was not so highly rewarded.)

One day at breakfast I casually asked Gunther how he maintained his schedule, which was legendary. He was composing works on commission (as many as 16 at once), guest conducting orchestras around the world, writing books, and presenting talks, not to mention serving as NEC President. His answer: “I sleep only four hours a night, that’s always been my habit.” Yes, everything about Gunther was truly remarkable.

One of his steadfast commitments was challenged with those period ragtime scores. For any style of music, he insisted that a musician must “play what the composer wrote” (rather like medicine’s “First do no harm”). This was a direct instruction to observe the notes and indications in the part (“get all the information from the page”) before applying explicit changes or wide interpretive adjustments. If such changes were necessary, they’d better be fully justified. But printed popular music for turn-of-the-century casual and commercial orchestras contained a minimum of indications, often in the publisher’s shorthand. Dynamics and articulation marks are scarce or formulaic, if present at all. Even the order of themes is understood to be flexible, with optional repeats as the occasion warrants. Importantly, one has to have some knowledge of traditional performance practices to re-create the intention of the composer and the feel of the music. Simply playing what was on the page would not produce what the composer expected. So Gunther put great effort into editing the parts, including a massive amount of articulation marks to indicate note lengths and textures. For violinists, this sometimes required counterintuitive or awkward bow direction. But Gunther knew what he wanted.

There were additional challenges for the players in his orchestrations. He tended to write interesting but more technically difficult phrases than what would typically appear in the original publications. In Joseph Lamb’s “Bird Brain Rag,” for instance, the first violinist’s part in the third strain was rather tricky to execute accurately, due to his added double-stops (two notes played simultaneously). He would tell the audience in advance that this strain was “the most beautiful in all of ragtime.” No pressure. Another work that he orchestrated, James Reese

Europe’s up-tempo “Castle Walk," was his transcription of a 1914 recording by Europe’s Clef Club Orchestra. Gunther inserted a passage for first violin comprised of fast 16th-note double- stops with string crossings, a very difficult line to play cleanly. Gunther claimed to hear those notes in the recording. I know that disc well. As is often the case with period recordings, the instrumental lines are sometimes hard to distinguish. Listening very closely to that specific phrase, I could not detect those notes, even after filtering out the inherent 78 RPM noise.

It was generally the case that Gunther gestured to players to take an individual bow after a piece which had featured them in a prominent solo. However, if the solo didn’t go quite so smoothly, the gesture was absent. In the business world, that’s known as an instant performance review.

The NERE released additional LPs: “More Scott Joplin Rags,” and “The Road from Rags to Jazz.” In 1989 they made a CD, “The Art of the Rag.” It is noteworthy (so to speak) that over the course of time new rags were being composed for solo piano, chamber group, full orchestra, and concert band. This would be another of Gunther’s far-reaching influences. Of all his possible job titles, he first and foremost considered himself a composer. On “The Art of the Rag” were Gunther’s own “Sandpoint Rag,” Stefan Kozinsky’s “The Maloney Rag,” NERE tubist Rob Carriker’s “Mattapan Rag,” and Kenneth Laufer’s “12-Note Row Rag.” I had composed “Poggle Rag” for my own ensemble, and Gunther graciously included it in NERE performances.

He was known for his selectivity and taste, carefully choosing the best works for the ensemble’s repertoire according to his standards. In a 1983 interview, I asked his opinion on evaluating the historical classic rag repertoire and his criteria for choosing new rags among those sent to him for consideration.

“The dividing line is those who can use those traditional elements of ragtime in a new or imaginative way so that you feel that you never heard that before, and those who use them but in such a bland way that you say, ‘I’ve heard this a thousand times!’ If there isn’t some level of originality and some level of high craftsmanship present in such pieces, then there is nothing important about them. It is the same in all musics, in all the arts. It never changes very much. The thing is, even in that medium you have to finally be creative. You have to create a melody which is important, which you want to remember. You just can’t put down some notes that are technically syncopated and say, ‘Well, that is enough.’ So the art of creativity, even in a form as humble as ragtime, is still the essential element.”(2)

But it wasn’t just the individual pieces that captivated his interest. Throughout the tours and run-out concerts, he always found energy and inspiration from the genre as a whole:

“I know of no other music you can play and hear so often and not tire of. I may have had a long day, or things have gone wrong all day, and we start playing. After four bars of “Maple Leaf Rag” I’m flying. It’s just like a tonic.”(2)

To the audience he would say after an energetic rag, “If there wasn’t some part of you moving during that piece, you are clinically dead.”

