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All MIDI file contents and Wave/MP3 Audio recordings are Copyright ©1998 through under the 1998 Electronic Copyright Laws by Bill Edwards and Siggnal Sounds. All Sheet Music and Album Cover images here have been restored or enhanced by Bill Edwards, and only the original sources are in the Public Domain (except where noted). Unauthorized duplication or distribution of these proprietary files or associated digital recordings is a violation of copyright and patent law. They are for personal use and enjoyment of individuals only, and may be used on other sites only upon request for permission to do so. This site has been optimized for HTML5/CSS3 browsers released in 2012 or later with a recommended minimum 1024x768 and optimal 1280x900 monitor resolution or better.
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Production/Performance News
UPDATE - 2/8/2022: A Long Time Again with no update. My continuing work on keeping the Veterans Administration web applications up-to-date with evolving requirements due to vaccine policies and reorganization still keeps me busy to the point that I have little time to do much else. That is changing in the near future, and I will be recording anew for 2022. I have spent som late nights in research and updated or added many biographies of both composers and, recently, sheet music artists. The new ones incude some women pianists and composers from my nearly completed in editing phase encyclopedia. Please indulge and check them out, including some new and/or clarified information, found mostly at the Later Composers Page, Women in Ragtime Page, and at Sheet Music Cover Artists Page.
In fact, please dig around the whole site as I have fully applied some rather massive upgrades to imagery using exciting new tools. In most cases, where the proper picture exists and/or allows, I have animated the profile picutres of the composers, publishers, artists and performers to help bring them even more to life, and have applied some striking, in many cases, colorization to pictures throughout the entire site. This is not meant to do anything more except to provide more context to the topics at hand. Monochrome photos are limited to 256 shades, which is not always enough to convey some of the information or make facets of a photo stand out. Color provides more than 32-million hues and intensities to work with. The idea is to try and see what they were seeing at that time. Would you prefer watching a print of The Wizard of Oz that was struck in 1939, or something that been fully restored to what it looked like in 1939? So, sheet music and photos that are blotchy, have foxing or tears, retain stains or ink stamps, and even missing data or clarity do not provide that context — they just look old and worn out. Please find out what a refreshed but not revised history looks like, and please feel free to comment.
Upcoming events with this new look include two symposia at the Scott Joplin Internation Ragtime Festival, IN PERSON this year, with one exciting new outdoor venue. If there are no further virus outbusts, it should be from May 30 to June 2 in Sedalia, Missoouri. That will be followed happily by my yearly appearance at the Diamond Belle Saloon at the Strater Hotel in beautiful downtown Durango, Colorado, late June into early July, and perhaps later. Make your plans NOW, because EVERYBODY is itching to be — well, almost anywhere but where the have been for the past 24 months. Pease (and rag) out!


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What's New! Latest Additions for 2022.
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Included this time around is a famous Gershwin work from my recording of BLUZ, a couple of unreleased (to the web) tracks from my CD STRIDZ and one additional work. The first two are favorites of mine and the other two are original compositions (but not unhappy orphaned ones, I assure you).
mp3 filePrelude #2 – Blue Lullaby
  
