CD Review: The Whistler and His Dog

All these posts about foxtrot the last few months have inspired me to dig around in my old CDs for some foxtrot music I haven't already used a hundred times.  The Whistler and His Dog: More Music from the Arthur Pryor Orchestra Collection is a very old CD (1989) from the wonderful Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, whose Knockout Drops I discussed several years ago.  As with Knockout Drops, it has plenty of very danceable music.  This is all the more amazing since I don't believe Paragon, which at the time of this recording was only a few years old, ever actually plays for dancers.

The pieces on this CD are taken from the sheet music collection of one of Scott Joplin's contemporaries, "legendary trombonist, conductor composer/arranger, Arthur Pryor (1870-1942)" and played using period orchestral arrangements when available.  Paragon notes on its website that this is the recording played by Disney on its "Main Street U.S.A." at Disneyland, Disney World, and Disneyland Paris.  It's a wonderful listening CD for anyone who likes ragtime music.

So what does it hold for dancers? 

Quite a bit, though not always the dances for which each piece is labeled.  I have no way of knowing whether the pieces were originally labeled arbitrarily or whether Paragon simply didn't take dance tempo into consideration when recording them.  Ragtime music is quite fungible dancewise; a single piece of sheet music in this era could be labeled a one-step, two-step, foxtrot, or two or three of those at once, regardess of its musical qualities.  By altering the tempo and feel, a single piece of music could work for any of those dances. 

I encourage people to buy the album, listen to the music, and make their own decisions, but here's what I'd dance to each number:

One-Step
"Dynamite Rag" (1913)
"The Winter Garden Rag" (1913)
"Grizzly Bear Rag" (1910)
"The Junk Man Rag" (1913)
"Gold Dust Twins Rag" (1913)

"Triplets" (c1920) and "Oh You Drummer!" (1910) are both one-step tempo, but less enjoyable to dance to because of the amount of playing around the musicians do sometimes hides the driving beat I look for in a one-step.  They might make interesting performance pieces though, with a choreography that highlights the musical playfulness.

Two-Step
"Aviation Rag" (1912)
"A Symphonic Nightmare: Desecration Rag" (1914)
"The Whistler and His Dog" (1905) (has some pauses)

"Black Rock" (1905) is a good march or two-step in jig time.

Foxtrot
"Bring Me Back My Lovin' Honey Boy" (1913)

"Banana Peel Rag" (1913) is at the top of the speed range for a foxtrot and could also work as a gentle one-step or two-step.

"Pineapple Rag" (1908) likewise says either foxtrot or two-step to me.

"Smiles" (1918) and "I Wonder Whether I've Loved You All My Life" (1918) are both labeled as foxtrots, but are unpleasantly slow by my standards at 53-58 beats per minute.  "I Wonder" also has a very long introduction before it gets to the danceable part.

Bluesy One-Step
"The Jogo Blues" (1913)

Maxixe
"La Belle Parisienne" (1914)

Hesitation Waltz
"Old Chestnuts" (1920)

"The Love Kiss" (1908) is a concert waltz with enough odd pauses that I would not use it for dancing.

I was sorry not to get more usable foxtrots off this album, but quite pleased to get a new hesitation waltz (actually a medley of familiar waltz tunes) and a very sexy maxixe piece played at the moderate tempo I prefer for the dance. 

The album is available from Amazon at the link below as well as at Paragon's own website.