Part 1:
From Stephen Foster to Ragtime
From nowhere but the United States could such have sprung. It is the music of the hustler and the feverishly active speculator, brimming with life.
That was how The Times described 'ragtime', which. was sweeping through Britain in 1913. This ragtime was the latest in a long series of sensations from the USA. We had already been beguiled by the plantation melodies of the Minstrels, bowled over by the city songs of New York's Tin Pan Alley, galvanised by such dances as the cake-walk and the turkey trot. After ragtime came the fox-trot and something called ' the blues.' By the end of World War I ' jazz ' was on the horizon and, in the words of Noel Coward ' the American victory was a fait accompli.' How did they do it? And why did we fall so easily?
A key witness is 92-year-old pianist/composer Eubie Blake. At his home in New York. he demonstrates the Afro-American keyboard style that caused such an upheaval at the turn of the century. Narrator IAN HOLM
Executive producer MIKE wooller Written and produced by GEOFFREY HAYDON