Track Listing

1. Double Fudge (ragtime two step, 1902)
2. Nappy Lee (slow drag, 1903) 2:51
3. Lovie Joe (from the Follies of 1910) (words by Will Marion Cook) 3:18
4. The Darkey Todalo: A Raggedy Rag (1910) 2:47
5. Take Your Time (comic song, 1905/1907) (words by Harrison Stewart) 4:18
6. J.J.J. Rag (1905) 2:50
7. I Am Waiting For You, Honey Dear (waltz song, 1914) (words by Alfred Anderson) 4:23
8. The Whippoorwill Dance (c.1921) 4:35
9. Dat's Ma Honey Sho's Yo' Born (comic song, 1912)
10. That Teasin' Rag (1909) 2:16
11. Brother-N-Law Dan: A Sequel to "Lovie Joe" (1922) 2:51
12. Pekin Rag - Intermezzo (1904) 3:00
13. He's Coming Back!: Teddy Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" Song (1912) (words by Alfred Anderson) 3:01
14. Bouclaire Waltzes (1904) 5:32
15. The Morocco Blues (1922/1926) 2:39
16. Sweetie Dear Fox Trot (1914)
17. Sweetie Dear: An Afro-American Serenade (1906) (words by Will Marion Cook)
18. Happiness (song, 1918) (words by Joe Jordan, music by Fred Fisher and Joe Jordan) 4:15
19. The Century March (1902) 2:23
20. Tango Two Step (1912) 2:55

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #251087 in Music
• Released on: 2006-10-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds

Review
This is an amazing CD, for it expands our knowledge and appreciation of the music of Joe Jordan exponentially! Jasen and Tichenor's book "Rags and Ragtime", an indispensable source of ragtime information, devotes only 10 lines to Jordan's biography, while the booklet in this seminal recording by the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra contains 30 pages of carefully researched information including many pictures. The PRO's director, Rick Benjamin, has done yeoman work, for not only did he write all the liner notes but he also arranged the scores and even contributed three piano solos. The results are truly outstanding. By hearing to the music and following the printed information, the listener is drawn into Jordan's life, from his birth and early childhood in Cincinnati, to his ragtime immersion in St. Louis, to his musical leadership and composition at the Pekin Theater in Chicago, to his importance in the role of the Black musical in New York, to his elevation as a senior statesman in the history of music from Black composers and conductors in America. It is indeed an amazing odyssey! The PRO is a thoroughly professional theater orchestra and the scores are rendered with verve and precision. Two classically trained vocalists, Bernadette Boerckel and Trevor Smith, handle the songs with wit and aplomb, and the overall result of the disc is as complete a musical picture of a musician/composer as you could possibly get from 70 minutes of recorded sound. There are even two excerpts at the end from a 1962 interview with Jordan, conducted by Bob Darch, and two pages of bibliography for those scholars who are itching to dig deeper. While Jordan is remembered today mainly for launching the career of Fanny Brice with his song, "Lovie Joe", and for the trio in "That Teasin' Rag", which was appropiated wholesale by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band to create the "Original Dixiland One-Step", there is so much more about the man that needs to be studied and appreciated. With its great p --ragtimers.org/reviews/

Review
...the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra's performances sound as authentic as you could wish (in up-to-date sound, of course). They are bouncy, joyous and full of vaudevillian touches: the trombone slide gets quite a decent workout. Benjamin's piano, which is featured solo on some tracks, is sensitive, yet swings when required...All in all, an enjoyable and distinguished production. - Phillip Scott --Fanfare magazine.

Customer Reviews

of historical significance
I own several PRO albums. They are a class act in every way. But this album does not hold up to the high standard of repertoire as the other albums. All the material (except one) is a single composer. There are 2 interviews with Joe Jordan. If you're not a historian of American music you likely won't find this album to be as musically engaging as the other PRO offerings. Along a similar theme is the Clef Club album but with a wide selection of composers. Buy that one before you buy this one. Just gotta say that PRO is a musical treasure and their music has provided immense enjoyment to me, my family and friends. I will continue collecting PRO albums until I have them all.

A nice journey
I guess we'll never really know exactly how much and what kind of groove this music "should" have. Early recorded information (piano rolls, acoustic discs) creates an ambiguous impression. It seems really obvious that it shouldn't "swing" like Jazz. But it also seems obvious that its "Afro-American-ness" is situated somewhere within its rhythmic and gestural language. Finding out exactly where - there's the challenge. And Paragon Ragtime Orchestra doesn't exactly rise to it. Beautifully played - but stiff. Not the stiffest I've heard, but stiff enough. The CD gives us a real picture of this pioneer of that region where Ragtime met Show Business. He's definitely not one of the true greats, but if you're interested in the genre you should hear this. I think it's always good to have a clearer picture of what a musical milieu was really like. Otherwise one might imagine a musical world where there was no transition between Joplin and Euday L. Bowman. Joe Jordan was somewhere in the middle. My favorite track is "Dat's Ma Honey Sho's Yo' Born". To call it "dated" would be an understatement. But in the middle of its forced bonhomie, there is something truly touching. Jordan seems to have lived a basically happy and productive life, always somewhat in the margins. This CD allows us to live in that lost world, if only in a very refracted way. I would suggest, however, that if you the listener want a clearer picture of what this music really sounded like in its day, you must pick up all those James Reese Europe, Bert Williams and Wilbur Sweatman reissues that we are fortunate to now have out. They're not exactly Ragtime, but you can hear those little elements of pre-Jazz wildness that were in the performance style of the time. These performances here are perhaps, to put it nicely, a little too textually based.