Queen of Ragtime

[fingersf1]

RIP ragtime. It was murdered here. Crass and all about the player rather than the music.

[neobiki]

Attention w...?

[123robotcat]

2 nice



[MatthewKilby]

Someone send this to RWJ!

[misterpimpshow]

shes pro...

[nanitesnodes]

The Queen Rocks I love it ! fire it up where's my Tommy gun time to party

[Paradoxicon999]

I think she's great!

Oh, and why don't all of you "armchair piano critics" put yourselves up for everyone to inspect, I bet you'll shut your mouth then.

[fingerscarr]

clarity accuracy and swing trump speed and loose clang anyday !

[stevesg92]

@MrMittas yes indeed you do.

[lustre5]

Skillful, yes, but Scott Joplin is still rolling in his grave.

[SMELLYCHOCOLATE]

I don't know bout you, but I would have probably started to DANCE! If I were sitting there, Going "oh yeah!!! like a drunk.

[misssecretlovechild]

hahahahahahaha!!! ive nvr been to entertained in my lifeee! lmaoo this is awesome

[jhill74893]

played like never before FAB--U--LOUS

[alan28461]

wheres the original one??

[TheBeanicus]

Scott Joplin stuff is always a treat.....If ya wanna hear some good ass ragtime...type in Joanne Castle ans listen to her play..so smooth!!!

[CALUCATCEPS]

bah! i can do that with my tounge

[opalfinity]

oh my god she is... amaaaazing..... but the quality is hurting my ears D:

[calvinthedestroyer]

very nice:)

[vln2lvr]

That Mimi Blais sure can play! For those concerned that this is too fast, Mimi has lots of CDs out with slower music--all gorgeously played.

[Bonnibell1]

Damn...that's good stuff..

[lilianahippie]

slow down speed racer!

[julienscotto]

OMG!

[RagtimeJunior]

Not a patch on good old Winnie Atwell though is it? :P

[mikewoollett]

@RagtimeJunior I totally agree!!

[drkarnov]

Sure, she is skilled but:

1- she is annoying

2-she plays way too fast, wich is good for showing off (what she does) but not for listening.

[brioma1]

ur super !!!!!!

[limitlessaviator]

I smiled much while watching this.

[steinwaygrande1]

This woman irritates the hell out of me. I dont know if she thinks she is being funny , but she sure is emabarrsing to watch

[CooCurrent]

@steinwaygrande1 Yeah, I agree. She can play, but she plays too fast, i didnt really get a chance to listen to the music!

[steinwaygrande1]

@CooCurrent Thank you. I thought it was just me. Personally, I think she should stick to the classic

[TehKazangsta]

damn your camera microphone sucks, jeez.....

[IVORIESMAN]

As far as I'm concerned Winnie Atwell played the definitive version of this. For those of you wondering how it sounds played seriously, check out her version elsewhere on YouTube. Personally I feel the lady on this particular posting should look at a different style to air her playing, probably classical.

[josiah566]

@IVORIESMAN Well. She was classically trained.

[IVORIESMAN]

There is something very strange happening here because I did not actually write or post this particular comment - although I do happen to agree with it.

[blimey1287]

show off. play nicely now.

[DisneyMissieMouse]

ok im a vintage geek just so you know...

THIS WAS SOOO AWESOME!!!!

i keep watching this over and over and OVER AGAIN!!!!

[PaulClesham]

The Black & White Rag by George Botsford,

Possibly the best piece of music ever written..

[mkrznar]

Does anyone know the name of this rag?

[pianopro9]

HAHAHA guy tries to start clap at 1:52

[boobdude924]

This is just an opinion, but I love playing ragtime and I can tell you that its way too fun to play to assign a certain tempo to how it should be played. If you can play it fast and it sounds good, play it.

[juanx14]

she's cool!

[Jonehz0r]

Way too fast

[FriarFerdinand]

A touch TOO FAST, in my HUMBLE opinion!

[BLUESINAFLAT]

I wish Winifred Atwell was still alive.

[mikewoollett]

@BLUESINAFLAT So do I!!!!!

