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The Ultimate playlist podcast full of Choice Trackz. Side A is the weekly theme of the episode and Side B is a full album review.
Taj Williams (00:41.09)
Welcome back to the Ultimate Playlist Podcast for Choice Tracks. I'm Taj.
Damon The Man (00:47.328)
I'm Damon.
Dee (00:49.353)
And I'm, what the fuck is my name? don't know. I'm Dietrich, yeah.
Taj Williams (00:51.99)
you
Damon The Man (00:53.098)
Yeah, who's this guy?
Taj Williams (00:57.005)
Hey guys, we're back for episode two of our fabulous return. So this is where we're doing something a little bit different. this is our first ever genre episode. So kind of what inspired this is that, you know, I kind of want to put this all outside of our comfort zone and like learn new music. I remember back when I was in high school.
because I never took a college level one. I would probably loved it. But in high school, I actually took music history class. And that is part of why I'm actually covering ragtime today, because I remember ragtime being like one of the first, if not the first class of music that we covered. So, you know, up until so ragtime goes from 1890s to 1910s.
so before that, you know, there's mainly classical music, regional music. you had some banjos, in the United States, had, you know, waltzes, you know, marching songs, you know, that was kind of the, the music genre, but ragtime was kind of the first like original music to grow out of the United States. The other thing that I think helps, solidify ragtime as a, as a music, this it worked as a starting point is.
the playing piano because there they had in the sorry, I'm trying to get my dates right here. But from what they took off. they started in the late 19th century, early 20th century, but they really reached popularities in like the 1924, 1929, where a lot of people owned playing piano. So playing piano is a piano where you have a scroll of paper and you put it in there and then it would play the song for you.
It was kind of like, think of an oversized music box, right? But it's an actual piano you could play on, or you could have it play the music back to you. So with Ragtime, Ragtime is syncopated piano melody. Normally the left hand does the bass, and the right hand does the syncopation melody. It really grew up from, you know,
Taj Williams (03:23.074)
It wasn't respected as a form of music at its time because they kind of thought that it was, you know, at the time it was mainly played in like red districts, you know, where you had all the brothels and the bars and, know, it was for a better term, it came out of the slums, right? It came out of the other side of the tracks, right? And so people associate that type of music with that activity, even though the music itself
had its own thing. And so that's where the music originated. It's really the forefront before jazz. The reason why I kind tie in to playing piano is because the first song that I picked, I'll go ahead and do the song and then I'll explain. So the first song I picked is Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin.
Taj Williams (04:37.934)
All right. So that was Maple Leaf Rag. This was the first song that he wrote it in cheap music. So Scott Joplin is one of the three main godfathers of ragtime. So he not godfather or three main leads of ragtime in this era. Right. And so this Maple Leaf Rag was the one that put him on the map. This was his first one he sold and
He mainly made money by selling this as sheet music. Right. And but this song was so popular that like he could make a living off of just the sheet music of this. Right. And he, you know, he was really born in Texas, went to San Antonio or not sent to and went to St. Louis, but also was in another town. I'm sorry. I'm spacing on the name. But like right time, kind of was a St. Louis, like Midwest type of thing. And so
But he, know, he Scott Joplin didn't live that long because he he died. But what was interesting was his very much thing was that the music they wrote down should be played at the pace that was written. Right. And Maple Leaf Rag is one of those songs where like you hear it and you kind of want to play it faster. And that was a problem that a lot of people had with the song was like they would try and play it as fast as possible. And he was very much a
a musician saying that, no, it's at the tempo that should be at, because that's the way I wrote it. So he was trying to give the music like the, I'm trying think of the right word, the gravitas that deserve, right? It was music, when at its appropriate pace, it wasn't made to be played faster. But that was what I picked. And so, that was...
Maple leaf right? So what did you guys think of that song? I guess before we continue further had you heard it before?
Dee (06:42.581)
had heard that before. I was thinking that I'd seen it in one of like, what was his name? Like the old days where they had to steal picture films. Yeah, Charlie Chaplin, yes, yes. I could have sworn, just like literally just thought of my head. First thing that came to my mind was I heard that in a Charlie Chaplin movie.
Taj Williams (06:59.387)
like Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton? OK.
