JCUK presents British Ragtime with Adam Ramet

2024 at The Jazz Centre UK kicks off with something special: Adam Ramet, a British music historian, pianist, composer and arranger explores, through talk and performance, the history and development of British Ragtime.

First developed in 1890s USA, Ragtime brought a refreshing contrast not only in rhythm, but also in tempo, formal structure, and mood. Its most famous practitioner was Scott Joplin, best known today as the composer of The Entertainer, as used in the popular film The Sting. Ragtime became a principal musical force in American popular culture.

It is perhaps not so well appreciated that Ragtime was simultaneously extremely popular in Britain, with many talented contemporary composers, notably after the publication of Irving Berlin’s song Alexander’s Ragtime Band in 1911, and the show Hullo, Ragtime!staged at the London Hippodrome the following year. According to The British Ragtime Society; “Great Britain has a rich musical narrative of homegrown historic syncopated music. The UK has its own early cakewalks, own rags, own foxtrots, own blues, own novelty piano genres, our own composers. We hope to give you a window into this (today) hidden musical past. British and directly related material only!”

It is in this framework that we present Adam Ramet’s concert of British Ragtime compositions.