HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT CAKEWALK AND RAGTIME?
Reproduced from the book "Best Musicians, Singers, Albums and Entertainment Personalities of the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries", Volume V of World Who's Who in Jazz, Cabaret, Music and Entertainment. Pages: 2445-46-47 Published by the Federation of American Musicians, Singers and Performing Artists (FAMSPA). Pages 2349-2353
Historical Background:
Photo: Sheet music of “The Cake-Walk InThe Sky”, a very popular song of the era.
The Cakewalk, a predecessor of the rag, is best known from 1870 to the early 20th century, but it took its roots from the time of slavery. White slave owners used to hold dance competitions for the slaves, and watching those events was a favorite past-time. The winners were awarded a cake, giving rise to the expressions “takes the cake” and “a piece of cake.” The dances, which were parodies of the European ballroom dances, involved a combination of African dance steps, high kicks, and exaggerated steps. One quite popular form was danced by a few couples, with their arms linked, lined up in a circle. They would dance forward, with alternate high kicks and short hops. Some say it originated from the “chalk-line walk” which was a rather simple dance performed by couples advancing on a straight line, balancing water buckets on the heads. The participants always wore flamboyant clothes and accessories, meant to amuse the spectators. As the music developed over the decades, it was often performed by a band or even a small orchestra, but it was always intended for dancing. The cakewalk in its original form was slightly syncopated, and even later was never as sophisticated as true ragtime music.
ERNEST
HOGAN
Ragtime was played many years before it was first published in the late 1890s, but the first time the term appears is on the sheet music from 1896 for Ernest Hogan’s song “All Coons Look Alike to Me,” still spelled as two words. The form of one word started to appear around 1898. No one knows the exact origin of the word, but an anecdotal story tells that Scott Joplin, the greatest ragtime composer (1868-1917) once told a reporter that it was named so “because it had such a ragged movement.” It is an established fact that the pianists at the Chicago World’s Fair, in 1893, played this type of music. Ragtime is characterized by elaborately syncopated rhythm in the melody and a steadily accented accompaniment.
Photo:
Ernest Hogan. Ernest Hogan was the composer of the song “All Coons
Look Alike to Me.” When published in 1986, it was the first to have the word
“rag” on the sheet music.
The accented left-hand beat is opposed in the right hand by a fast, bouncing melody that gave the music its powerful forward impetus. Ragtime compositions typically featured three or four discrete 16-bar strains performed at a moderate tempo. The rhythm and structure of ragtime were important influences on the development of jazz. Ernest Hogan’s “All Coons Look Alike to Me” has an appendix that starts with the words “Choice Chorus, with Negro Rag; accompaniment, and arrangement by Max Hoffmann.”