Dee (07:10.397)
So I would have to go back and double check that in order to see if he actually, you know, did use that, that for a score. But in that situation, like it literally came to my mind is that, you you put me on ragtime, like I've heard ragtime before, but I never actually knew what ragtime was or put a name to it. I just knew that there was piano playing in the background. And, know, you think about the old saloons and you think about, you know, going into the roaring twenties where, where it really, you know, kind of picked up.
along with wartime and things of nature. So it's kind of like, the song is iconic. I know the artist is definitely the forerunner, if not one of, if not the best well -known individual for it. And it's just, for what I have to say about it, as far as like the syncopation goes, that's just really like, I like that. I like the way that, you know, like you say, you're playing a melody with one, playing a bass with the other, and you're just flowing with it.
and song was actually good and I didn't realize that there were like four chord changes in it but it actually made sense for the breakout so I like that too as well so no good good job
Taj Williams (08:21.57)
Okay. Okay. Thanks. So what do think, Damon?
Damon The Man (08:33.068)
yeah, no, I'm here. so I, yeah, I definitely think that Scott Joplin is like, you know, he's definitely the forerunner for this stuff. So the piano music with ragtime being something that comes before jazz, like it's, it's basically what we had back then. You didn't have anything other than pianos and maybe a couple other things going on, but like,
Dee (08:34.953)
You are mute.
Taj Williams (08:36.73)
There you go.
Damon The Man (09:00.302)
you had to go out for your live music and you had to hear it that way. know, eventually you were able to get recordings and stuff like that. But, know, this is definitely like a really cool, I guess, like. Look at music because it's the old west, it's you know, it's it's bars or saloons, I guess they're called saloons. That's where you would hear this. And for a black man at that time, too, to like.
make it big in some way back then, you know, and to be recognized for like in music. And I mean, I think that's like awesome. Now, you know, I don't know what it was like to live back then, obviously, but for music to be that old that in America, in this country and to be recognized now still is unbelievable. Yeah, so.
That's not my favorite song But I appreciate the style the sound It just makes me think of the old west like we play like we're all gamers here We played like Red Dead and the new Red Dead game and you know that kind of stuff is just like all up that you know Westworld the show Westworld on HBO is like Really cool because they take these old songs
Taj Williams (10:07.78)
Right.
Dee (10:19.954)
Yep.
Damon The Man (10:29.252)
and they turn it into something like a new version of it. And you have to kind of like guess or they take a new song and they make it sound old, old like this, this old 1800s, which is really cool. So, yeah, I appreciate it in an artsy way. And I guess an old timey way to.
Taj Williams (10:39.46)
Right?
Taj Williams (10:54.052)
Gotcha.
Taj Williams (10:57.69)
So yeah, so I was going to, so the three main people just to kind of go over that is Scott Joplin, James Scott and Joseph Lam are kind of the three main people that are known for ragtime. But Dietrich, you actually kind of surprised me. What did you pick for ragtime? Because I liked what you picked, but yeah, go ahead and.
Dee (11:20.959)
So my pick, I kind of went off the beaten path. The reason I did that was because I had gone down this person's musical discography and I felt like this was like the best representation of how I thought Ragtime would come across. it kind of went off the beaten path, but I think all in all, it was a good choice. And so the person that I chose was called Ooby Blake.
And his song was Baltimore Tootaloo.
Taj Williams (12:14.98)
That's good. I like it.
Dee (12:17.535)
Yes.
Taj Williams (12:19.696)
It reminds me of... can't place my... I mean, it's very jazzy. You can hear it, but I can almost hear another song in it. Like, I can hear how this grew into something else.
Dee (12:39.669)
So it's funny because it's actually like different situations, different things going on. So Ubi Blake was born in like 1887, up to 1983. And he just literally came out with his own interpretation of ragtime. It had a little bit of more of steady pace, slower pace.
Taj Williams (13:05.188)
Okay.
Dee (13:09.593)
but you know, the different core changes and the different validity for which he was playing with, like it was long the same lines of what anything's got job, anybody else was doing. Right. So, he took his own lane. the reason why I picked this particular song in general was because I actually, heard this in passing. funny enough, it was on a YouTube video and it was, it was a person that was actually,
or replaying the song. And they would change up the chords and they would go different paces just to see the complexity of the track, right? So the reason why I liked it was because I was like, man, this person really putting some thought into this. Let me look this up a little bit. Sure enough, it's when I actually went into it. So come and find out, he's been playing piano since he was five. The actually funny story was he actually
was with his mom shopping and walked away from her while she was in a shopping store, ran over across the street to the music store, sat down at the piano and actually start picking up chords, self and playing by ear. And so in doing so, the store manager was gonna kick him out, but then he heard that he actually had some tune in order to play by ear. And so he allowed him to keep on playing. And so when the mom came back, she was screaming for him up and down the street, didn't know where he was.
