The Entertainer (Joplin) as a slow jazz stomp, on two concert grand pianos

Martin Spitznagel (YouTube's "spitzfire1138") made his first trip to the west coast of the U.S. this past weekend. Here, he and California's own Andrew Barrett ("KawhackitaRag" on YouTube), playing together for the first time, improvise a slow stomp version of Scott Joplin's famous rag "The Entertainer".

Why do this? Because ragtime performers HATE The Entertainer! They're always asked to play it (or worse, asked to play "The Sting", which was the title of a movie that used the tune as its theme). So, to keep it fresh and interesting, Martin enjoys to play it in unusual ways. I also heard him play it as waltz and as a 6/8 march, which frankly sounds like how the tune really should have been written in the first place.

Martin is on the smaller piano, which I think is a Yamaha S6 (but might be a C6 or C7). Andrew is on the 9-foot Yamaha CFIIIS. The woman behind the curtain is Mimi Blais, who was working on props for an upcoming ragtime comedy show, but routinely popped her head out to make funny comments during the night.

This was recorded shortly before 2 a.m. on Friday night / early Saturday. Besides myself, also in attendance are Tom Brier, Vincent Johnson (YouTube's "sunshinecapers") and Will Perkins (YouTube's "wilscool").

Category:

Music

Tags:

• scott
• joplin
• entertainer
• sting
• pianos
• piano
• duet
• yamaha
• rag
• ragtime
• festival

[aljaz55]

Such unique performances should be recorded with high quality audio. I would buy this tune :)

[Keeper1st]

@aljaz55 I bought a better camera the following year, paying attention to find one with good audio quality. So newer videos of these jam sessions have good audio.

[tdub1941]

Hi Ron! Thanks for sending this one to me as a Video response! Excellent Vid! 5 Stars!

RagJazzMonkey Tom

[Keeper1st]

heh, and now yours is a response to this one! Gotta make sure people watch both; they complement each other well!

[juliar65]

Pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain.

[Keeper1st]

heh, well, she is rather a wizard at the piano herself...!

[Morahman7vnNo2]

@KawhackitaRag Will do!... eventually.

[KawhackitaRag]

Ron please leave this one up, it's probably the best of all of our duets we did that night! (at least that got on camera).

[KawhackitaRag]

@Morahman7vnNo2 Dude, just buy Martin Spitznagel's albums... they're great, and he's doing most of the heavy lifting and stylistic touches here. I'll have a solo one out sometime within the next decade, and perhaps somewhere down the line we'll record some proper duets!!! But thanks for the compliments!!!

[Pianoninja924]

Wow, I found it extremely funny when I read the second paragraph of the info....I play at this place in my city called Reading Terminal and some dude came up to me and ask me to play "The Sting" and I'm 17 and had no clue what he was talking about. Then he starts humming The Entertainer and the most grizzly look fell on my face and I told him I couldn't play it (even tho I can!) Then just as he gets out of ear shot I played the first four measures of it, just because I thought it'd be funny. :P

[ParlorCake]

that random woman scared me o.O

That said, this is amazing :)

[scottjop656]

very interesting!

[xxxJOHNALEXxxx]

nice playin' there, girl

[Cutekatelyn]

Very cool! I'm playing the original right now. This version awesome!