The vocal group specialized in folk tunes, cakewalks, minstrel songs such as Stephen Foster’s “Old Folks at Home” and current novelties like “Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow-Wow” by prolific British music hall songwriter Joseph Tabrar. A Cleveland newspaper review published in August 1894 praised the Quartette’s “delightful harmony.” The Music Louis and the Majestic Booking Agency, the Quartette targeted markets such as Cedar Rapids, Omaha, Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland, and Boston. Professionally managed by agent Oscar Dame in St. They performed for churches for a fee, he reported, and for tips in hotel lobbies or busking in parks or on the street. The Quartette routinely began its visit to each city with a visit to newspaper offices where they gave a brief display of their singing talents, Berlin wrote in his book, King of Ragtime. Joplin biographer Edward Berlin describes the foursome as savvy publicists. The touring group-which featured first tenor Pleasant Jackson, baritone Richard Denson, basso Grant Miner, and Joplin on second tenor-toured the Great Lakes’ region and the northeast from 1892 to 1895 and traveled as far south as Texas from 1895 to ’97. There Joplin led the group, taught them the songs and accompanied them on piano and cornet. At the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, in 1893, the “Quartette” ballooned to eight members. Still developing the syncopated piano style that would later bring him fame and fortune, young Joplin made his living with the Texas Medley Quartette, which specialized in “Southern plantation and jubilee songs.”Įarly versions of the group dating back to 1884 included Joplin’s brothers, Will and Robert, according to biographer Janet Hubbard-Brown, author of Scott Joplin: Composer. 13, 1894 when the Quartette performed at Bethany Baptist Church, at East Washington Street east of Orange Street, in Syracuse, New York. Born in 1868 in the northeast corner of the Lone Star State, Joplin was 25 years old on Sept. His biggest hit, “Maple Leaf Rag,” would not be published until a half-decade later, in 1899. In the early-1890s the young Scott Joplin worked in a touring ensemble named the Texas Medley Quartette. Though originally composed in 1892, a year before ragtime’s introduction to the world at World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Turpin’s lively “Harlem Rag” was only published in 1897, by Jos. Louis tavernkeeper Tom Turpin is credited with the first published rag by an African-American. “The Pas Ma La Rag” was published in early 1897 by Thompson Music Co. The first published rag was written by a white man, San Francisco-born songwriter Theodore Havermeyer Northrup. Scott JoplinĪfter the turn of the 20th century, Scott Joplin rose to international fame as the King of Ragtime, before dying on April 1, 1917, in New York City. Perry & Co., who would publish his songs.īland continued his musical career in England from 1881 to 1901 often billed as “The Prince of Negro Songwriters.” Meanwhile, other black composers in the United States slowly began to follow his footsteps to get their tunes published and sold to middle-class customers. Born in 1854 in Flushing, New York, Bland found music publishers in Boston such as White, Smith, & Company and John F.
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