Next Meeting: Sunday August 10, 2025
1:00 - 4:00 PM
Celebrate The Rose Leaf Ragtime Club’s 30th Anniversary
Featuring Andrew Barrett
at The Barkley Restaurant, 1400 Huntington Drive, South Pasadena
All are welcome. Non-performers are asked to make a $5.00 donation to the club. Food and beverages, including a full bar, are available - CASH ONLY. There is an ATM on the premises.
Note: Many of our regular attending pianists - namely Vincent Johnson, Max Libertor, John Reed-Torres, and Jared Szabo - are scheduled to perform at the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival in Northern California this weekend. Normally, this dearth of pianists might be considered grounds for cancelling the meeting. However, in light of the special occasion - our club’s 30th Anniversary, we are engaging longtime Rose Leaf pianist Andrew Barrett to host and play. If you are a local ragtime pianist and in town, please consider attending and playing for this momentous occasion. Audiences, consider this a special opportunity to hear one of Southern California’s finest syncopators at the Rose Leaf Club!
A Note From Fred Hoeptner:
“It seems worthy of note that the August meeting of the RLRC will be the club's 30th anniversary. The first meeting was held August 25, 1995, at 7:00 p.m. at the coffee house Biscotti and Books in Pasadena, and I was there. The primary organizer was pianist Philip (P.J.) Schmidt, formerly a professional pianist in New Orleans and then a clerical employee of JPL who lived in Pasadena. P.J. had been attending meetings of the Maple Leaf Club being held at a Whittier retirement home, but wanted something closer to home. Sadly he died in September, 1999, at age 56. The club has continued to meet monthly at a series of venues in Pasadena, Monrovia, and finally South Pasadena thanks largely to the efforts of members, such as Ron Ross and Hal Leavens, finding venues. During its heyday, meeting at Monrovia’s historic Aztec Hotel for six years, the club would draw fifty or more attendees per meeting."
JULY MEETING SEES SEVEN PIANISTS
If you missed the July meeting of the Rose Leaf Ragtime Club, you missed one of the biggest gatherings of pianists we’ve had all year. On July 13, 2025, at the Barkley Restaurant and Bar, seven pianists took the stage, buoyed by guest appearances from Jared DiBartolomeo (visiting from the Bay Area) and Bob Pinsker (joining us from San Diego), along with strong representation from our younger members.
As is tradition, Vincent Johnson opened the meeting with a stately performance of Scott Joplin’s “Rose Leaf Rag.” He followed with Joseph Lamb’s “Top Liner Rag” and Bix Beiderbecke’s impressionistic “In A Mist,” a rare crossover of early jazz and classical sensibilities—each of these pieces widely regarded as masterworks in their respective idioms.
Visiting from Northern California, Jared DiBartolomeo treated us to a delightful set, beginning with Muriel Pollock’s “Rooster Rag.” While not often heard at the club, it has been recorded by ragtime revival luminaries like Max Morath and Wally Rose. Jared continued with James P. Johnson’s “Mule Walk,” likely composed in the 1910s but not recorded until the late 1930s. He concluded with “Jim Jams”—a dazzling 1922 novelty by Roy Bargy, published by Sam Fox.
Our club’s regular Jared—Jared Szabo—followed with three contrasting selections. He began with “Fireworks Rag” by Tom Brier, composed in 1988 when Brier was just 16 or 17. Though its title suggests explosive energy, the piece is relatively subdued compared to Brier’s later works like “Razor Blades” or “Elephant Tracks.” Jared next played “St. Louis Tickle,” attributed to the fictitious “Barney & Seymour” but widely believed to have been composed by Theron C. Bennett. He finished with “Gateway Rag,” a nod to St. Louis and the first-place winner at this year’s World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing New Rag Contest.
