Hello, Frisco!
I've talked about Frederick Hodges before, and don't want to repeat myself, but his improvisational piano style (authentic for ragtime) is always a treat. His full bio may be found on his website. Ann Gibson does not appear to have a website, but here's her brief bio from the liner notes:
Singer Ann Gibson, who has been crowned by her fans as “The Duchess of Ragtime,” has been gracing Bay Area stages for over ten years with her velvety voiced renditions of songs from the ragtime era through the 1930s. She has worked as vocalist for the Black Tie Jazz Orchestra and the California Pops Orchestra. She has also produced music reviews for the Art Deco Society of California acclaimed for their originality of content and attention to authentic detail in presenting popular music from the Art Deco Era. Miss Gibson was classically trained as a child on piano, French horn, and also sang with several local choirs. Her father, local band leader and composer Bob Soder, was instrumental in her development as he exposed her to many different forms of music, from classical to jazz.
Keep in mind that this was written in 2007. A longer but equally out-of-date bio may be found here.
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Most of the pieces on Hello, Frisco! are from 1910-1919, with one early outlier from 1903. All of them are in the duple time one-step/two-step/foxtrot family. Although many were published before the foxtrot became popular, I'd still classify most of them, as played on this album, as foxtrots, with two fast pieces working as one-steps and three in-between, tempo-wise. Some are not great for dancing due to breaks, pauses, ritards, etc. One has a break in waltz time, and another speeds up from foxtrot (78 beats per minute) to a very fast one-step (153 bpm). My dance suggestions are below. Dancers' speed and style boundaries between one-step, two-step, and foxtrot may vary, of course -- follow one's instincts when dancing ragime!
A quick warning note: some of these songs are from minstrel or "coon song" traditions. The lyrics are mostly innocuous (one exception is noted below), but there is some complex and potentially painful history here. I strongly recommend reading Hodges' liner notes here carefully, both for the complicated history of this genre of music and for the wonderful historical details he includes about each piece.
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One-Steps/Castle Walks
Row, Row, Row (1912) - 132 bpm
I Wants A Ping Pong Man (1903) - 133 bpm
On the edge (slow one-step, two-step, brisk foxtrot)
Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1911) - 94 bpm
Aba Daba Honeymoon (1914) - 95 bpm
The Dixie Volunteers (1917) - 99 bpm
Foxtrots
If You Only Had My Disposition (1915) - 67 bpm
The Dance Of The Grizzly Bear (1910) - 72 bpm (slight ritard at end)
I Want To Go Back To Michigan (1914) - 73 bpm
Snookey Ookums (1913) - 79 bpm
I Love A Piano (1915) - 81 bpm
Everybody’s Doing It Now (1911) - 84 bpm
When Alexander Takes His Ragtime Band To France (1918) - 86 bpm
*** Lyrics note: includes the term "picaninies"
Foxtrots, but challenging for dancing due to pauses, ritards, breaks, etc.
Hello, Frisco! (1915) - 66 bpm
Ragtime Cowboy Joe (1912) - 69 bpm
Sahara (1919) - 83 bpm
Speeds up from Foxtrot to One-Step at the end
The Oceana Roll (1911) - 78/153 bpm
Foxtrot with a waltz break at about 2:38
That International Rag (1913) - 89 bpm
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I recommend Hello, Frisco! for both listening and dancing, and urge people who would like to see more of this kind of recording to go ahead and purchase the album, despite it being available free on YouTube. (Supporting the musicians means more recordings get made!)
The CD may be purchased from Hodges' own website using Paypal, or the full album or individual tracks may be purchased from CDBaby (download only, full album or individual mp3 files) or from Amazon (full album or individual mp3 files and streaming, and sometimes an actual CD) via the link below.
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