Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival '06

So I just got back from Missouri and, as promised, here is the “full report” on Sedalia. It’s long – you may want to grab a cup of coffee. I’m writing to you from the airplane, basically curled up in the fetal position over Dad’s laptop because the guy in front of me insists on reclining into my lap. I wanted to write to you when Sedalia was fresh in my mind.

First things first: I had a blast. Dad did, too. We heard a lot of great music, and I got a lot of opportunities to perform. We arrived on Thursday afternoon after a highly entertaining drive down from Kansas City. The best part was the billboard for, I kid you not, the “Testicle Festival.” It had a picture of a bull on it, and all I could think about was what goes through a person’s mind at a testicle festival, what exact thought process made them go, “Hey, you know what I could go for right now?”

Missouri. Hmm.

We stopped at the ragtime store, picked up my performer’s packet, and to my great surprise I was scheduled to play not three times but six. I sort of freaked. I was only going to be there for two days – how was I going to stretch the two sets we worked out into six? In my surprise I almost knocked a $300 glass “Maple Leaf Rag” statue off the shelf, so Dad and I decided to find some dinner, check into the hotel, and head out to the “Easy Winners” concert to try and relax.

Back at the hotel Dad went to sleep and I went over to after hours, which was pretty tame compared to what I remember. After Hours is where the performers gather back at the hotel along with festival patrons to drink and play the piano. It's a huge room at the Best Western hotel that has a makeshift stage in the middle surrounded by big tables, and it's where you hear the best piano playing around. It’s really weird going to it alone, though, because when nobody you know is there you sort of just stand there, beer in hand, wishing you were at the piano so you could feel like you belong. I missed Jessie most in those moments. I was nervous about the next day, nervous about doing a good job, and I knew I had to get my hands on a piano before I could sleep.

I finally got up the courage to play, so I snuck up on stage and played “Loose Elbows” and “Kitchen Tom.” The response was pretty warm, nothing too crazy – I was in “I am an artist” mode, not “I am going to light this piano on fire and beat you all around the head with it” mode. Mimi Blais was there as I walked off, and she told me she liked my arrangement of “Kitchen Tom.” That was pretty cool. The best part of the festival for me this year though was the group of performers my age who were there: Michael Stalcup, Dalton Riden(h)our, Eytan Uslan, Bryan Wright, Adam Yarian, Adam Swanson, and me. Over the next few days we were to form a sort of ragtime “wolf pack,” and the most fun I had was hanging out with them talking music and playing duo-piano.

I wasn't a paid performer. There are only a couple of those out of the 138 musicians who were there (including 91 pianists. sweet mother of god that is so many... I didn't know there were that many in the country). I was there as a replacement for a pianist named Brett who broke his wrist. I found out later, however, that I wasn't the first replacement - they had a invited a German pianist named Hans, but he had died the weekend before the festival, so that's why I ended up with so many slots.

It's hard to talk about it in good taste because on the one hand it's kind of hilarious that someone would rather die than play at this festival. For what it's worth, I knew I was doing a good job when one of the performers came up to me and said, "I'm kind of glad he died. You're amazing."

I got the chance to meet Bryan Wright, who runs the "Elite Syncopations" radio station over at Live365.com. He’s 23 and a great player. Nick Taylor introduced me to him, and we found out that not only we were the same age, into the same music, but that we both go to the University of Pittsburgh. I asked him if he wanted to play something together, and we did a smoking version of “Charleston Rag” with Bill Edwards that brought the house down. We're going to put on a ragtime concert in Pittsburgh. You should come.

That sort of underscores something else that was kind of disappointing. At the festival they have a number of paid concerts named after pieces Joplin wrote. When I was there in 1999 they were a huge deal - it was scandalous that I was playing at one of them - and all the good performers would gather there and put on amazing shows. This year, thought, the level of playing just wasn’t that good (with the exception of the “Music Hall” concert which was awesome). The performers who were there didn’t seem to take it seriously – all the headliners were in the tents at the same time and playing better. There wasn’t any reason to go to the concerts. And, what kind of sucked for the younger players, they arranged it so that all the headliners played at different times, so a huge swath of people would just travel from one major performer to the other. I played after Sue at Gazebo Park, and she generously introduced me (and sang a song to my dad, haha) but when she finished her set 80% of the audience stood up with her and she said, “Don’t go! You have to hear Martin play! Don’t make me come down there!” When they left it was kind of a bummer, but what could I expect? My name wasn’t in the program. In the program it said “Open Piano: 2:00-2:20.” People couldn’t put a name to my face or read my bio, so why would they stay?

The flip-side of this is that contained within those 91 pianists were a large number of amateur players who really struggled to get through pieces. If I wasn’t following Sue Keller I was following some well-meaning amateur who would inevitably chase the audience away. It was a pattern that repeated itself for almost all of my venues and I found myself playing to really small audiences, but I played just as hard for 10 people as I would for 100 and it worked out great. The people are just so nice there, so appreciative. They’d stop me in the street to thank me, to say they enjoyed my playing, to ask me my name (again). It was easy to want to play well for them.

I met Dave “Mazak” (I’m not even going to try spelling it), and he was hilarious. I met Hal Isbitz and am learning his “Midnight” and “Miranda.” I had like a three hour conversation with John Gill where I got to know him a lot better. When I met him in 1999 I was really scared of him. I met pianist Virginia Tichenor for the first time and really enjoyed listening to her play. She's the daughter of a very famous ragtimer named Trebor Tichenor. She saw my last set at Maple Leaf Park and told me I had a “monster left hand.” I played “Swipesy Cakewalk” with John Gill at after hours late Friday night but I played it so fast that he said afterwards, “Christ, man, no need to stain the bed sheets.” Coming from him, wow – in the ragtime textbook this is under “How to know you’re playing too fast.” I was totally seduced by how good it felt, and I made a note to avoid that for the remainder of the weekend.

The only bummer was that I didn’t get to play for/with Brian Holland at all – he and Jeff didn’t stay at after hours more than a few minutes, so I barely got to say hi. They remembered me, though – lots of people did. My name, anyways.

Speaking of which, Dad was amazing. He helped me to gauge the audience, and was always encouraging when I got stressed. We expressed often to each other that we wished you were there, too. Performers like you really bring a lot of class with them, and I know I missed that. I played Euphonic Sounds in almost every set because I wanted people to hear some Joplin that wasn’t in a barrelhouse style. I carried the Billy Mayerl torch – I was the only person playing him there- and people absolutely loved “Railroad Rhythm.” When I asked Dad how I did after it was all over, he said a good job. I kept my mouth closed while playing, told stories, and smiled a lot. I may have even been too engaging – we filmed one set with my camera and I’m bouncing around like Jo Ann Castle.

I'll post a clip from the video. It's pretty funny.

I finished off last night with a set of four pieces to a packed after hours: Charleston Rag, Maple Leaf Rag, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, and Railroad Rhythm. People went crazy. One thing has always been sure about my life - I can play the piano really, really fast. They loved it and clamored for my name - it was most likely the first time many of them had heard me play (there were 6,000 people at the festival) and it was really exciting and a great way to end the weekend. People were clamoring to know who I was. They kept asking for my name and where I was from and shouted “more!” Other performers came up and shook my hand and asked me "How do you do that?"

I felt like I belonged there.

It was a unique, emotional experience. When I was there in 1999, I was the "prodigy," the kid who could play stride piano. It took some cahones to go back, to return as a balding 23-year-old who has other priorities now besides the piano. I'm grateful to have been invited, grateful to have gotten a chance to perform again, and I'm excited for next year.

They haven't heard anything yet.

Martin