And then she saw a crowd around the music store and then that's she went and found him in there on the piano. So for example now you got piano lessons, he wound up being classically trained in a couple of parts and then turned around and started doing his own thing. So that was cool. And then also this song was actually, he actually composed this in 1910, but did not actually release it until the 16th when he came back around and started looking over old sheet music that he had written out.
Taj Williams (14:43.578)
you
Dee (15:08.341)
And so just for the fact of it being that long of a gap in between the time and it's still releasing it later and it's still being something that, you know, would chime into people's ears, that just lets you know how classic it was. So it's, but it's like, you know, when you're, when you're 10 years old and you write a song and you think, you know, this is the best thing ever as a 10 year old. And then you happen to come back 20 years later and you look through and you see your song and it's like, damn, that was actually good. let me go ahead and use that. This was that type of situation.
So as far as the song itself, was had, there's a pair of eight notes that's in there and like a triplet eight that actually worked and somebody actually put a swing to it, which it would fit right into this generation now. Like back then they didn't have MIDI, right? So they didn't have a way to actually take the music in and then conform it to another situation. But when he first composed it,
when he brought it in, the late 60s and 70s and things of that nature, analog and everything, it kind of moved up since then. But still, his syncopation on this actual track, you could put it into a quantization and it's damn near on point for everywhere in which it goes through. So yeah, that's the situation that's at hand and that's why I picked it up. So what do y 'all think about it?
Taj Williams (16:36.496)
I liked it a lot. Like I said, it was it. I will admit I had a hard time trying to different artists when I was searching up right time. But yeah, like I could tell because I listened to some of his other tracks and yet like it's it's on point. Like it stood out as as really different. And that makes sense. Why? But yeah, it's and I'll get into it more later on. But yeah, right time.
I feel like still has its roots in American music. And I feel like there may be even a noir of it coming up, but, you know, it might just be called something else. but I just want to I appreciate this pick because I really enjoyed it. I liked it a lot. And it just makes you show how deeply embedded right time is to American music. So.
Damon The Man (17:35.14)
So I've got to be honest with you, like all of it sounds the same to me. It's so like piano driven and like, you know, that that was cool to everybody back then. You're going into the saloon or you're getting ready to get a glass of whiskey or some shit like maybe do a shootout. don't know. That's what I imagine happens. But and to the music, too. So it would be the perfect soundtrack to like a, you know, like a
Dee (17:37.215)
All right, cool. Damon, what you think, bro?
Dee (17:46.837)
Hahaha
Damon The Man (18:05.316)
Western shootout in the middle of the dirt road. You know, that kind of stuff is what I think of. Like the old West, old America. This was a weird time in America because America was trying to discover new territories. Like people were ruthless, you know, and they were looking for gold back then. This was like the gold rush and, you know, the 1800s, late 1800s.
Getting to the early 1900s were like, you know, rag times kind of like before jazz. And so things are settling out a little bit, but they've still, you have like a great depression. You have all kinds of shit going on, but like music was, I guess, like what brought people together or made you feel happy. I mean, you must've been drinking too. I mean, it couldn't have just been some piano going on. So I would have been the first person to be like with a glass of whiskey, sit next to the piano and just.
Wonder what's going to happen next. Not that that has changed much for now too, because like modern, the modern interpretation of that is it's not much different, but, yeah, no, I thought that was a, like a really good pick as far as like, couldn't have found that. I don't think. And that's what I appreciate from you, Dietrich is like, you definitely, you know, your music enough to where you could find, you know, you'll be Blake.
And I would have just been like searching on the internet, like trying to find something good, you know, for ragtime. And I appreciate the Sean or more now because I feel like, yeah, everybody knows kind of what ragtime is, but do I really? So, yeah.
Dee (19:58.057)
That's where I was coming from. Yeah, literally like this situation like he he was actually like a cornerstone of the Harlem Renaissance whenever New York was on his come up and so he's actually from Baltimore, Maryland. So that's why I was called Baltimore to the Lou. But the fact that he moved over to New York and was playing in a lot of the lot of the local speakeasies and things like matter of fact, speakeasies weren't around at that time because this is before prohibition.
Damon The Man (20:02.746)
yeah.
Dee (20:25.641)
This is when alcohol was just flowing all over the place and it was hooch or hatch that back in the day. So this is when that shit you can put inside a car and start it up. Like they had the real deal alcohol back then. But yeah, man, this is right around the turn of the century where everything actually started coming into play and we were more civilized. And I kind of missed some of them days where, you you would come out wearing a suit and walking around and.
