SCOTT JOPLIN RAGTIME FESTIVAL 1974 MEMORABILIA ARCHIVE
SCOTT JOPLIN RAGTIME FESTIVAL 1974 MEMORABILIA FREE

SCOTT JOPLIN RAGTIME FESTIVAL 1974 MEMORABILIA ARCHIVE

While in town for the festival, visitors will want to stop by the KATY Depot and explore the Ragtime Archive Project of the Sedalia Heritage Foundation.

SCOTT JOPLIN RAGTIME FESTIVAL 1974 MEMORABILIA FREE

The festival organizers reminisce about the very first festival: “Nearly every major authority on ragtime or its history has participated and reveled in the four-day event.” Generally recognized as the “grandfather of ragtime festivals,” Sedalia continues to honor Scott Joplin and ragtime music each year with some of the top ragtime musicians in the world, informative and educational ragtime symposiums, free dance lessons and even a chance for festival goers to take a seat at the “open piano” and try channeling their inner Scott Joplin. In 2018, it will be held May 31st – June 2nd. The Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival is held annually the first weekend in June, providing music, dancing and entertainment to more than 6,000 visitors. A year and a half later, Sedalia was the hub of the ragtime world again for the first time since 1900 and has continued the annual festival since 1983. With the help of the community and the Chamber of Commerce, a committee was formed in 1973 and a startup was funded. The local organizers were so inspired by these performances and the response of such well-known musicians, they decided that Sedalia was going to have a regular ragtime festival. He stopped, pointed to the stage, looked up and said: “And now,” then he paused. He had played for the Queen of England, at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and he went on with a who’s who of performance venues.

In 1974, the evening after Eubie Blake performed, he told several festival organizers backstage that he had played concerts all over the world. “In Sedalia? Absolutely yes!” That’s how large Sedalia loomed in their esteem. The reply of these ragtime greats was immediate and emphatic. At the pre-performance seminar at Morehouse College, the major ragtime personalities of the era were on a panel, and afterward, the Sedalians had the courage to approach William Bolcom, Max Morath and Eubie Blake and ask if they would come to Sedalia, Missouri to perform in a Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival. In 1971, several Sedalians traveled to Atlanta for a performance of Joplin’s opera Treemonisha. Joplin not only conceived and composed his best work in Sedalia, the “Maple Leaf Rag,” but the contract he signed with John Stark set a precedent for composer royalties that bolstered the modern commercial music industry and helped usher in the first real era of American popular music. When Joplin signed the “Maple Leaf Rag” contract on a warm August day in Sedalia, he predicted that he would become known as the “King of Ragtime Composers” because he knew his music was ahead of its time. And if you’re anywhere close to Sedalia the first weekend in June, you’ll hear its expressive strains floating across town from the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival. Joplin’s music was a blend of African, Latin and American Indian rhythms played on the piano by the left hand, while the right hand bounced out soulful harmonies and melodies.

The contract stipulated that Joplin would receive a 1% royalty on all sales of what would become his most popular tune, “Maple Leaf Rag,” with a minimum sales price of 25 cents. On August 10, 1899, the modern music industry was profoundly advanced when local businessman, John Stark, signed a royalty music contract with a brilliant young composer named Scott Joplin. Fifth Street in Sedalia, Missouri, you’re standing on a very famous site, indeed. But if you walk down the sidewalk in front of 114 E. It’s not often that you find yourself standing at the very spot where music history was made. Where Classic Ragtime became America’s Music.

Scott joplin ragtime festival 1974 memorabilia