More Candy

Rick Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra's Rialto release More Candy contains 26 snappy and/or sultry novelties dating mostly to the second decade of the 20th century; however, there is a selection or two that reaches back into the end of the 19th. One of these, William H. Krell's Mississippi Rag, is officially regarded as the earliest rag to appear in print, although that has been challenged; there are also a number of novelty numbers that have a humorous bent and/or employ period sound effects such as John W. Bratton's The Jungle Jubilee, Charles N. Grant's The Witching Hour: A Spooky Rag, and M.L. Lake's Toreador Humoresque: A Ragtime Travesty on "Carmen." There are some pieces here that relate directly to jazz, such as Barnyard Blues, (aka, Livery Stable Blues), originally recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, or Jelly Roll Morton's Jelly Roll Blues rendered in its 1915 sheet music version that takes it into the realm of the vaudeville walk around, a purpose for which it may have been intended at one point since Morton himself was a vaudeville performer in his early career. Overall, More Candy is a very nice cross-section of ragtime music from its heyday, some pieces familiar and some not, mostly taken from the Broadway and published rag sphere and not so much the Sedalia ragtime school or "Red Back Book" style rags that one so often encounters on collections of orchestral ragtime. A very fulfilling and sufficiently varied collection, Rialto's More Candy should seem sweet to the ears of those with a strong interest in ragtime music.~Uncle Dave Lewis, Rovi