Russian Rag -- epic piano duet -- Tom Brier & Carl Sonny Leyland

Carl Sonny Leyland (right) and Tom Brier play "Russian Rag" by George L. Cobb, from 1918.

...and keep playing... ...and keep playing...

http://www.suttercreekragtime.com

From the Sunday afternoon finale concert at the 12th annual Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival, 15 August 2010.

You can download the sheet music of this and most of Cobb's other pre-1923 (i.e., public domain) compositions from links included on this page:
http://www.ragtimepiano.ca/rags/cobb.htm

Category:

Music

Tags:

• ragtime
• piano
• rag
• duet
• two-piano
• pianos
• pianist
• pianists
• linus
• rachmaninov
• rachmaninoff
• prelude
• c#
• minor
• c#minor
• c-sharp
• scrf

[KawhackitaRag]

Tom's syncopated stop-time break at 4:47 and 4:48 is brilliant and real ragtime!

Sonny is equally brilliant to follow it with a Jimmy Blythe riff at 4:57 and 4:58!

They keep trying to out-do each other so much that Sonny's brilliant blues riffs inspire Tom to construct a magnificent ragtime improvisation between 5:46 and 6:01! It's almost a composition!

That funky thing with the walking bass and terrific right hand between 6:42 and 6:44 is truly delightful.

So is the ending!

[Keeper1st]

@KawhackitaRag Later, when it was Tom's turn in the solo+duet concert, he called up Sonny and they did Original Rags. Not quite as epic, but it's also was about seven minutes long and is one of the few left from the festival I want to post before WCRF next weekend, so keep an eye out! I'll have to post two videos per day to get through the backlog in time...

[isambo400]

does he ever play this song by himself?

[Keeper1st]

@isambo400 I'm pretty sure I've heard Sonny play this solo. Tom typically doesn't play well-known tunes solo (everybody else plays the well-known stuff, so why should he when he has mountains of obscure sheet music that he can present?).

[darkness019283]

@KawhackitaRag I just put in "Epic russian piano"

[19Summers94]

Fantastic! 

[gmmix]

Great rendition played with lots of spirit. Exciting!

[chaff5]

So this song has 1... no 2... wait... 3 endings! lol

[PirateHarima]

XD the ending was so cute especially 6:50 ^^

[Keeper1st]

@KawhackitaRag Yeah, I realized there are dozens of videos of Russian Rag, so it might get lost in the mix, but I wanted it titled just to attract the random person looking for a piano duet. I figured I'd add the title eventually. Maybe I'll do it now that I'm thinking of it!

[KawhackitaRag]

@KawhackitaRag

continuing what I just wrote, I just put

"

epic piano duet

"

in the Youtube search box, and this is the FIRST video that came up!

Pretty darn good!

So, in other words, I would keep the title of this (and your other videos) intact, just include the title at the end of the original title, so that people know what the tune is. Of course, it's your video so you can do what you please with it, this is just a suggestion!

[KawhackitaRag]

Hi Ron, thanks for the truly epic post.

One thing to guarantee more hits: include "Russian Rag" in the actual title of the video. Little things like this (for example, including the tune title "Sensation Rag" in the title of the Joseph Lamb video, and "Junk Man Rag" in the title of the Luckey Roberts video) will guarantee more hits for sure, since the video pops out more when someone curious about that tune wants to hear it!

This deserves to be one of the top Youtube hits for "Russian Rag"