[hyugaUkyo]

cool, she's great!!!

[freedomxxrandom]

She plays with style... =)

[wteo340]

Is this fine mademoseille Mimi Blais?

[willemvdr12]

I've only three words for it:

Oh - My - God!

[marycherryberry]

wow she's good! How she moves her fingers that fast don't know!

[Tallmark1]

Nice work. They used to hire pianists like her to play for silent movies. Nice work!

[ToujoursMonCoeur]

wow prestissimo!!!

[XtlilacX]

woa..... i mean, thats skill. but its not ragtime... well.... proper ragtime :( its toooooooo quick :( its like some crazy.... cartoon rail tracks chase or something :D

cool playing tho XD

[UrbanMonkeyy]

that bitch is good!

[danylongshaft]

lol

[steinwaygrande1]

cant say I ma overly impressed with her generally. Something I dont quite lke about her - cant put my finger on it but she doesnt do much for me . Other people might like her but its a free world and a democratic society - or is it ????

[TheSakeOfGod]

Yeah you're right in that it's a free society and it's acceptable to have a wrong opinion.

[lilboime]

ragtime can  be played at any speed unlike some other forms of music btw omg!!!!!!!!!! i play ragtime i m not that good like her shes blessed

[putrid11]

"Honky Tonk" yes, ragtime, no. I do think her technique is quite good...it's her taste I must question.

[steinwaygrande1]

I have to agree with you re her taste. She doesnt lght my fire

[madlutist]

Queen of what? Not very good technique; the playing kills any connection I may have with this music.

Ragtime should never be played fast. Says it at the top of every Joplin piece of sheet music.

[sutasman]

wow way way way way way too fast. oh yeah did i mention way way too fast.

[ric0o9]

reminds me of silent film music

[ironclownfish]

She apparently doesn't know as much as she might have us think. Ragtime is not supposed to be played fast.

[AndrzejPL94]

Look at the 0:40 .

[t455o]

too fast!!!

[georgedexter]

thats the black and white rag and she is playing about ten times too fast

[bbgum12345]

what is this song called? Its great!

[BrasilianMusician]

I will be the king of ragtime in BRazil

[scotthayden]

Impressive, but ragtime should never be played fast.

[Morahman7vnNo2]

She better not be hailing anyone or thing in particular! 0:40.

[dophina127]

that was absolutely fantabulous!!!!!

[pleasant18]

very lovely props to her

[N0TKA]

nice! ^^ and I loved her expressions xD

[3dogs1cat]

Sounds hurried! Beginners are usually impressed by fast performances, maybe she was playing for them.

[Niko1020]

I don't know what other people are talking about, but there's nothing better than getting into your music while playing it. No matter how dorky or stupid you look, that's what music's about and it's awesome that she can do that and feel the music, and get into it.

[ybravura]

Great performance! Wish the sound was better.

[spitgalore]

Did she stop playing and give a "nazi salute'?

[rebelslayer13]

Ragtime on a grand piano...awesome.

[TheRealGuysSon]

I love Ragtime music! ^^ It's got so good melody! I don't care if she pauses in the middle of the song! It's for houmor! I think Ragtime it self is better than the Pop culture cause it actually brings your feelings up! Great videos keep it coming!

[geistgreystone]

Oh F the haters. It was still amazing. She was a bitch, she screeched, she did it too fast. Whatever. it was amazing. Sophist bastards.

[ip00nedyou13]

i really am not impressed. people who show off like that... and she stops halfway and gives a smug look to the audience.. just keep playing 'QUEEN OF RAGTIME'. sorry didnt like it one bit

[billhill83]

I really love this rag but the "Queen of Ragtime's" dorky little screech in the beginning is almost enough to ruin the whole song for me. It is perhaps the lamest thing I've ever heard in my life: that guttoral shriek of ecstasy. it's grotesque. I'm really embarrassed for her.

[day10020]

what a bitchy show-off. im not impressed by how fast you can bang the keys down. Sure, the black and white rag was more upbeat, but this is an absolutly demented pace. she changed all the parts requiring talent also so she could appear to play at a faster speed.