George Gershwin
- 1926
Prelude #2: Blue Lullaby While Gershwin was certainly known for his popular song, he had aspirations of being an American classical composer as well, mising old-world classical forms with new world jazz motifs. This was first manifested in his famed Rhspsody in Blue from 1924, and fully realized in his IConcerto in F from many years later. However, for pianists one of the benchmarks of this mixture is found in Gershwin's three preludes, first published in 1926. This one is the middle of the three, although it is likely that six such pieces were intended by the composer. This interesting selection evokes elements of Jimbo’s Lullaby from Claude Debussy’s Children’s Corner Suite of 1908, and it is known that Gershwin was influenced by the French impressionist composers. Indeed, he referred to it as "a sort of blues lullaby," from which it acquired its secondary title. The piece is constructed in four sections of 12 bars with transitional bars in front of each section, using a more or less authentic blues chord pattern. The Gershwin Preludes have been continuously in print since 1927, speaking well of their durability and viability.
mp3 fileBei Mir Bistu Shein
Sholom Secunda (M) Jacob Jacobs (L) – 1932/English Lyrics Sammy Cahn/Saul Chaplin - 1937
lyrics
Bei Mir Bistu Shein (Original)  Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Later)Based on an old Jewish tune and intended as a Yiddish song by the Russian born Sholom Secunda and his American counterpart Jacob Jacobs, this now-famous piece was originally featured in the Yiddish stage operetta I Would If I Could in 1932. (The title Bei Mir Bistu Shain has also been seen in print.) While the show appeared to lack ambition overall, the song was memorable, and was recast in the mid-1930s as a German song, Bei Mir Bist du Schön. The original title meant, "To me you're beautiful." The later English translation, worked out by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin in 1937, changed the line to "Means that you're grand." This lovely opus was made into a big hit by bandleader Benny Goodman as both a small and large ensemble piece with his varying groups, and was one of the top featured songs at his famous January 16, 1938 Carnegie Hall jazz concert. It also created a sensation when interpreted by the Andrews Sisters around the same time, and has endured ever since. I just happen to find minor modes engaging and easy to play with. Although I have enjoyed this as a duet with a number of my esteemed colleagues, this is my first recorded solo rendition of the piece, which lends itself readily to the style of stride piano, and has a pretty awesome drive throughout that rarely lets up in intensity.
Copyright ©1932/1937 Warner Music.
mp3 fileStrategery
Bill Edwards - 2003/2017
Strategery Originally composed for the 2003 World Championship of Old-Time Piano Playing New Rag contest, this piece was actually trumped by another one of my compositions that year (posted above), so it didn’t make another appearance for a while. Resurrecting it for my album Stridz I was able to discover some new elements of this fun stride composition which never quite left my head. While it is still mine in construction, the beginning two sections are clearly inhabited by Fats Waller and his contemporaries, but the trio is a nod in some regards to contemporary composer, the late Robin Frost, and is just plain fun. The "strategery" is in the waiting, and each time after the "middle eight" the wait gets increasingly longer. As for the unusual title, it famously comes from a memorable Saturday Night Live sketch and a word concocted by Will Ferrell as presidential candidate George W. Bush when at a debate he and Al Gore are both asked present an argument for their candidacy with one word. Gore (Darrell Hammond) answers "Lock box," followed by a resolutely confused Bush uttering "Strategery." Bush later used the term in interviews as a nod to Ferrell's portrayal. As for my take, viewed on the cover, I figured it to be a board game made from remnants of pretty much all the classic board games. Go figure.
Copyright ©2003/2017 Siggnal Sounds and Bill Edwards.
mp3 fileSweetest Skunk in the Hollow
Bill Edwards
- 2019
Sweetest Skunk in the Hollow Arlo "Chip" Lusby has been an ardent supporter of ragtime and related arts for most of his life. Every year for some decades, when the famous Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival is held in his town of the same name, it is sometimes literally in his back yard, or at the very least, his front parlor. Chip's home and property are affectionally known as Skunk Hollow, for which this and several other piano rags were commissioned and named to honor his dedication to us, the contemporary composers and musicians keeping ragtime alive into the 21st century.chip lusby at skunk hollow I was quite honored to be amongst that batch. The cover art was designed to reflect the title, showing off his beautiful Victorian mansion and the hollow (in this case a bit enhanced) in which it resides. Of course, a skunk was necessary, but the sweetest possible one I could render to grace the woods in front of the property. I want to believe it is really there; and so, therefore it must be. As for the music, it is intentionally contemplative (some may argue it is brooding), a bit richer than some of my previous works, and thematically tied together by at least three different motifs, especially the resolution measures at the end of each section. The parallel patterns in the B section and again in the trio help create a sense of traveling through the woods on a search for some new wonder of nature or a scene of awesome beauty, which I put in as the destination for the trio, inspired perhaps a bit by the textures of famed ragtime composer Joseph F. Lamb. I was further trying to reflect some of the musical patina of a mixture of intermezzos, fantasias, and other parlor music of the early 20th century that might resonate from the pianos in Chip's gorgeous parlor. And then go out for a refreshing ice cream cone. So, even though the original wealth of gold and riches first discovered at Sutter Creek is long gone, there is a different variety of riches available there when mining for our American musical heritage. And guess where you can find it!
Copyright ©2019 Siggnal Sounds and Bill Edwards. The smell is in the public domain - and not from me.

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mp3 fileVitorioso
Ernesto Nazareth - 1912
Vitorioso Nazareth was clearly a fan of romantic classical composer Frederic Chopin, and at times his affinity for that composer came through in his own works. In this case, Vitorioso (Victorious) can be equated to somewhat of a Latin nocturne [night music], following Chopin's format used in some of his own famous nocturnes, while also retaining the structure and format familiar to ragtime. The score leaves the translation largely up to the performer, but many facets of Nazareth's intent are rather apparent through implication or design. A delicate and plaintive opening section is followed by one of almost pure passion that is virtuosic in scope with octave passages in both hands. After a serene return to the original theme, the trio comes in as a choro starting with a pedal tone on the fifth before it explodes with joy, ending very much in the style of a James Scott rag of the time. In fact, if a ragtime right hand were used in this section, it would clearly constitute piano ragtime. It is followed by a peaceful return to the opening theme and that feeling of a quiet victory.
mp3 fileApanhei-te, Cavaquinho (Original)
   
