Ragtime Dance Party is the one and only album released by the Crown Syncopators, a San Francisco-based trio that performs at ragtime music festivals on the West Coast.  I’ve never had the pleasure of dancing to their music in person, which this album makes me very much regret.  Per the title, every single tune is danceable as well as a joy to listen to.  I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys American music and dance of the 1890-1920 era.

The Crown Syncopators consist of Frederick Hodges (piano), Victoria Tichenor (drums), and Marty Eggers (tuba).  They don’t seem to have a website. but their appearances are listed on Hodges’ event schedule here.  (Updated 12/30/25 because the schedule no longer exists.)

The CD comes with ten pages of liner notes that contain the background on each piece and reproductions of the original sheet music covers.  Along with familiar favorites like Scott Joplin, James Reese Europe, and James Scott, I was especially pleased to see in the mix a couple of less-familiar female composers, Grace Marie Bolen and Adeline (or Adaline) Shepherd, both of whose careers were cut short by marriage.

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The Robert E. Lee (1997) is a neat little album of solo piano played by the famous musician Bob Milne, who is not only a top-notch ragtime pianist, music historian, and “national treasure” who performed at The Library of Congress in 2004, but also has the astonishing ability to “play” multiple tunes at once in his head, meaning that he can do incredible tricks like playing music in 3/4, 4/4, and 5/4 simultaneously.  There’s a fascinating article about his abilities at Mlive.com.

The CD title and the famous tune “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee” both refer to the famous steamship which won a race from New Orleans to St. Louis in 1870.

I have had The Robert E. Lee sitting around for over a decade but only ever used one track, “Trouble in Mind”, regularly, as an interesting change of style for when I DJ for modern blues dancers.  Until I started teaching ragtime more often than usual this year I hadn’t really gone through the rest of the album carefully.  The CD wasn’t recorded specifically for dancing, so some of the pieces don’t have the regular rhythm one would desire, but about half of them are quite good for dancing, a few others are workable, and the piano playing is invariably a joy to listen to even for the less danceable tunes.

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