[fingerscarr]

youj're dead right !

[BRNCMPBLL]

vieja loca

[GodsFavoriteBassPlyr]

IN the first place... "She"....is Obviously a HE..... Wake UP... "QUEEN" of Rag Time?? Come on.... hellooo?

The music is NOT clean....it's sloppy, and embarrassing - this kind of speed should only be attempted by accomplished musicians.

There is only ONE Rag Time Pianist and that is Jo Anne Castle - Do that search on youtube and then you'll know who the true queen of this style of music is.

[DrKorn5]

Lets see u play it perhaps?

[MoJoPiano]

You nailed it man! This is very rough, ragged and clumsy indeed. I could not agree more - Jo Anne is the QUEEN! Also, in her day, Del Wood could give her a run for her money.

[Keeper1st]

...and do a search on YouTube for Mimi Blais and you'll see that she has more talent in her little finger than other ragtime pianists wish they had in all 10. And you'll see that she is, in fact, a she...except for when she's playing the role of Jean-Baptiste Lafrenière, of course! Search also names like Tom Brier, Frederick Hodges and Adam Swanson, to name just a few guys I know who are among the best ragtime pianists of all time. And for another Queen of Ragtime, search for Stephanie Trick.

[danedaworld]

as much as i hate to say, i did her a small mistake when she accidentally presssed 2 notes when it was supposed to be soft =( but it was still awesome, cant believe how she altered....srry for repost

[danedaworld]

sounds like black and white rag.... she totally changed verse 2 the broken arpeggios was totally changed....o.O

[steinwaygrande1]

What a shame the camera didnt show her hands working the keyboard. Otherwise a humourous and brilliant performance.

[aaron12345432]

black and white rag is supposed to be fast. not EVERY rag is supposed to be a slow drag.

[MrTscheche01]

This woman is amazing... "Hut ab", would say a German ;)

[abgbddsg]

Well, I don't know this piece originally, it seems to be a little too fast but it makes a nice "show" piece and is not against it's character. Also it is quite well performed!

[mainmenu895]

@saurabh523 That makes no sense. The ears don't hear anything, your brain does.

[saurabh523]

@mainmenu895

very true! i meant your "lower" brain that analyzes and looks for faults.

[saurabh523]

@mainmenu895 cant remember what i said here and why i removed it, but the inner ear is part and parcel of the brain's metencephalon. the vestibulocochlear (cranial nerve 8) nerve emerges from the pons to the inner hear and conducts sound from the external environment.

[musicroxmysoul17]

She is amazing.

[pianoman1984]

OMG, what a rubbish.... WAY to fast.... this isn't how ragtime should be played...

[clemspaw]

Oh my god, it's Mrs Joplin!!! :D

[mrdee53]

Thats Mimi Blais isnt it?

Shes amazing at ragtime

[rcamposg]

What's her name? can you buy any album of her?

[Keeper1st]

She has several albums. Her name is Mimi Blais. mimiblais dot com, of course.

[amouseand2dogs]

What's her name? She came to my school... and I forgot her name.

[KBkingben]

haha i love ragtime, it sounds so crazy xD

[divvy1400yam600]

Yes it is called Black and White Rag or is based loosely on it.

Its certainly not as old as Scott Joplin's music.

Written in the 1930's I would guess.

[Keeper1st]

This rag was composed in 1908 -- right smack dab in the middle of Joplin's era.

[divvy1400yam600]

Yes keeper you are right. I looked it up after I posted that it was written in the 1930's and was very surprised to see how far out I was.

[Keeper1st]

Popular piano music of the '30s generally was much more harmonically complex. Many people think only of "classic" rags like Joplin's when they think of ragtime, but the vast majority of instrumental ragtime at the time were "popular" rags like this, as well as plenty of "folk" rags of varying styles. I have videos of some of my ragtime historian friends playing rags of all styles; you can get a good taste for authentic ragtime.

[divvy1400yam600]

The reason I guessed the 30's was that IMO it is not a very good rag, lamentably played here I think, and it seemed as tho' Botsford had got "in the act" some time after ragtime reached its zenith.

