Thompson Plays Joplin

Pianist Butch Thompson has devoted his career to ragtime, early jazz, and swing, recording a tribute to King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, a CD of duets with the New Orleans trumpeter Doc Cheatham, and excellent nods to the music of Jelly Roll Morton. As he demonstrates throughout this CD, he is also one of Scott Joplin's more inspired interpreters. Joplin's ragtime isn't jazz. While he worked in the realm of popular dance music, Joplin's affinities and ambitions were in the classical realm. His works are fully composed music with an emphasis on syncopation and rhythmic variation. What Thompson brings to the material is an intimate knowledge of the rhythmic language of early jazz, and he's particularly alert to the potential for nuance in Joplin's scores. Even the opening "Maple Leaf Rag", the most oft-played piece in the Joplin canon, gets fresh energy from the percussive precision of Thompson's left-hand accents. Thompson has chosen his Joplin carefully, and he manages to delineate the special character of each of these pieces, from the stately "Wall Street Rag" to the delicate "Heliotrope Bouquet". He also finds the expressive suggestion in Joplin's minor-key pieces, such as "Magnetic Rag", and highlights the Spanish shadings in "Solace: A Mexican Serenade". --Stuart Broomer