Janai Brugger, soprano; Andrea Jones, soprano; Chauncey Packer, tenor; Edward Pleasant, baritone; The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra; Rick Benjamin, director
This is the third volume of Paragon Ragtime Orchestra recordings documenting the music of important African-American composers from late 19th- and early 20th-century New York City. The inspiration for this effort came about twenty-five years ago, when I read James Weldon Johnson's Black Manhattan (1930), a fascinating chronicle of the city's black artistic life from the Victorian era to the Harlem Renaissance. I came to Johnson's volume after finishing Eileen Southern's The Music of Black Americans (1971), a wider-ranging academic work, but a no less revealing one.
After reading these books I was excited to listen to the music they had described. But this was problematic: I discovered remarkably few available recordings of historic African-American music, and even fewer to represent New York's pioneering black composers. This inability to actually experience a considerable span of our musical heritage was a void that needed to be filled. Clearly it was time for a carefully curated new recording of first-rate performances played from authentic scores.
Fifteen years and three Black Manhattan volumes later, [the first was issued in 2003], we have recorded three and a half hours of this previously neglected music: sixty pieces by thirty-two outstanding African-American composers, spanning the seminal years of the 1870s to the early 1920s. It is our hope that these efforts have started to close this gap in America's cultural memory. Our even greater hope is that these recordings will enable the world to rediscover this magnificent music and the gifted, spirited, and persevering people who gave it to us.
—Rick Benjamin, conductor, Paragon Ragtime Orchestra
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"Once again, Rick Benjamin and The PRO offer a carefully curated project ... shedding light on lesser known composers and works, and advancing the study of American music.” —Black Grooves
"Throughout their performance, the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra channels the work’s bluesy effervescence." —The New York Times
Black Manhattan, Vol. 3
| MP3/320 | $17.00 | |
| FLAC | $17.00 | |
| WAV | $17.00 | |
| CD | $27.00 |
Track Listing
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Pork & Beans Rag
Charles Luckeyth (Luckey) Roberts
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Buy
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I'm Just Wild About Harry
Eubie Blake
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Buy
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The Dancing Deacon: Clef Club Fox-Trot
Frederick M. Bryan
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Buy
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Jewel of the Big Blue Nile
Charles Luckeyth (Luckey) Roberts
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Buy
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We'll Raise the Roof To-Night
Sydney Perrin
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Buy
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Chant From the Bandana Sketches
Clarence Cameron White
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Buy
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Dear Old Southland
J. Turner Layton
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Buy
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Wall Street 'Rag'
Scott Joplin
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Buy
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Oh Dem Golden Slippers
James Bland
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Buy
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In the Baggage Coach Ahead
Gussie L. Davis
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Buy
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Love Will Find a Way
Eubie Sissle
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Buy
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Overture to My Friend from Kentucky
J. Leubrie Hill
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Buy
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Royal Garden Blues
Spencer Williams
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Buy
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The Tremolo Trot
Charles Luckeyth (Luckey) Roberts
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Buy
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Just One Word of Consolation
Tom Lemonier
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Buy
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After You've Gone
J. Turner Layton
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Buy
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Delicioso: Tango Aristocratico
Will H. Dixon
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Buy
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The Zoo-Step
Clarence G. Wilson
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Buy
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The Slow Drag Blues
William Grant Snowden
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Buy
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Ianthia March
Al Johns
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Buy
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I'm Goin' Home
Clarence Cameron White
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Buy
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Lift Every Voice and Sing: National Negro Hymn
J. Rosamond Johnson
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Buy
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