The Underworld, Murder, and Some Ragtime

It’s pure coincidence that both the editor of Compass and I visited lovely Seattle in the past couple of weeks. I didn’t sample the truffles, nor what are reputedly the best root beer floats in the world at the delightfully old-style Kenyon Hall in West Seattle. This is where I gave a concert of ragtime as part of an evening with author Larry Karp, who has written a series of murder mysteries focusing on Scott Joplin.

The first in the trilogy follows the adventures of young Brun Campbell, a young ragtime pianist from Oklahoma, who comes to Sedalia in Missouri to take piano lessons from Joplin.

Karp whose first profession was physician, has a string of other books to his credit, and in this one, “The Ragtime Kid� (Poisoned Pen Press, 2008), he’s done a remarkable job of bringing the lively milieu of the ragtime era to the page. Campbell is a likable hero who runs away from home at age 15 to meet his idol, and on his first night in Sedalia literally trips over the body of a young woman. A money clip with a tiny music box lies nearby, and soon Brun discovers it belonged to Joplin.

Thoroughly researched, this book is teeming with detail about commerce, bordello life, race relations and the music publishing industry, all of which fueled this invented plot. “The Ragtime Kid� is a real page turner that sent me back to my collection of Joplin’s rags to refresh my memory about the individual pieces that figure in the story.

Joplin’s career is truly fascinating, and although it ends unhappily with a mental and physical decline, the first part of his life is an important part of American musical history. “The Maple Leaf Rag� (1899) was the first piece of sheet music to sell over a million copies and established Joplin as a major composer who shunned the slapdash works that permeated the music industry of the time and strove to create an American equivalent of the salon music of Chopin and Schubert. Karp’s sequel, “The King of Ragtime,� follows Joplin to New York where he becomes implicated in a murder in Irving Berlin’s office. I am looking forward to the final volume.

Between gigs out there I went to the Metropolitan Opera’s HD satellite broadcast of Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice.� Stephanie Blythe sang the role of Orfeo to perfection, her rich contralto at ease throughout the wide vocal range, originally written for castrato. Soprano Danielle de Niese was an alluring Euridice and after a somewhat tentative beginning (well, she’s supposed to be dead, so perhaps it takes a while to recover one’s full capacity), she soared and joined her partner in a stunning duet, matched in delicacy by the playing of the Met orchestra conducted by James Levine.

Mark Morris’s choreography is well worth seeing, and Isaac Mizrahi’s costumes, particularly for the chorus, created a complete cross section of humanity from Jimi Hendrix to Abraham Lincoln and Genghis Khan.

There is one more performance left this season, on Saturday Jan. 31, 8 p.m., at the Met in New York City.

Latest News

Nuvance hospital system to merge with Northwell Health

Sharon Hospital would become part of a larger regional health systems with 28 hospitals.

Yehyun Kim/CTMirror.org

Nuvance Health, which owns four hospitals in Connecticut and three in New York, will merge with Northwell Health to form a larger regional health system across two states.

Together, the companies will own 28 hospitals and more than 1,000 sites of care and employ 14,500 providers.

Keep ReadingShow less
Millerton director is an Oscar nominee

Arlo Washington in a film still from the Oscar-nominated short "The Barber of Little Rock."

Story Syndicate

John Hoffman, a Millerton resident, has been nominated for his film “The Barber of Little Rock,” which he co-directed with Christine Turner, in the Best Documentary Short Film category at the upcoming 96th Academy Awards.

Distributed by The New Yorker and produced by Story Syndicate Production in association with 59th & Prairie, Better World Projects, and Peralta Pictures, “The Barber of Little Rock” explores the efforts of Arkansas local hero Arlo Washington, who opened a barbershop at 19 years old and, with a mission to close the racial inequality gap in his community, went on to found the Washington Barber College as well as People Trust Community Federal Credit Union. Washington’s goal is aiding his primarily Black neighborhood, which has historically been underserved by more prominent banking institutions.

Keep ReadingShow less
Inside Troutbeck's kitchen

Chef Vincent Gilberti

Courtesy of Troutbeck

About growing up in Carmel, New York, Troutbeck’s executive chef Vincent Gilberti said he was fortunate to have a lot of family close by, and time together was always centered around food.

His grandparents in White Plains always made sure to have a supply of cured meats, olives, cheeses and crusty bread during their weekend visits. But it wasn’t until his family moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, when he was 16 that his passion for food really began. It was there that he joined the German Club, whose partnership with Johnson & Wales University first introduced him to cooking.

Keep ReadingShow less
Some say the world will end in fire. Ice is also possible.
Eliza Osborne

Today it feels like all life won’t end tomorrow, but a week or so ago not so much. Man oh man it was cold. It. Was. Cold. Could see your breath freezing in the air when you tried to talk. Seemed like no one would hear what you said until the vapor cloud thawed out sometime next spring. Didn’t want to go out. Didn’t want to get up. Didn’t want to do much of anything but sit around with my blankie. Probably freeze to death just walking from the house to the car.

Which, inevitably, led to thoughts about mortality. I know plenty of people who think you might as well go ahead and eat as much bacon as you want before you go, at least you’ll die happy. If you’re one of them, this might help you check that one off your bucket list.

Keep ReadingShow less