I agree about the complexity of 30s AND 40s popular music and I think the trend has been steadily downhill since, accelerating rapidily over the last 20 odd years.

[danedaworld]

black and white rag???

[iSpeakKonglish]

Whoa...way to pound those keys lady. That piano piece sounds CRAZY o_o

[amouseand2dogs]

Duh, it's called Ragtime!

[criticonjuarense]

presumida no me impresiona

[mellyjaz]

some views considered ragtime to be the most European, highbrow movement associated with Jazz. Around 1909, exploitation, excess, decadence had overtaken the music. It became a showman's piano for uninspired displays of fingering.

[ksjayhawk01]

Ragtime evolved. I happen to enjoy Joplin, Jelly Roll and Johnson who composed, I think, another step in the evolution of the music.

I do wish they would find a way to make old original recordings of that era more true to life by eliminating the monophonic tinny sounds that the victrolas and other early players were limited to.

[meredithanthraxelrod]

That was fantastic!! I love Mimi Blais!!! I could dance to that tempo. I think it was a very thrilling rendition!

[dearDuckie101]

ragtime isn't suppost to be this fast! It was music that people would dance to. I don't think that you could keep up with her even if you were doing the Texas-Two step! This is more like 1920s jazz

[Alaeriia]

Actually, some rags are meant to be reeled off at tempos of 180+ beats per minute. I used to be able to hit 200 on The Hanon Rag.

[alliecat1941]

well she is good..but Joanne Castle is the modern queen if ragtime in my book

[juancruz1990]

what the hell

[PhilippeLernould]

Very good.

[pedrovono]

Johnny Maddox is the king or Ragtime!!!

[Morahman7vnNo2]

No, Scott Joplin Is The King Of Ragtime.

[ibonykeys]

what a poor description of the history of ragtime

[akatz000]

i absolutely love this

as well as all other rags

hopefully someday i can play like this

[figleaf101]

what a mish-mash. sounds like a kid fooling around with a crank record player making it go faster and slower and stopping it now and then.

[bkgangstapianist]

I know this song... this is the Black and White Rag

[bkgangstapianist]

is this like using things from liszt hungarian rhapsody no. 2? i swear i hear dit the left hand at around 250?

[Keeper1st]

Yeah, a lot of ragtimers will throw in a bit of that into their performances of some rags, for fun. Mimi has a routine where she starts with Dizzy Fingers, leading into Flight of the Bumblebee, then going on to a whole slew of famous classical works (Sabre Dance is another that comes to mind) before finally returning to finish Dizzy Fingers. She is a tremendous entertainer.

[pcpilotnick]

whats the first piace called?

[giovappi]

video on her hands, please!

[UserNigoz]

Awesome! You are an excellent American.

[Keeper1st]

...other than the fact that she's French Canadian.

[leopoldmozart]

I didn't mind her speed, but the long pauses bothered me.They were silly and sucked out all the energy. Also, as with most musicians, her reinterpretations were more or less harmonies to the written melody which only make sense if you are hearing the melody in your mind while she busts out those arpeggios etc. Well, no one in that newbie audience was exposed enough to the written song to be able to do that, so to them her playing just looked like finger gymnastics without any musical content.

[Keeper1st]

Of course she added a lot of improvisations on the repeats. That's standard practice in ragtime performance -- always has been. (Well, it's standard practice to improvise a lot on the first time through too -- just not as much!)

[sonicpets3]

i really agree with you there, but you have to admit, that would be cool tobe able to play! without the pauses.

[aaron12345432]

This person's the queen of ragtime, but Tom Brier is the king of ragtime

[Keeper1st]

"This person" is Mimi Blais. She and Tom both will be performing at the West Coast Ragtime Festival in Sacramento the weekend before Thanksgiving -- along with dozens of other outstanding performers (and seminars). Don't miss it!

[keainansen]

shes a cocky one

[Keeper1st]

Over the past two months, several more videos of Mimi playing have been posted, so those who doubt her talent and the amount of fun in her performances can get a better idea of how fantastic she is. Just use the YouTube search box and type in "Mimi Blais".