Rediscovery

In their concerts Gunther introduced each title, commenting on the composer, the piece, or ragtime history. It was delivered with that inimitable Gunther speaking style that was authoritative and engaging, though historical information was not always precisely accurate. That was partly due to ongoing research that he didn’t regularly follow. But any discrepancies were generally minor ones, or slight exaggerations, and they did nothing to detract from the important point being made. The very first of these was at the June, 1973 concert where he stated that the “Red Back Book” publication was from around 1904, the latest copyright date of the pieces they played at the time. It was almost certainly published in 1912, the latest date of all the pieces in the complete folio.

Wherever it appeared throughout its lifespan, the NERE was a large installation: 16 musicians plus conductor, full drum kit, the venue’s grand piano and music stands, and a footprint covering a large section of a moderately-sized stage. The complexities in keeping a 16-piece or even a 12-piece group in operation are enormous. (Actually, the same could be said of any group — a standard string quartet, for example.) Substitute players, when needed, completed the group numerically, but of course the subs needed to be experienced, quick-witted, and cooperative. The ensemble could--and sometimes did--perform without Gunther conducting, if his schedule or the concert budget was a factor. In such cases, the group functioned much like a conductor-less chamber orchestra.

As the group continued its tours, a few local, smaller groups sprouted up in its wake. Most lasted through one tentative season of a few public concerts and perhaps private gigs. Occasionally, a band would continue sporadically for a few years or longer. (Having started at nearly the same time as the NERE, The American Ragtime Ensemble is the longest-running of these organizations.) Sometimes the activities of a local band would help advance the research. A member of the group, for example, might take an interest in a particular composer’s life story. Some of these amateur researchers were undoubtedly inspired by Gunther’s on-stage comments.

Another aftereffect of Gunther’s persistence in bringing ragtime to concert and academic realms was the attention given to the music by record reviewers, critics, college professors, music historians, and conference organizers. Gunther was already acknowledged and respected for his life’s work in the study of early jazz, the Swing Era, development of Third Stream, and for his compositions, advisory work, and much more. Even if they didn’t always agree with his conjectures and conclusions, no one seriously wrote him off as incompetent or unreliable. Many enthusiastic people took a deep interest in ragtime, gave talks, contributed to academic journals, and wrote chapters or even whole books of history or biography. Of course, this is not all down to Gunther. But as I’ve tried to illustrate here, he and the NERE were a major influence in almost all early key activities, or at least provided a burst of energy that propelled it forward.

Larger issues, bigger picture

Gunther Schuller left his mark in so many ways, it’s difficult even to consider in terms of summary or general assessment. I’ve often thought that any of his accomplishments, which for most of us might become our life’s great achievement, was merely a footnote to his massive career.

Over the years, I interviewed key people connected to Angel Records, “The Sting," and its sequel “The Sting II” (including composer Lalo Schifrin, who arranged Joplin’s music). One of them was George Sponhaltz, producer of “The Red Back Book” album. He had been a flutist and was well known in the Los Angeles recording scene. My interest in him was partly about his controversial follow-up project. After the one-record contract with Angel was completed, NEC’s association with Golden Crest Records resumed. But Sponhaltz wanted to produce more ragtime ensemble albums. So he created and conducted his own studio group, “The Southland Stingers.” The inspiration for the name could not have been more obvious. The cover art and graphics for their two albums were very similar to John Van Hamersveld’s work on “The Red Back Book.” Based on my conversations and correspondence with fans over the years, it appears some people mistakenly thought these were NECRE records until they heard the stark studio sound and Sponhaltz’s slick arrangements. The confusion was further muddled when Angel later released a CD offering a combination of NECRE and Southland Stingers tracks, also called “The Red Back Book,” with its original cover art, plus labeling that did little to clarify the distinction between the two bands.

I also called Marvin Hamlisch to ask for an interview regarding music for “The Sting.” He was pleased that it would be his first (and possibly only) interview specifically targeted to a ragtime audience via radio show and journal. He would have a unique opportunity to clarify his role in scoring the Joplin rags. He agreed, but only if we could speak in person, not by phone. (This was before the advent of online video calls.) His idea was that we would both be traveling sometime and by chance meet at an airport. This unlikely situation did not occur. However, I did conduct a one-hour phone interview with Lalo Schifrin, speaking about music for the sequel and other topics. This was another moment for me where a circle closed: I’ve been a longtime fan of Lalo, and Gunther and Lalo greatly respected each other’s work.

At a ragtime festival in 2009 I gave a talk on the historical popularity of ragtime, “They All Talked

Ragtime” (recalling Rudi Blesh’s book They All Played Ragtime). Based on the sales of sheet music,

recordings, and tickets, and other parameters, I determined that, as objectively as one can define it,

ragtime’s popularity peaked twice since it was created, in 1912 and 1976. The first date marks the

period just before its transition into jazz; the second indicates the aftereffects of “The Sting,” the

huge number of Joplin solo piano recordings, and the tours and three LPs of the NECRE.

