William Henry Krell (1868–1933) composed one of the early mature rag or

ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott J ...

composition in 1897 called Mississippi Rag, published in New York by S. Brainard's Sons and copyrighted on January 27, 1897. The sheet music stated that it was the first rag-time two step ever written and was first played by Krell's Orchestra in Chicago although the structure is in the form of a patrol march. Many historians believe that "Mississippi Rag" was more so of a cake walk composition then a ragtime. The cover shows a group of all ages dancing to a banjo player before onlookers sitting on a pile of stacked cotton bales on a dock on the Mississippi River. Krell also composed the rag Shake Yo' Dusters! or Piccaninny Rag in 1898. "Mississippi Rag" was one of the compositions that help popularize the genre known as ragtime.

Compositions

William Henry Krell was a Chicago bandleader and composer whose other compositions included: * Our Carter: A Beautiful Ballad (1893), with

Silas Leachman Silas Field Leachman (20 August 1859 – 28 April 1936) was an American pioneer recording artist, possibly the first person to make recordings in Chicago and known for making hundreds of thousands of phonograph cylinder recordings in the 18 ...

* The American Girl Battle Ship March (1898) * The Cake Walk Patrol (1895) * Fighting Bob Evans (1898) * A Dream of the Ball: Waltzes (1895) * Finnigan Cadets (1898) * The First Extra: Waltzes (1895) * Shake Yo' Dusters, or the Piccaninny Rag (1898) * Strolling on the Beach (1895) * Shake Yo' Dusters – Song (1898) * The Time He Loves the Best (1895), with L. H. Freeman * Cyrano (1899) * Arbutus Waltz (1896) * The Recreation (1896) * The Bowery Spielers (1900) * The Senator (1901) * Summer Girl Waltzes (1897)

Recordings of "Mississippi Rag"

Mississippi Rag has been recorded by

Claude Bolling Claude Bolling (10 April 1930 – 29 December 2020) was a French jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and occasional actor. Biography He was born in Cannes, France, and studied at the Nice Conservatory, and then in Paris. A child prodigy, by the ...

in 1966, the Firehouse Five Plus Two, Steve Pistorius, Turk Murphy,

Paragon Ragtime Orchestra Rick Benjamin is the founder and conductor of the world-renowned Paragon Ragtime Orchestra. Benjamin has an active career as a pianist and tubist as well as an arranger. Early Interest in Ragtime Music Benjamin's interest in ragtime music began in ...

on "More Candy", Richard Zimmerman, Squeek Steele on "Ragtime Volume One", Harmonic Brass Munich on "There's a Man", Knuckles O'Toole on "Knuckles O'Toole: Plays The Greatest All-Time Ragtime Hits", Terry Waldo on "Ragtime Classics Vol. 1", Evergreen Ragtime Trio on "It's a Rouser", Trebor Jay Tichenor on "Ragtime Reunion", the Eastern Brass Quintet, the Avatar Brass Quintet on "Magnetic Rags: Ragtime for Brass", The Black Swan Classic Jazz Band, Lew Green and Jeff Barnhart on Arbors Records...Lew Green & Joe Muranyi:Together.

The place of "Mississippi Rag" in the genre

Since being rediscovered during the first ragtime revival during the 1950s, "Mississippi Rag" has traditionally been regarded as the one of the first mature ragtime composition to be published. Some musicians, for example Bill Edwards prefer to classify the piece as a

cakewalk The cakewalk was a dance developed from the "prize walks" (dance contests with a cake awarded as the prize) held in the mid-19th century, generally at get-togethers on Black slave plantations before and after emancipation in the Southern Uni ...

, that is of a slightly earlier precursor style from which ragtime developed. To support this, Edwards points to the paucity of true syncopation in the written score. On the other hand,like many cakewalk pieces, "Mississippi Rag" readily lends itself to syncopated embellishment by the performer, as Edwards' own rendition of the piece demonstrates.http://www.perfessorbill.com/midi/mississi.mid

References

*Blesh, Rudi, and Harriet Janis. ''They All Played Ragtime: The True Story of an American Music.'' New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950. *Terry Waldo, ''This is Ragtime.'' New York: Da Capo Press, 1991.

External links

*
A photograph of William Henry Krell on the sheet music cover for "The Cake-Walk Patrol, Two Step" (1895)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krell, William 1933 deaths 1868 births American jazz composers American male jazz composers Ragtime composers