All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music - Season 1 Episode 3 I Can Hypnotise 'Dis Nation (Ragtime)
6.0055 minutes
Thanks to the hit movie, “The Sting”, everyone reckons they know about Ragtime. But do they? This Episode includes the oldest known piece of film (1898) showing what the cakewalk was really like. Also extracts from The Royal Ballet production based on Scott Joplin’s music, “Elite Syncopations”. Also extracts staged by the Houston Grand Opera of Joplin’s only surviving opera, “Treemonisha”. There is also rare early film of Irving Berlin (Alexander’s Ragtime Band) as well as film of Joplin’s birthplace and of the madhouse where he died. Although reference is made to other early ragtime composers, this episode is essentially the story of Scott Joplin – an extraordinary tragedy of failure, frustration, pride, of the black man’s struggle to achieve for himself a proper place in American society.
featuring
Christies Ethiopian Serenaders
Eubie Blake
Houston Grand Opera and the music of Scott Joplin
Irving Berlin
Monica Mason
Rudi Blesh
Terry Waldo