Product Review

Scott Joplin's ragtime piano roll music swept the world at the turn of the century. Spread by the St. Louis World's Fair, it was played on all the pianos of the land, danced to by rich and poor alike. This film biography of the originator of the ragtime rhythm traces the sources of black music in the New Orleans and Mississippi River life and sets the background from which Scott Joplin emerged. As a boy, he did study classical music, and these influences account for the distinctive character of his music. This dramatized biography follows Joplin s life from his discovery in a dancehall by a music publisher, his great initial success, his turning to serious composition, the failure of the opera Treemonisha , and his early death in poverty and obscurity. The film includes many examples of Joplin's distinctive music, among them The Maple Leaf Rag , The Entertainer , and excerpts from Treemonisha , which was not performed publicly until sixty years after his death. The popularity of ragtime dances of the time is seen in Edison motion pictures and early film footage of Mississippi River life and of the 1904 St. Louis World \'s Fair. Eartha Kitt's narration adds to this timely study of a portion of our musical and cultural heritage.