Ragtime music grew out of a cross fertilization of music from minstrel shows, African-American styles from both banjo music and the syncopated dance rhythms of the “Cakewalk” alongside elements of European music.
Ragtime evolved in the playing, musicianship and technique of honky-tonk pianists along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in the USA in the late 19th and early 20thcenturies. It grew out of a cross fertilization of music from minstrel shows, African-American styles from both banjo music and the syncopated dance rhythms of the “Cakewalk” alongside elements of European music. The Ragtime ‘style’ was very much based on a syncopated or ‘ragged’ rhythmic characteristic. The earliest examples were similar to ‘formal’ American concert marches e.g. those of John Philip Sousa but with the unique added characteristic of the ragged rhythm. Ragtime reached its peak in the hands of the masterful composer Scott Joplin who took the genre to a new, higher level of sophistication; technically, structurally and musically. With the city of New Orleans serving as a major port at ‘terminus’ of the Mississippi / Missouri river network, Ragtime was very abundantly played and heard in the city. The rhythmic ‘tampering’ of Ragtime would manifest itself more fully still in the ‘swing’ feel of the Jazz era which was to follow in the city of its birth, New Orleans.