You know, they were no such things as t -shirts. There were other shirts. but it wasn't like you were just, you know, dolled up like just like we do today, like walking around in slippers and pajamas and shit. Like you actually had to dress up to go outside the house. And, you you were, you were paying 15 cents or five cents for, for a meal type situation. Like this, that's the golden era of America when everybody was coming in and making something of themselves.
just based off of their talent alone or based off of their ingenuity. And so for him being able to be a cornerstone and that time of renaissance or that time of explosion when music was just coming into itself and it was no longer the classical play. Now you're actually taking tunes and making it more of a swinging type situation, make it more of a jazzy situation. Taz, actually, and both of you, both of your picks are actually great.
to the point where it was like, okay, I need to be a little bit different, but like I will give this genre a whole other listen to just for the fact that you bringing it up. So I'm cool with it.
Taj Williams (22:05.328)
All right. OK. So I'm going to kind of lead you here, Damon. So with Scott Joplin kind of going back to him, he had said back in this lifetime, they probably wouldn't be appreciated in this lifetime. And so when the 1970s came around, there was a pretty big booby with Jackie Gleason and Robert Redford, which
Kind of led to the revival of ragtime. And so I'll let you take it from here, Damon.
Damon The Man (22:34.162)
Well, I don't know much about this story that you're leading into, but no.
Damon The Man (22:45.884)
Why don't you tell the story first and then I'll I'll go next. Well, let's introduce my son first. So really, yeah. So I think that Scott Joplin was like the go to and I watched I mentioned already Westworld and I know that some of his stuff like the piano music was like used in that show because it's it's still.
Taj Williams (22:47.812)
you don't?
Dee (22:48.469)
Does it have, is it a great story?
Taj Williams (22:52.386)
It is a great story!
Taj Williams (22:56.772)
Well, but it's your song. That's why I'm trying to set you up for your song. OK.
Damon The Man (23:14.458)
It's really supposed to take place like in that time period for like, you know, if you haven't seen Westworld about a fictitious entertainment, you know, like Disney World or whatever. But like, you know, there's robots and they look real and all that shit. You can like make your own story. And so like a lot of the piano opening up to that is like or the song songs that they open with. They're using the old style piano.
playing with like newer songs. And then they do use some of the older songs too. so Scott Joplin stuff is obviously played like, you know, such a famous artists, like I wish I could have been him really, or like in that time where like I'm in the 1800s and my, my stuff still be a listen to everybody knows my music, like no matter what time it is. And this is a
So this is like the early 1900s, late 1800s. I want to say it's mostly piano that you will hear from Scott Joplin. But the song that I had picked was produced, I guess. I don't know if it was produced. It was like sheet music that was distributed. So it's a little bit different, like production back then. John Starkinson. So they're kind of like the first
group to get his stuff out. this is around 1902. And the song that I had picked is the the entertainer, which I think most of you will recognize.
Taj Williams (25:14.244)
Now, I picked a newer version. If you listen here after this part, you'll hear what I picked.
Damon The Man (25:23.96)
The clarinet.
Damon The Man (25:31.686)
Which you know what? I did fucking see it. Okay. Nevermind. I love heist movies. Robert Redford is like fucking awesome. No, no. I saw it. I saw it, but I don't, I didn't recall this for some reason at first, but now I do. And I fell in love with that movie too. I think it was like one of the best like heist style.
Taj Williams (25:31.94)
This is the entertainer from, yep, from the classic movie The Sting. Have you never seen The Sting? Okay. Yes, Jackie Gleason, Robert Rufford, yeah.
Dee (25:43.471)
Hahaha
Taj Williams (25:58.757)
Yeah.
Damon The Man (26:01.373)
Yeah.
Taj Williams (26:04.538)
What the thing is, the director, like he loved ragtime. That's why when he did the sting, he was like, I am going to everything I can, Scott Joplin ragtime in this movie. And so that's where, yeah. So in that this kind of like, that's where ragtime had a bit of a resurgence in the seventies was because of this movie. And so.
Damon The Man (26:09.221)
Right.
Damon The Man (26:18.608)
I think, yeah, and I think the entertainer is like, it's one of those songs that could be played like in a scene with a saloon, you know, the Westworld or whatever. And then it could also be played like in comedy style stuff. And then you could throw it into a 70s weird, weird movie action kind of shit. yeah.
