Free The Ragtime Fool by Larry Karp Page A

lips and following a finger down the page. When he finished, he thrust the sheet of paper into Cal’s hand. “What do you think of this, huh? From a kid all the way ‘cross the country. He musta got my address offa one of my records. Says he heard about me on a New York radio station, and he wants me to tell him how to play ragtime right.”
    Cal looked up from the letter. “It’s fan mail, Brun, nice. I get it, too. I write back and say thank you, I’m really glad you liked my book, and that’s that. It’s no big deal.”
    The colored man to Cal’s right hauled himself off the piano bench. “I better be gettin’ to work. Mr. Parsons gave me time off for the funeral, but I stay here a lot longer, I ain’t gonna have a job to go back to. He started for the door; the others followed. “See you, Brun,” a chorus.
    The shop seemed unnaturally quiet. Brun glanced at the letter in his hand, then walked to the barber chair, sat, read the letter again. “Even if my mother does hate it…” he mouthed. “…They All Played Ragtime…Rudi Blesh…except for Scott Joplin, no one ever played ragtime as well as you…anything you can tell me, I will really appreciate.”
    Brun looked toward the door, as if his companions were still in sight. “‘No big deal,’ huh? Just a kid writing a fan letter? Canal water!” The old man jumped to his feet, dashed to the counter, took a lined paper pad and a pencil from a drawer, then went back to the barber chair and began to write:
    Friend Alan Chandler:
    I’m very glad to recieve your letter and find out that kids like you are interested in ragtime and want to know how to play it. Well, you come to the right place. It would suprise you to see the letters I get from all over the world, that is inquiries about the Old Rag Numbers. The reason why those tunes you asked about don’t sound like ragtime is because they are not ragtime. When the mugs in Tin Pan Alley saw how popular Scott Joplin’s music got to be, they all tried to copy him. Yes! But they didn’t have the knowhow. They call their music ragtime, but I can see you have got the right kind of ear so you know better. Forget about all that Tin Pan Alley stuff because it is a waste of your time and money. You should look for music by Mr. Joplin and James Scott and Joseph F. Lamb, who lives in Brooklyn which is near by New Jersey, and Charles L. Johnson, and Tom Turpin (who wrote HARLEM RAG and also BOWERY BUCK and other fine compositions). You should practize your piano at every chance, for that’s important. Practize is what makes you perfect, that is my advice. Yes! To be better than the other guy, you must practize more than he does. And do not play the music too fast, play them all as written. Mr. Joplin always give me the holiest hell when I played faster than he wrote it should be. And don’t try to imitate anyone’s style, stay with what you feel in your playing.
    Brun stopped, chewed at the top of the pencil, then wrote on:
    You know from that book by Rudi Blesh (who found out that I was going to write a book on ragtime, and jumped in and stole my thunder. But what will be will be) that Scott Joplin composed MAPLE LEAF RAG in 1899 in Sedalia, Missouri. Well, they are finely getting round to paying him some of the honor he ought to get. On April 17 this year, there will be a big ceremony in Sedalia where they’re going to present a plaque to hang in the colored high school. It’s too bad you live so far away from Sedalia because if you could be there you’d hear both from me and my old friend Tom Ireland (colored) all about how ragtime got started, and you’d also hear a lot of Mr. Joplin’s music played like it should be, including by yours truly. I might give a speech, too, because in my opinion having a plaque on a high school wall ain’t close to what kind of honor Scott Joplin ought to have. By rights there ought to be a statue of him on a big street corner, and the city should start a museum about him