mp3 fileApanhei-te, Cavaquinho (Four Hand)
;
Ernesto Nazareth - 1915
Apanhei-te, Cavaquinho One of the most familiar of the Nazareth compositions, this piece is unusual in that in its original published form it is performed almost entirely on the top half of the piano keys. The intent was to replicate the sound of the cavaquinho, which is essentially a small four-string guitar, parent to the modern ukulele. Technically a choro (and even characterized by some as a "polka"), Apanhei-te, Cavaquinho moves along at a pretty fast clip, much in the style of a Brazilian combo with cavaquinho, flute and percussion. The whimsical title can be translated as "aha, I got you with my guitar." I also added another take of this multi-tracked as a four-handed version, more in a samba style, echoing how it has been transcribed for modern orchestras, and based loosely on organist Ethel Smith's interpretation in the Blame It on the Samba segment of the 1948 Walt Disney package film, Make Mine Music.
mp3 fileLa Cumparsita
Gerardo H. Matos Rodriguez – 1916
La Cumparsita One of the most recognizable tangos of all time, particularly as played on the accordion, this piece did not start out as one. Composer Rodriguez, an 18 year architecture student and son of a nightclub owner, composed the first two sections of the work as a carnivale march (the title is translated as "The Little Parade"). A friend took the work to a café orchestra leader, Roberto Firpo, who quickly repurposed the melodic march as a tango. Since he felt it needed an additional section, Firpo added snippets from two of his own tangos that had not been successful, and a touch of Miserere by Giuseppe Verdi, to cobble together the end result. The response was immediately positive, and Firpo recorded the tango in late 1916 for the Odeon label in Buenos Aries. Still, it was not an international hit until lyrics were added, making it more commercially viable. It should be noted that the country of Uruguay, where this originated, is quite protective of the particular work, which is unique in a sea of Brazilian and Argentinean tangos.
mp3 filePlangente [Plaintive]
Ernesto Nazareth - 1925
Plangente This is one of the later works by Nazareth, and also calls on romantic classical composer Frederic Chopin for inspiration and format, as well as the familiar ragtime-based form. The title translates into plaintive mourning or lamenting, which is clearly echoed in the beautiful opening minor theme. A slow and haunting habanera tango, the second section contains chord progressions and patterns found in Chopin’s nocturnes, but with a persistent underlying beat. This is followed by a more joyful and passionate trio, in which highly contrasting dynamics from very loud to very soft are clearly indicated in the score, and honored for the most part in this performance. While dedicated to "my good and distinct friend Francisco Dubois Bastos," it is unclear if this was composed in response to a specific loss or sad event in the lives of either of them. Care has been taken to keep this piece moving while still moving the listener.
mp3 fileEscorregando
Ernesto Nazareth - 1925
Escorregando Although it was composed and released the same year as Plangente during a period that he was expected to create new works for radio broadcast and publication, Escorregando contrasts sharply with its gentler brethern. This chipper little dance tune,classified as a "Tango Brasileiro," uses the device of persistent rhythmically repeated notes, letting the left hand guide the rhythmic action in the first section. It is followed by a delicate, almost minimalist B-strain with a constant right hand that suggests syncopation through note changes. With the title translated as either "slipping" or "sliding," the pitter patter of the first two delicate sections of this combination habanera/choro gives way into a delightful and joyful full-bodied celebration of all things Brazil in the driving trio. I have worked in some variations on the repeat that respect the original while adding variety.

Need A Little More Ragtime In Your Life?
Bill Edwards can be available in your area for a concert. I have a variety of one-man shows that cover the ragtime music era using humor, education, and entertaining tunes and songs. I am also often available for special shows at schools for all age groups, and seminars on the topics of Ragtime performance, composition, playing style, economics, early popular music styles, and American music history, all in conjunction with a concert appearance. In addition I can offer highly entertaining silent movie nights, good for fundraisers or just fun-raisers for a weekend afternoon. For more information on any of the shows that you may want to pass on to a local arts council, college or theater owner, you may view or download my Ragtime Show Information Packet below. You can also e-mail me any time at bill's email.
concert information document   concert information web page




Ragtime Webring-Dedicated To Scott Joplin

The Ragtime Webring-Dedicated to Scott Joplin and the music of the Ragtime Era, this ring is an invaluable resource for jazz music lovers, musicians and historians. Sheet music, midi files, afro-american history, record collectors...

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There are lots of great ragtime recordings by top artists available from
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Including some of my recommended favorites:
Max Morath Dick Hyman Dick Zimmerman
Paul Lingle Wally Rose Lu Watters
James P. Johnson Tony Caramia Squirrel Nut Zippers
Marcus Roberts Butch Thompson Jelly Roll Morton
Glenn Jenks Sue Keller Fats Waller
The Good Time Jazz Catalog and Bill's personal favorites, The Firehouse Five+2!


And don't miss these movies which include some ragtime music:
The Jazz Singer The Sting
Alexander's Ragtime Band Scott Joplin
The Legend of 1900 Ragtime
For Me and My Gal Meet Me In St. Louis
In the Good Old Summertime Take Me Out to the Ball Game
The Jolson Story Jolson Sings Again
Cheaper by the Dozen San Francisco
Somewhere in Time Titanic (1953)
The Other Pretty Baby
42nd Street Reds
The Son of Kong Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
Cheyenne Social Club The Shootist
How To Dance Through Time - Dances of the Ragtime Era

Or just search their site using the search engine below!

     

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