Taj Williams (26:48.648)
What's also interesting is like the the entertainer itself specifically, which it's always stood out, but there's been a couple of times I've heard an ice cream truck playing the entertainer and you're like, you're like, that's like the weirdest thing. You're like, they're playing. Yeah. But you're like, Hey, for somebody that is the ice cream truck sound that song. You're like, you know, there's an ice cream truck somewhere around in the neighborhood.
Damon The Man (26:55.906)
Yeah, right. It's fucking weird. It's creepy, though, out of an ice cream truck.
Dee (27:01.833)
Yep. Yep.
Damon The Man (27:09.85)
It's yeah. And like you said, you, you got a spot on like it's, is weird. It doesn't sound right. Coming out of the ice cream trucks, like a little, like whatever that is, like the music box sound, you know? But, I always think of the movie like it or something like that, where kids are going to be pulled into a drainage ditch.
Damon The Man (27:37.484)
there's plenty of horror movies with an ice cream truck.
Dee (27:39.305)
Now I'm throwing the ice cream. Now I want ice cream. Thanks. Appreciate it.
Taj Williams (27:42.274)
Yeah
Damon The Man (27:46.352)
I do want ice cream now. I do too.
Dee (27:47.726)
yeah, I don't know, just in the fire screen now, because y 'all played the song. Thanks.
Taj Williams (27:51.834)
All right.
Dee (27:56.814)
See?
Taj Williams (27:58.372)
So, but yeah, no, I do it, you know, this I've gone back and forth whether to do Maple Leaf Rag or the Arntainer, but this one's a great pick and I did like it. And like I said, I think we just kind of touched, you know, lot of spots where ragtime is. did, I was tempted. So here's the weird thing.
I understand how ragtime can be hard or a lot of songs sound similar, especially with the really tinny piano. But where I kind of feel like it's having a resurgence is in two places. One is in because if you've ever listened to like 8 -bit or 16 -bit chipset songs, like basically, mean, those have those same like tinny high pitched notes.
that like ragtime does, but people love that. Right. And and that's kind of like the thing, like there's still music that has like a limited range, but still people love. And and the other place I've heard it is I've heard some like kind of techno key techno tracks with ragtime. But it's mainly the syncopation, probably. But it's just one of those things that ragtime itself with a steady beat, but then a melody that syncopated.
is like so ingrained in music everywhere that, you know, it's just interesting. So that's why I wanted to point it out because I think it exists in, you know, in chipset music and it exists in like techno beats that, you know, in some cases. Yeah.
Dee (29:44.277)
So now that it's on our playlist and we have a party, you're saying like a Halloween party coming up or something of that nature. If your song comes on and people start wanting ice cream, blame me. I blame you, Damon, for picking it, but I'm blaming Taj for picking the genre.
Taj Williams (29:51.546)
Right?
Damon The Man (29:54.085)
Okay.
Taj Williams (29:56.272)
Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. So, yeah. So, that was our genre. Did you guys have anything else that you want to add about ragtime or? Okay.
Dee (30:05.416)
I just want that to be known.
Damon The Man (30:11.91)
I I feel like drinking whiskey now. don't know what that is, but yeah.
Damon The Man (30:24.72)
I still hate homework, but yeah.
Taj Williams (30:25.796)
Gotcha. Okay. Well, so do we still believe in homework or, or, or we just, no homework, still hate homework. No homework. Okay.
Dee (30:34.729)
No, no, no homework. No homework. We're good. We're just gonna surprise whatever we put it up. They just gotta listen to it. It is what it is.
Damon The Man (30:39.004)
So join us next, join us for the next episode. you, if you dare, if you still want to hang out with us and hear us talk about weird shit related to music. but yeah. So what do you got? What do you got for us? Tosh? Do you have any information?
Taj Williams (30:43.566)
Okay, we're just going to surprise them with what next week is. Okay. All right.
Dee (30:46.867)
Yep.
Taj Williams (30:51.341)
Yeah.
Taj Williams (31:01.23)
Well, I'd like to let you know that this has been Choice Tracks. You can find this on our website of choicetracks .com or email us at choicetracks .gmail .com. Both of those end with a Z. We ask that you please subscribe and listen to all past and future episodes. Let's go and sign out. I've been Taj.
Damon The Man (31:12.348)
I'm David.
Dee (31:22.395)
And I'm Dietrich and we're going to pick up the needle. Y 'all keep spinning those choice tracks and playing the piano as much as possible. Keep music alive people.