A classic Ragtime quartet, playing Joplin, Morton, Lodge and other's great Ragtime masterpieces.

15 MP3 Songs in this album (57:22) !
Related styles: JAZZ: Ragtime, JAZZ: Traditional Jazz Combo

People who are interested in Scott Joplin Fats Waller should consider this download.


Details:
The Ragtime Evolution Quartet may be a new concept, though followers of traditional jazz and ragtime should need no introduction to Lew and Mary Green. We know Lew through his 45 years with the Original Salty Dogs, and ragtime enthusiasts probably heard Mary on piano during her 20 years at the St. Louis Ragtime Festival.
When Lew and Mary moved to New York in 1971, they began working gigs together. Later, Lew joined the Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble, a group led by clarinetist S. Frederick Starr, a noted academician with a strong interest in performing authentic recreations of 1920s New Orleans jazz standards. The Ragtime Evolution Quartet recording is an outgrowth of both of these developments.
While working with the LRJE, Lew met banjoist John Chaffe and bass/tuba player Tom Saunders, both fixtures on the New Orleans jazz scene, and thought theyâd work well on the ragtime material heâd been doing with Mary. Chaffe died shortly after the first session, so the CD was completed with a second session using two New York musicians, Mike Peters on guitar and banjo, and Barry Bockus on bass.
This recording summarizes the music of the early 20th century just as ragtime was evolving into jazz. The repertoire is neatly divided into half ragtime and half later music, highlighting music associated with greats of the era like Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson and Thomas "Fats" Waller, among others. The ragtime quartet is a seldom-seen entity these days; Max Morath led one of the best remembered such groups in the 1960s. The Greenâs quartet, adding a cornet in place of a second guitar or a violin, moves the music closer to the jazz side of the ledger.