[fnersch]

I know she can play well, but this performance stinks!

[Drivinsouth65]

Shes ok, but shes no Joanne Castle

[Shademastermcc]

I believe ronrizzy is mistaken, I play a lot of ragtime and there were no mistakes in that song, I know exactly what he's talking about but those weren't mistakes, that's just the ragtime feel. She did play it fast, but that was just to drive the stereotype. I think the sound quality of the recording was bad and that caused the "muffled" sound.

[oliveryuduo]

Mimi Blais is a great artist. I knew her when she was a young classical pianist tackling difficult new music. She has always been a monster talent!

[Squarerig]

An impressive performance,but no more than a performance.Too fast,muffed notes and lacking feeling.

[wodehaoma]

the traditional ragtime is like that men.

[RonRizzy]

This woman, if she plans on continuing playing "TRUE" ragtime, I think she needs to take about 10,000,000mg of tranquilizers before she performs. Stop trying to be Buddy Rich...you play the piano...NOT the drums. Secondly, play the RIGHT NOTES. She can't even play the melodies right. It's "very" obvious that she's doing it for "showmanship". Guess what honey...? As a musician and ragtime lover for MANY years...it doesn't impress me in the least.......and god's people said..."WTF????"

[alexanderdowell]

And whatever happened to just enjoying the perfomance and not trying to be a pundit about it? Seesh. As a manners and courtesy lover for MANY years -- you suck at appreciation for the least bit talent.

[Liamthedrummer]

i LOVEEEEEE this woman!

[dbmrhi]

OUTSTANDING!

[AlistairMacIlherron]

I don't know how many people who commented on this video have actually seen Mimi Blais perform live. Her hands look like they are floating over the keys. For those people who say that ragtime is only meant to be played slowly you haven't listened to lots of original recordings. I used to work at the Sutter Creek Ice Cream Emporium and have heard many people play live including Mimi Blais. Not only does she play well she is also very nice.

[indi833]

wow! so talented!

[ponytoes]

WOW! what fun! I hope you post more videos...just keep playing and making people happy! kat

[Caffrinka]

I LOVE HER!!!!!

[katsups]

she looks so stiff and doesnt seem like she really is having fun while shes playing. i guess its just lacking emotion. Its not so hard to play songs fast, its just how you play them that makes them impressive or not.

[tellmeitsnottaken]

Nice precision, but it seems that she is finely tuned to this single song. Nice playing, but it lacks emotion altogehter.

[vln2lvr]

If you heard more of Mimi, you'd see plenty of emotion. In emotion Mimi is NOT lacking, whatever you think of this particular performance.

[chaprotlib]

vive le ragtime!

fuckin' good

[mikewoollett]

agree with capnflix we can all play it that speed but why bother-it tends to lose a certain bit of feeling- give me winifred atwell-the one and only queen of the keyboard anytime-oh how she is sorely missed!

[zzzzippy]

amazing. it would be nice if we could see her hands. how fast are they going!!

[ragtimemarkbirnbaum]

great - lots of fun!

ragtime mark birnbaum

[billhill83]

Whose song is that? I would like to learn it.I would really love to know. I only have athree rags so far (Maple leaf Grace and beauty (J. scott) and Petite Negre (Debussy))I wiould like whatever that was to be my next project.

[DaiNasty]

called "Black and White Rag" Think it's Joplin but not certain.

[ikarus314]

it's called "Black & White Rag" by George Botsford

[Kressara]

she knows how to connect with people when she plays the piano. that's really something. i like the war she plays :)

[moche44]

a soup... no more!

[JohnDaArtist]

lol she's using speed to cover up some of the notes she can't hit on time and notes that she didn't play...

[Greg08101995]

even if that is the case , there are people who would gladly amputate their nut sack to play half as good as this .

[DoubleGauss]

Speak for yourself buddy. I may plant whats above my nut and the sac inside her, but thats about it.

[Greg08101995]

Point well made !! Ok , I would , but just one . I can't bear to part with both . Surgicaly of course !!!