After a long hiatus, Bob Pinsker delighted us with his second consecutive appearance in as many months, offering a thoughtfully curated set in celebration of composers with July birthdays. He opened with “Echoes from the Snowball Club” by Harry P. Guy (born July 17, 1870)—a ragtime waltz both beloved and masterfully constructed, frequently performed by ragtime orchestras. Bob continued with “Causeway Blues” by Donald Ashwander (also born July 17, but in 1929), an inventive composer whose work has often gone underappreciated. This particular piece can be heard on Ashwander’s 1973 album Turnips, performed on electric harpsichord with rhythm box. Bob closed his set with “Peaceful Henry” by E. Harry Kelly, a composition whose introduction and closing riffs have echoed through later works by Harry Belding, Brun Campbell, and even Jerome Kern’s “Ol’ Man River.”
Vincent Johnson then returned to the piano with Tom Turpin’s “Harlem Rag,” the first published rag by an African-American composer to include “Rag” in the title (1897), predating “Maple Leaf Rag” by two years. He followed with “Grasshopper Dance” by Lothar Perl, a European novelty composed in 1933, just before Perl fled Nazi persecution. Vincent included the piece’s unpublished final theme, known only from Perl’s Odeon Records recording. His final selection was Scott Joplin’s “The Chrysanthemum – An Afro-American Intermezzo,” dedicated to Miss Freddie Alexander and notable for its elegant, lightly syncopated style.
Jared DiBartolomeo returned with three more excellent selections. He began with “Scott Joplin’s New Rag,” a challenging late-period composition marked unusually “Allegro moderato” (Ed. note So much for “It is never right to play ragtime fast!”). Jared’s interpretation of James P. Johnson’s “Snowy Morning Blues” was especially tasteful and relaxed—one of the best renditions around. This 1927 piece shares chordal DNA with Johnson’s earlier “Carolina Shout.” Jared closed with “The Moth” by Lee Sims, a pianist whose broadcast stylings on radio helped shape the young Art Tatum.
Next, Jared Szabo returned with a spirited performance of Claude Bolling’s arrangement of “Mississippi Rag,” often considered the first published piece with “Rag” in the title (1897). He followed with his own arrangement of W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues,” drawing from the piano roll techniques of Zez Confrey and Max Kortlander. His final selection, “Spring Fever,” was a stride-inflected novelty by the versatile Rube Bloom.
Max Libertor then shared a personal anecdote about his conversion to fandom of Billy Mayerl’s signature piece “Marigold,” which he followed with a stylish performance of the 1927 novelty. He then played Ralph Sutton’s swing-era transformation of Scott Joplin’s “The Cascades” and finished with a lively rendition of James Scott’s “Efficiency Rag.”
Bob Pinsker returned to the keys with a piano transcription of Fats Waller’s “Digah Stomp,” originally recorded on pipe organ in 1927 and later featured in the cult film Eraserhead (1977). In recognition of Roy Bargy’s July 31 birthday, Bob next played “Blue Streak,” one of Bargy’s few piano novelties not published by Sam Fox. He ended with two pieces honoring J. Russel Robinson’s July birthday: “Aggravatin’ Papa” and “Dynamite Rag,” the latter being a rare example of early ragtime published in Los Angeles.
One of our youngest members, Leo Gonzalez, delivered a stunning set marked by maturity beyond his years. He began with Joplin’s “Magnetic Rag,” a deeply nuanced work considered the pinnacle of the composer’s late style. Leo followed with “Weeping Willow,” a more lyrical Joplin piece imbued with a folksy and pastoral character. He then tackled William Bolcom’s “The Graceful Ghost,” a modern classic with a notoriously tricky trio that challenges even advanced pianists. He concluded with a creative arrangement of “Swipesy Cakewalk,” a collaboration between Joplin and his protégé Arthur Marshall.
Bringing the meeting to a dynamic close was John Reed-Torres, the club’s own “ragtime bus driver.” He kicked off with Arthur Marshall’s “Ham And!”—a solo composition dedicated to Joplin—then played Joseph Lamb’s “Rapid Transit Rag,” which has become something of a personal theme. John followed with Joplin’s elegant “Gladiolus Rag” before ending the meeting with his own original composition, “On the Rocks.”
We hope to see you at our next meeting on Sunday, August 10, once again at the Barkley Restaurant and Bar in South Pasadena!
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