History lessons from Bo By Philip Elwood EXAMINER MUSIC CRITIC Saturday, February 20, 1999 ©1999 San Francisco Examiner URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/hotnews/stories/20/Sdiscs.dtl&type=music Bo Grumpus trio specializes in Ragtime Era music Bo Grumpus, "The Graveyard Blues." Miss Anne Thrope CD. Terry Waldo and Bo Grumpus, "Kinky and Sweet." Stomp Off CD. According to sheet music publication figures, popular music in the United States in the years after the Civil War consisted of sentimental ballads in the Stephen Foster mode, a considerable number of leftover wartime tunes, and, from the 1870s on, novelty folk tunes and country-dance ditties. "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze," "Little Brown Jug," "Frankie and Johnny," "Strawberry Roan," "Home on the Range," "Silver Threads Among the Gold," "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen," "In the Gloaming," "(Oh Dem) Golden Slippers," "The Farmer in the Dell," "There Is a Tavern in the Town," "Love's Old Sweet Song," "Oh Promise Me," and many more songs still familiar to some Americans were products of the pre-1890s. By the 1890s, however, the U.S. was geared up for urban expansion; transportation and communications breakthroughs were drawing us together. The music of isolated communities (often immigrants with a common cultural background) was blending into the increasingly urban American community. John Philip Sousa's marches were popular everywhere, outdoors and in, and often used as dance music. Cabaret and theater music, folk songs and Sousa, music and dances from the African American community were combined. In 1892, the song "After the Ball" by Charles Harris sold $5 million worth of sheet music, and Emile Berliner inaugurated his gramophone disc production-- Sousa began recording two years later. Other trends were developing, too. Pop songs in the mid-'90s included "Sidewalks of New York," "My Pearl's a Bowery Girl," "Elsie From Chelsea," and so forth. New York's musical comedies toured the country, and vaudeville wasn't far behind. Many of the marching bands specialized in "ragging the beat," or syncopating a tune's rhythm. Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1898, though written for piano, was structured like a march -- and highly syncopated. Although Joplin's was not the first rag published, it certainly began a musical craze that, combined with new dance steps, led into the 1920s and the Jazz Era. The Bay Area's Bo Grumpus trio specializes in music from between the Spanish-American War and World War I. This Ragtime Era is the most misunderstood and neglected of American popular music periods. Ragtime to most people means Joplin's piano music, which he never recorded. Few pianists, pop or classical, made solo records before 1912-14, although many, including Joplin, occasionally cut piano rolls. The "Ragtime" title, like "jazz," covered music, dances, literature, dress and so forth. "Blaze Away," a march, became a ragtime band hit; "High Society" was recorded as a ragtime march by a concert band in 1906. In 1923, "High Society Rag" became a classic jazz rendition when recorded by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band; the disc's famous clarinet solo, presumably improvised, is identical to the piccolo solo on the concert band version from 17 years earlier. The brilliant guitarist, sometime vocalist, Craig Ventresco of Bo Grumpus is not only the trio's principal instrumentalist, he's also an outstanding musicologists of ragtime, in all its manifestations. On washboard and other percussion is Pete Devine; string bassist Marty Eggers, also a fine ragtime-trad jazz pianist, is the group's nominal leader. The newest number on the "Graveyard Blues" disc is "I Never Knew," from 1920; among the other 15 tracks are "Bunch o' Blackberries" from 1899, "Frisco Dan" from 1914, "Circus Day in Dixie," 1915, and the rare "Ragged William," an 1899 tune by Frank P. Banta, father of the famous Frank E. Banta, outstanding keyboard wizard in the 1920s. Whether playing "Ben Hur Chariot Race March" (1894) or Pietro Frosini's popular "Operatic Rag," from 1910, Ventresco is a magnificent guitarist -- amazing technique, wonderful melodic tone, imaginative and inspired improviser. And it's tough to improvise to a ragtime beat. On the "Kinky and Sweet" CD, Bo Grumpus joins pianist-vocalist Terry Waldo and alto sax and clarinetist Dan Levinson. Waldo's has been a ragtime life. He studied with Eubie Blake, produced the "This Is Ragtime" series for NPR in the 1970s, has written a couple of books, produced ragtime-vaudeville, and led ragtime era groups all around New York and the country for nearly 30 years. I last saw him in 1997 at a JVC Jazz-sponsored Ragtime Evening -- which is where he and Bo Grumpus got together. Waldo is something of a kook, which explains in part why this disc contains such zany numbers as "I Like Bananas Because They Have No Bones," "Don't Give Me No Goose for Christmas, Grandma," and "When Ragtime Rosy Ragged the Rosary." But no matter what the tune -- and some are of the Hoosier Hot Shots-Korn Kobblers persuasion -- this quintet still jumps to the ragtime beat. "Lily Queen," a rarely heard Joplin number, gets a good airing by Waldo; "College Rag" is a fine banjo feature for Ventresco, as is "Whipped Cream Rag." Rudy Wiedoeft's "Saxophobia" is handled with deft authenticity by Levinson, and a wonderful tango-mazurka rhythm converts "Panama Rag" into a classic jazz performance. The trio plays "Bo Grumpus Stomp," and the full quintet handles such old timers as "M-O-T-H-E-R," "Oh You Beautiful Doll" and Blake's "I'd Give a Dollar for a Dime" with gentle care. The amazing thing is that washboard-percussionist Devine makes his instrumental sounds fit the mood of the music, from "While They Were Dancing Around" to "Shake That Thing." Acquisition of these CDs may take a phone call to Marty Eggers at (510) 655-6728, or a note to P.O. Box 5724, Berkeley, CA 94705. Or, buy them when you hear Bo Grumpus live.