In concerts, Gunther did not generally dwell on the subject of Scott Joplin being a black composer.

Recall the statement he casually made in the 1972 concert about Joplin being one of two black

composers in the festival. He also made a comment at the 1973 debut concert, after the opening Figure 4

piece: “We are here to do honor to Scott Joplin, one of the greatest of American composers, one of the greatest of black composers.” The topic is frequently discussed in the ragtime community on and off stage, and studied at length by its researchers and writers. For those who wish to pursue it, there are a variety of thoughtful books and papers on black musicians, culture, and society in that period.

There has long been an undercurrent feeling that black audiences are not interested in attending ragtime concerts and festivals as much as one would expect. I personally noticed this while playing at the St. Louis Ragtime Festival, a six-night event, for three years in the mid-1970s. I do not recall ever seeing a black patron in the audience. Gunther explained his theory on this in our 1983 interview:

Figure 5

“That gets back into that whole strange issue, and none of us really know the full answer to this, why black composers, and the black public also, disassociate themselves so quickly from their own musical traditions. This is a phenomenon one sees everywhere to this day. There are very few black writers on jazz. For decades there were none. All the good writing, all the bad writing, for that matter, was done by white historians and critics. I know when I was doing Treemonisha on Broadway, for those five months or whatever it was, very few black people came to see this opera. And most of the enthusiasm with ragtime is still with white people, even to this day. Some of it must be that they really do not want to have any association with those earlier musics which remind them of the days of slavery and total oppression and all of those indignities. It is, of course, a fact that the entire popular music history of the United States consists of an appropriation by the white musical establishment of what was first and foremost a black music. And it goes through stages. The first rip-off was the minstrel music, and with that the whole terrible thing of black-face and even blacks putting on black-face. Ragtime was the next example of that. In fact, ragtime created Tin Pan Alley, which became a million- dollar industry because of ragtime. The third one, of course, is jazz. But what they always do is they ingeniously invent another kind of music as soon as one of them gets appropriated.”(2)

There was criticism of his view at the time, and that may very well persist.

During the tours he told a story about James Reese Europe, a composer and conductor he greatly admired. Europe was a war veteran and creator of the Clef Club, a black musicians’ union in New York. In 1919, Europe was stabbed backstage after an argument at a concert in Boston. Gunther claimed that he bled to death because of the refusal of a Boston hospital to treat a black person. That last bit seems not to be true and does not appear in the definitive biography of Europe, A Life in Ragtime by Reid Badger (1995). Europe died while in care at City Hospital.

As much as Gunther promoted the works of several of the most important black ragtime composers (e.g., Joplin, James Scott, Arthur Marshall, Eubie Blake), his main interest was appreciation of the music on its own merits. He was certainly well aware of the history of racism during the ragtime and early jazz era, and its lingering effects in modern times. When orchestrating and conducting Treemonisha, his task was to support the opera’s storyline about a southern black girl who teaches her community to advance themselves through education and enlightenment. (For more about this project, the reader is referred to, among other sources, the Houston Grand Opera’s original cast recording on DGG, and its informative booklet with Gunther’s essay, “The Orchestrator’s Challenge.”)

The next wave

It has been my intention to sketch a portrait of Gunther along one path in his astonishing career. Ragtime music and Scott Joplin received his dedicated attention and focus, and brought him musical thrills that, as he said, even he couldn’t explain. His charisma and manner of delivery in speeches and concerts communicated resonance with the material. He presented the subject in a way that drew in and educated the audience.

When I’ve taught ragtime history at local colleges, I found myself occasionally folding in a phrase or metaphor that he might have used.

In the NEC Symphony Orchestra, we rehearsed and performed pieces that Gunther had found and restored. It was our chance to experience the excavation and reconstruction process. Similarly, with those first Joplin pieces and formation of an ensemble, he developed a small library of choice historic orchestrations and new compositions. He also had available the resources and talents of an entire conservatory of music for his experiments and trial runs.

By my count, the NERE gave a total of 289 concerts. Anyone, especially an experienced musician, can imagine the variety of gig and travel horror stories. A few were described in that group interview noted earlier. I’ll mention just one, possibly the best: October 24, 1980, Swasey Chapel at Dennison University in Granville, Ohio, the day the music didn’t arrive with the musicians; they played the entire concert from memory!

