I'm frequently asked for recommendations for period dance music, especially for the turn-of-the-century ragtime era of the 1890s-1910s. Fortunately, there are quite a few CDs which are commercially available and useful to the social dancer, among them the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra's 1997 album, Knockout Drops
The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra is a leading exponent of vintage American popular music with the rich and varied sound of a twelve-piece orchestra (wind, brass, percussion, and strings). Working from period orchestral scores, they play concerts, radio shows, and silent film programs as well as producing several CDs and a DVD with their accompaniment to the silent film, The Mark of Zorro. Though as far as I can tell they do not play for dance events, they include a great deal of lively dance music in their repertoire, much of which is played in a way usable for dancing (not always a given with music played as concert pieces). I recommend Knockout Drops for anyone searching for good one-steps and two-steps as well as for those who simply enjoy popular American music of this period.
Paragon director Rick Benjamin's liner notes contain a wealth of detail about the history of ragtime music and about the historical context of the tunes and their composers. The title of this CD is taken from the first track, Frank Klickmann's "Knockout Drops," about which the notes say it is:
a ribald allusion to the shocking modis-operandi of the White Slaver, much in the news that year with the passage of a Federal law "prohibiting the interstate transportation of women and girls for immoral purposes."
Musically, Knockout Drops features a rich selection of popular tunes of the ragtime era. It includes two Scott Joplin rags and a Sousa march as well as good recordings of old favorites such as "The Teddy Bear's Picnic" and "At a Georgia Campmeeting." One-step and foxtrot medleys incorporate tunes such as "I Ain't Got Nobody" and "Ragtime Cowboy Joe," and an amazing 1905 two-step medley includes a whole cornucopia of Civil War-era songs from "Battle Hymn of the Republic" to "Dixie."
Though many of the tunes are given dance types (one-step, foxtrot, etc.), not all of them are usable as labeled. Looking at the tunes purely as dance pieces, Knockout Drops includes:
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