SKU: CY.CC2914

Eubie Blake composed the Charleston Rag in 1899 for Piano under the title Sounds of Africa while working at Aggie Shelton's Bawdy House in Baltimore as a precocious 12 year old.
Geoffrey Bergler has arranged Eubie's Ragtime classic of about 4 minutes in length for Brass Quintet of advanced performers.
Trumpet parts are in B-flat.

SKU: PR.140401310

ISBN 9781491134153. UPC: 680160684250. 9 x 12 inches. Key: G major.

NORA’S DANCE is a jazz-influenced rag from 1921, and among the only surviving compositions by Nora Douglas Holt. A charming and exciting work rejuvenated by Lara Downes’ 2021 recording for the Rising Sun label, the rag is both a fun 2 minutes for pianists and audiences, and also a fascinating time capsule. Composed several years after Scott Joplin’s death, and several years before the Charleston pervaded popular music, NORA’S DANCE blossoms with the energy and jazz harmony starting to emerge as The Roaring 20’s, using ragtime and stride as the seed for pianistic style.
My own life in music has been driven by a quest to find strong female role models, trails to follow, shoulders to stand on. In Nora Douglas Holt, I find an inspiring example of creativity, independence, and resilience – with a dash of troublemaking. She was a free spirit, a force of nature, and she lived a fascinating and eventful life on her own terms. She reinvented herself through five marriages and at least as many careers. From her beginnings at the piano at age four, she explored many avenues of musical expression – performing, composing, music journalism, broadcasting, teaching – all with inventiveness, style, and zeal.She made the most of the Roaring ’20s, as an artist, socialite, jetsetter, muse, and patroness of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1921 she started an independent arts journal called “Music and Poetry,” where the charming piano solo Nora’s Dance was first published. I think the piece captures beautifully, in a little under 2 minutes, the energy and excitement of those heady years.In 1926, Nora left New York to travel the world, performing in nightclubs throughout Europe and Asia. She put her belongings in storage before she left, and when she came back she discovered that many of her things had been stolen, including more than 200 of her musical compositions. She never composed again.When the Depression hit, she moved out to Los Angeles, where she studied music education at USC, taught music in the LA public schools, and opened her own beauty salon. She returned to New York in the ’40s and worked as a music critic for several major newspapers, then launched yet another career, this time in broadcasting. Her popular radio concert series “Nora Holt’s Concert Showcase” broadcast to New York’s classical music audience, with a focus on Black composers and performers.Ahead of her time, larger than life, full of ideas…. I am so pleased to introduce you to the feisty and free spirited Nora Douglas Holt!

SKU: MB.31060M

ISBN 9781513468051. 8.75x11.75 inches.

As aspiring fingerpicking guitarists started expanding their horizons from folk, blues, and ragtime in the 1970s, it was only logical to look towards early jazz tunes as a vast source for new possibilities. For one thing, they could follow the same evolutionary path from ragtime to jazz that had been taken by pianists such as Jelly Roll Morton and Harlem stride players like James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. These musicians all composed in a variety of styles, but their most ambitious piano solos expanded on the classic ragtime format developed by the likes of Scott Joplin, James Scott, and Joseph Lamb, using several strains that usually changed keys at least once. Morton, the self-proclaimed inventor of jazz, would record versions of tunes like King Porter Stomp and The Original Jelly Roll Blues that are similar to straight ragtime performances, and others where there is lots of room left for embellishment and jazz improvisation.

The present collection is a bonanza for guitarists who want to tackle advanced arrangements along the lines of ragtime but featuring jazz age harmonies from the playing of Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, WC Handy, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and other early jazz legends. The 32 arrangements included are by a wide assortment of guitarists including Ernie Hawkins, Pat Donohue, Lasse Johansson, Duck Baker, Ton Van Bergeyk, Sandy Shalk, Steve McWilliam, and Dorian Henry.

Titles include: Oh, You Beautiful Doll, I’ve Got The Blues, High Society, St. Louis Blues, Davenport Blues, Poor Butterfly, Dixie Jass Band One-Step, Memphis Blues, Big Foot Ham, Grandpa’s Spells, The Original Jelly Roll Blues, Midnight Mama, Milenberg Joys, Fizz Water, Back Home in Indiana, Sweet Georgia Brown, Red Wing (An Indian Intermezzo), There’ll Be Some Changes Made, Way Down Yonder In New Orleans, Charleston, Where The Morning Glories Grow, Limehouse Blues, Susie (of the Islands), I Need Some Pettin’, Weather Bird, Cornet Chop Suey, Kansas City Stomps, King Porter Stomp, Jubilee Stomp, Take It Easy, If I Had You, Moonlight Serenade