Marcus Roberts: The Joy of Joplin

Pianist Marcus Roberts, like his friend and mentor Wynton Marsalis, is as much of a jazz scholar as an instrumentalist and composer. Roberts has studied, performed, and improvised solo on the work of jazz piano titans ranging from Jelly Roll Morton and W.C. Handy to Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. For his first album devoted to a single composer, he went further back into the pre-jazz history songbook of ragtime pioneer Scott Joplin (1868-1917). Pairing eight Joplin compositions with eight similarly spirited originals, Roberts created arrangements extemporaneously for the former. Stride, swing, and bop styles are infused into familiar “hits” such as “The Entertainer” (which has an impressive walking bassline in the middle section) and “Maple Leaf Rag” (and its formidable display of left-hand/right-hand independence). Roberts also displays a knack for the form on his own pieces, such as the elegant “Everything’s Cool” and the majestic title track.