At the conclusion of our interview, Gunther offered this statement summarizing his own success:

“My final word on the subject should be that I did nothing to promote any of that success and, in fact, I was totally amazed. All I did was what I would call an educational effort at the New England Conservatory, to acquaint students and faculty with this glorious music of Joplin, and it all turned into a commercial success of extraordinary proportions. It is just amazing to me. So, once in a while you get it right!”

Gunther Schuller was a figure of such vast accomplishment, people who are familiar with some of his achievements may not be aware of others; for example, as author of several important books, or as president of a prestigious music school. His presence at NEC was one reason some students applied there. (True for me as well, coincidentally as one of the few students from Warwick, Rhode Island, home of NEC founder Eben Tourjée.)

A moment of reassurance in my own career occurred during a phone call with him, as we were discussing various matters related to ragtime. He concluded the call saying, “Look, I’ve always considered you a comrade-in-arms, a friend, and a colleague.” That was about as professionally reaffirming as anything I could ever hear, almost résumé-worthy.

Now for a coincidence you may find hard to believe. In 2002, a San Francisco music store manager, knowing my ragtime interests, gave me a box of donated music. Among the items were nine of the 11 part-books of Standard High-Class Rags--“The Red Back Book”!!! Surviving 90 years, they were unmarked, without tears, in beautiful condition--and yes, the covers are in fact red. But now the hunt was on for the remaining two books. I contacted an esteemed collector friend, the only person I knew with any chance of having them. Indeed, he had just two parts-- the exact parts I needed!—and he graciously sent them, thereby creating one of only two known complete sets extant. (The full version of this story is at davidreffkin.com/oddities.) Through a career in which I have been closely associated with this collection and have documented its history, I’m one of the few people in the country who would truly appreciate its importance and feel privileged to own it. As the only bound collection of ragtime orchestrations produced in that era, it is, by definition, as far as one can go in the search for published arrangements. Upon first seeing it, I also flashed on the decades that connected Gunther to that moment.

Figure 6

On November 19, 2018, The Gunther Schuller Society and NEC invited us to reunite the New England Ragtime Ensemble for a Gunther Schuller Legacy Concert in Jordan Hall, where it all started. A number of former ensemble members joined in, creating the largest-ever assembly of the group. It was the closure of another circle and a truly happy occasion. [Figure 7]

When the concert ended we began to leave the stage. I exited last, but just before that I stepped downstage toward the audience, looked up toward the door where I had ushered that first concert on June 1, 1973, and waved goodbye to the imaginary me back in time, just starting out on this adventure. And I sent a thought: “Yes, this is what you want to do!”

Figure 7

Photo & image captions

Figure 1 Program page listing Scott Joplin: “Selected Ragtime Pieces,” performed as part of “Festival of Americana: The Romantic Era in American Music” at Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, May 14, 1972.

Figure 2 “Start a renaissance” poster (57” x 42”) from the NEC fundraising campaign of the early 1970s. The idea was clever and it remains an inspiring thought. I admired it so much that the Development Department gave me this “graduation gift.”

Figure 3 Gunther Schuller and Joshua Rifkin, backstage at a concert on April 8, 1984, at Ambassador Auditorium, Pasadena, California. Both were profoundly important in the ragtime revival of the early 1970s, and both lived near Boston. However, I took this photo just as they were meeting for the first time! Joshua played solo piano in the first half. The NERE had been scheduled for the second half but the plan was changed. Gunther instead conducted a group of Hollywood studio musicians; excellent sight-readers, but not the NERE sound or energy.

Figure 4 Handmade graph designed for my presentation “They All Talked Ragtime,” on the music’s relative popularity according to objective and subjective parameters.

Figure 5 Scott Joplin’s niece, Donita Fowler, and Gunther Schuller at her apartment in Oakland, California, April 21, 1983. Donita attended one of my ensemble concerts, and I visited her many times. The only evidence of her family connection was a copy of The Collected Works of Scott Joplin and the Bicentennial Pulitzer Prize awarded to Joplin in 1976.

Figure 6 The complete set of instrumental parts for Standard High-Class Rags (published circa 1912), known as “The Red Back Book.” This is one of only two known complete sets extant. The circumstance of its 2002 discovery was an extraordinary fluke, and as its primary researcher, the odds against me being the discoverer are incalculable. Shown here with the 1973 NECRE recording of the same name, which I helped engineer.

Figure 7 Off stage before the Legacy of Gunther Schuller concert at NEC, November 19, 2018. I had long hoped to arrange this picture, for its brand-name value. L-R: The original NECRE flutist, the prominent pianist of the 1970s revival, and the director of The American Ragtime Ensemble — David Reskin, Joshua Rifkin, David Reffkin.

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