That Demon Rag!
Four stars. These delightful turn-of-the century arrangements from the collection of the great trombonist and conductor Arthur Pryor are vibrant and irresistible...The music is incomparably sweet and stirring. And Rick Benjamin, who founded and conducts the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, is a musician of wit and sensibility...The excellent playing is in keeping with the music's wit and spirit. Among the strong 14 players are concertmaster Anton Miller and Jimmy Musto, drums and percussion. Twenty numbers, including several Scott Joplin rags, are included - and don't miss Carlton Colby's "Ragtime Travesty on 'Il Trovatore'." (Lesley Valdes) --The Philadelphia InquirerEssential - the highest rating.     Interesting and virtuoso performances combined with authentic recreation make this CD a definate must for all lovers of period popular music.     Rick Benjamin, an authority on vintage American music, founded the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra to recreate the authentic sound of the "theater orchestra"  - small ensembles playing in hotels and restaurants, popualr in the United States from the 1880s to the 1920s (a period which coinicided with the Ragtime Era). Ragtime was not exclusively keyboard music; indeed the classic piano rags known today would have only been known to the average listener in 1910 through orchestral versions. Even Scott Joplin, indisputably the best ragtime composer, performed with bands. This CD has two Joplin rags, along with rags by several of the most famous pop composers of the day, most now forgotten: Eubie Blake, Jerome Kern, and the mysterious Cora Salisbury, one of the few women composers. Opera lovers probably won't like Colby's delicious "Ragtime Travesty on 'Il Trovatore'." Interesting and virtuoso performances combined with authentic recreation make this CD a definate must for all lovers of period popular music. (Paul Begg) --Classic CD - Issue 41Editor's Choice - American Heritage (Vol. 45, No. 2)  ...full of that confident turn-of-the-century energy that is usually characterized as "optimistic." One can sense our modern cities rising to the canny swagger of these tunes...   ...the 12-member Paragon Ragtime Orchestra has been touring the country in the ghostly footsteps of the thousands of "theater orchestras" that once played in every hotel, vaudeville hall, and fair-sized restaurant. Few of them can have played with more bite or sparkle than the Paragon. Ragtime has been called the folk music of the American city, and indeed, there is a sense of urban hurry to these numbers; the bright clamor of, say, "That Hindu Rag," is full of that confident turn-of-the-century energy that is usually characterized as "optimistic." One can sense our modern cities rising to the canny swagger of these tunes, just as one hears our own era taking shape in the years that pass between Arthur Pryor's ebulliant "Cakewalk Contest" of 1899 and Jerome Kern's ravishing 1914 "They Didn't Believe Me." And it's a pleasant surprise to discover the ubiquitous "Melancholy Baby" scrubbed clean of decades of nightclub smoke, making her debut in a winsome 1912 two-step. --American Heritage Magazine