A pulsating piano solo by a black composer published 125 years ago this fall became an unexpected bestseller, drew droves of young people to the piano, and became an enduring classic of American music ...

In the early 1880s, a young African American boy in Texarkana named Scott Joplin was trained in the fundamentals of classical music and opera by his German-born teacher. Born near Linden, Joplin was ...

Friday is the anniversary of Scott Joplin’s death in 1917. The story of this Black master of the ragtime genre can seem like one that never got far beyond the starting gate and ended with a sad ...

There was a time when pianist Tom McDermott downplayed his affinity for ragtime composer Scott Joplin. For years, ragtime suffered from an image problem, a hokey stereotype of straw hats and Shakey’s ...

Were it not for ragtime composer Scott Joplin, Tom McDermott may not have evolved into one of New Orleans’ most respected pianists. Growing up in St. Louis, McDermott had, by age 14, spent seven years ...

In the post-Civil War era, the cruel breath of slavery and the aborted plan of Reconstruction still hung over the American South. But in the Joplin home, banjo and fiddle music filled the family’s ...

MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: The sound of ragtime music is unmistakable, and it evokes a vivid sense of time and place. It brings us back to the turn of the last century, when America was becoming powerful and ...

Scott Joplin composed the music and wrote the libretto for the opera "Treemonisha," which he published in 1911. According to ...

ST. LOUIS — During Black History Month, 5 on Your Side is celebrating the history that was made in St. Louis, and highlighting the next generation of change-makers. One of the most influential ...

As radical as rock & roll was when it first emerged in America, ragtime seemed childish to many at first, a fad that would fade quickly. Others found it threatening, and quirte possibly dangerous. To ...