Ragtime
Kris Tokarski is a skilled jazz pianist who has helped prolong the legacies of several early musical pioneers by not only playing their compositions, but by embracing their techniques and their approach to music. Among his heroes and for whom he also spoke about during his NAMM Oral History...
Hal Smith is a drummer deeply rooted in the traditional ragtime and early jazz styles. His performances are often a history lesson not just in sound but in the techniques of creative jazz musicians he admires such as Baby Dodds and Paul Barbarin. Hal’s musical hero is the pioneering pianist,...
Allen Toussaint represented one of the quintessential New Orleans sounds. Toussaint’s compositions and songs seamlessly blend blues, jazz, ragtime, R&B, and funk to create an amalgam that is unique and readily identifiable to New Orleans. Starting on piano in the 1940s and initially influenced...
Bob Greene made a name for himself as he expanded the legacy of Jelly Roll Morton. Growing up in New York and playing piano from an early age, Bob became a well-known jazz performer whose style was influenced by the composer and jazz pioneer, Jelly Roll Morton. Even decades after Morton’s passing,...
Leita Jolly was celebrating her 100th birthday the week she was interviewed in 2003. On the occasion, she played the piano for her friends with her ragtime flare. In 1917, while World War I was ending, Leita was hired as a song plugger. Her main job was to play the latest songs in the music store...
This audio only interview was conducted for a radio program by Dan Del Fiorentino and donated to the NAMM Oral History program: Ralph Sutton learned the traditional stride piano styles of James P. Johnson and Fats Waller, and brought it to post-War audiences around the world for over fifty years....