April 2001

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By Mike Neely

Marco Fumo is one of the rare pianists who can play ragtime piano and make the music sing. He combines the rhythmic feel of jazz with the nuanced technique of a classical pianist. It takes that synthesis to do justice to the music. His Last Time Rag has little to do with resurrecting historical artifacts. What it does is present a living form that has inspired a lineup of exceptional 20th century composers. Fortunately for us, Fumo has the pianistic grace and the stylistic sense to successfully present nearly a century of evolving ragtime music.

Ragtime and the blues are two of the main American sources of New Orleans jazz. Both arose in the late 19th century, and both were considered scandalous music, particularly by the religious zealots of the day. Ragtime has always been written out, more formal music than the blues. But at the turn of the century it was music that inspired the "Cakewalk." This odd name was a dance style - couples competed for the grand prize of a multi-tiered cake. The cakewalk style was later adopted by the fast set of the well-to-do white world, similar to how New Orleans jazz was adopted and modified to become dixieland jazz. Eventually ragtime and dixieland became the music associated with the "flappers" and the "The Jazz Age" of F. Scott Fitzgerald fame.

In 1897, the first ragtime piano sheet music was published. Jazz writer Grover Sales points out that two years later Scott Joplin’s "Maple Leaf Rag" launched the ragtime craze, selling hundreds of thousands of sheet music copies. Ragtime music was to remain popular until the mid 1920’s, its decline coinciding with the rise of the Chicago jazz scene. Marco Fumo opens his recording with a 1902 piece by the "King of Ragtime" entitled "Elite Syncopations." This Joplin composition serves as a reminder of where ragtime blossomed. Oddly enough the center of the ragtime world was Missouri, specifically Carthage, St. Louis, and Joplin’s hometown of Sedalia. For a short while music publishers in this cluster of towns and cities competed directly with New York’s Tin Pan Alley.

Another jazz writer, Joachim Berendt, informs us that, "What today seems the epitome of ragtime - the piano rags of Scott Joplin and others - is in fact a late peak in a long development involving an abundance of ragtime forms." This abundance includes not only vocal ragtime songs, but also rags for Texan banjo, rags for brass bands, rags for strings, and ragtime waltzes. What brought together this odd array of music was the underlying "ragged" rhythm of a syncopated beat: a beat that accented the normally weak beats in a measure of two-and-four. This accent shift is commonly cited as the origin of the word "ragtime".

Marco Fumo brings to Joplin’s "Elite Syncopations" the lightness and swing of his left hand and the classical touch and grace of his right. There’s no plodding beat here, and no picture puzzle seams either. Fumo’s rags have a narrative feel, that of a story unfolding, and all that is revealed matters. His precise emphasis on the varying dynamics of notes and phrases help bring out the contrasts and shadings within the composition.

Jelly Roll Morton’s "Grandpa’s Spells" (1923) has the giddy feel of gliding on roller skates on the deck of a ship. The deck tilts, the notes rattle down then settle until the next big swell unsettles Grandpa’s world for another round. A more grounded composition is the famous Morton composition "King Porter Stomp" (1925) that was later arranged into a big band swing hit for Benny Goodman. This composition balances themes in a robust, saloon, piano style. The two Morton compositions are followed by Zez Confrey’s "Nickel in the Slot" that features a gregarious, persistently ascending right hand phrasing that rises again and again above a steady down to earth left hand motif. It comes off as a good-natured Sisyphus dancing while he works.

Bix Beiderbecke’s four compositions are notable for their interesting mix of ragtime and European classical traditions. At times, these short nocturnes sound like Janacek or Ravel composing in Sedalia. "Candlelights" (1930) is especially interesting with its pauses and Parisian harmonies. It has a melancholy, airy presence akin at times to a Debussy prelude. Marco Fumo’s performance of these pieces is one of the highlights of his recording. Truly beautiful piano pieces, wistfully played.

Beiderbecke’s pieces set the stage for Thomas "Fats" Waller’s charming "African Ripples" (1935) a ragtime piece with a wide range of stylistic influences. The shifts and moods fluctuate rapidly - reflective to jaunty - back and forth across the Atlantic. Joe Sullivan’s "Little Rock Getaway" (1938) brings the music back to a very solid ragtime American sound. The themes unfold in an upbeat, sure- footed manner, reminding the listener of Joplin and small town Missouri.

Sullivan’s piece precedes Fumo’s return to France to present Eric Satie’s "Le Piccadilly" and Debussy’s "Golliwog’s Cake Walk." These raggish pieces have a left hand pulse more implied than played, giving the pieces a more spacious, less insistent quality. Both pieces bring forward the French influence on so much of early jazz and also the American influence back across the ocean. Both influences are notched up in Igor Stravinsky’s virtuoso "Piano Rag Music" (1919) in which Fumo’s left hand is at times in vigorous competition with his right. The exchange is rapid, staccato, and exciting.

The melding of ragtime and European classical music continues into our time with the title track, Giafranco Pernaiachi’s "Last time Rag" (1982). This is a minimalist rag with an almost telegraphic exchange between themes - a slowly building, multi-layered, at times tense exchange. The mood shifts abruptly with Marco Di Bari’s "Rag Music" (1985), a sweet twilight opening swirls toward a night saunter with Charles Ives. The final piece on the CD, "Rag in frantumi" (1986), is a rag of the urban night, by turns ominous and playful, a long way from Sedalia, Missouri.

It is interesting that the Italian pianist Marco Fumo closes the CD with three Italian rags. Perhaps to suggest the European focus of ragtime has shifted away from Paris toward Rome? In any case, Mr. Fumo’s marvelous recording brings home how international ragtime has become since Joplin, and how the original form has been enriched in its varied travels out of Missouri. Over the years, ragtime has caught the interest of such composers as Satie, Debussy, and Stravinsky, in addition to Morton, Beiderbecke, and Waller. The ragtime world evidently is growing. Our guide, pianist/professor Marco Fumo, has presented a lesson for all of us, and has done it with exceptional grace and style.

Noted in Article:
Jazz: America’s Classical Music by Grover Sales.
The Jazz Book by Joachim Berendt.

Recording Information:
Last Time Rag is a CD recording by pianist Marco Fumo on the Dynamic (S 2018) label of Genova, Italy. www.dynamic.it.
The United States distributor is Qualiton Imports Ltd. www.qualiton.com . Their mailing address is: 24-02 40th Avenue, Long Island City, New York 11101. Telephone: (718) 729-3239.