Dictys on Seventh Avenue, one more sheet music request

[Christopher Redman]

As far as I know, copies of this are no longer available for purchase
since Max Morath's Giants of Ragtime went out of print. Amazon.com,
bn.com, and Ebay turned up no used copies. If anyone can tell me where
I can find it, or if anyone has a copy they're able to share, I'd be
eternally thankful.

[f***@bringbackroute66.com]

I *MIGHT* have the "Giants of Ragtime" stashed away in my attack
somewhere. If I can find it, would you like me to make you copies or
are you in fact looking for the complete book?

You might also try contacting Max Morath directly. Is he still alive?
If wasn't too many years ago that I saw where he was performing in Fort
Wayne.

Fred M. Cain,
Topeka, Indiana

[Bill Edwards]

Hi all.

Max is still very much alive. I had dinner with him recently and we
correspond from time to time. He divides his time between New York and
Michigan.

In talking about "older properties" such as recordings and books, he
lamented that in many cases such items are out of his pervue at this
point, including some of his 1960s records, the two sets of series on
PBS (it's a matter of money to retrieve some of those episodes,
something I had worked on doing at one point) and a couple of his books
of rags by others. Giants of Ragtime (with the bright green surround
cover as I recall) was one of them, and last owned by Hal Leonard that
I know of.

I did find at least one copy, for a reasonable $11.00, at ABEBooks.com,
a great resource for used books and music among other materials. Do a
search on Max Morath for author and Giants for keyword, and there you
are. Similar results might be found in Amazon ZShops (which has a
listing for the book under the name Wolfgang Mozart!!!) but none are
currently available there.

eBay has one that surfaces from time to time if you don't find the
ABEBooks one, They allow notify alerts for keywords if you want to lie
in wait. None were listed as of this afternoon.

"Rumors of my demise are greatly exagerrated" as Max would gladly
inform you. He is still a fairly strong performer as well, and his
fascinating book on traveling the US and performing is a great
acquisition if you can find one.

Check him out also at maxmorath.com (how clever).

Hope that is helpful

Bill Edwards

[f***@bringbackroute66.com]

Bill,

Thanks for the update. I have kinda been out of touch with Ragtime for
the last few years and haven't kept track like I used to. Therefore, I
wasn't sure about Max.

I haven't owned a piano - or even had access to one for nearly 20 years
now. Then recently, my Dad (my daughter's grandfather) gave her a
small electronic keyboard. It didn't take me long. Although my
fingers didn't want to cooperate well at first, I found that I could
still get through a lot of my old time favorites like Maple Leaf,
Weeping Willow, The Easy Winners, etc. But after referencing the music
a bit, they all seem to be coming back to me.

Only thing is, I can't play my Scott and Lamb rags like I used to
because the dumb thing doesn't have enough keys!

Also, it'd be nice if I could get access to a REAL piano and practice
my scales, arpeggios and Hannon exercises for an hour or two every day.
My facility is really down in the dumps.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain

[Christopher Redman]

I'm mainly interested in obtaining the piece by Eubie, most of the rest
of the pieces are duplicated elsewhere in my collection. I would be
thrilled if you could find the time to make me a copy. My thanks in
advance. :)

Post by f***@bringbackroute66.com
I *MIGHT* have the "Giants of Ragtime" stashed away in my attack
somewhere. If I can find it, would you like me to make you copies or
are you in fact looking for the complete book?
You might also try contacting Max Morath directly. Is he still alive?
If wasn't too many years ago that I saw where he was performing in Fort
Wayne.
Fred M. Cain,
Topeka, Indiana

[f***@bringbackroute66.com]

Post by Christopher Redman
I'm mainly interested in obtaining the piece by Eubie, most of the rest
of the pieces are duplicated elsewhere in my collection. I would be
thrilled if you could find the time to make me a copy. My thanks in

advance. :)

Chris,

I'll sure look when I get home tonight or tomorrow night. (Got
something planned for this evening). But I was sure I saw it in with
my old ragtime stuff a while back.

I never had much luck with Dictys on Seventh Ave. I don't need to tell
you that Eubie Blake's music is exceptionally difficult to play. At
one point I had The Charleston Rag completly memorized but I was never
able to completely get the bugs out of it. Especially those chromatic
glissandos. Then I finally got discouraged and gave up. Needless to
say, I really like his music, though. He was a truly remarkable man, a
great musician and a great American.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain

[Bill Edwards]

New listing on eBay at only $5.00. Grab it while you can.

http://cgi.ebay.com/GIANTS-OF-RAGTIME-SCOTT-JOPLIN-EUBIE-BLAKE-etc_W0QQitemZ7353326890QQcategoryZ1456QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Bill E.

[f***@bringbackroute66.com]

Post by Bill Edwards
New listing on eBay at only $5.00. Grab it while you can.
http://cgi.ebay.com/GIANTS-OF-RAGTIME-SCOTT-JOPLIN-EUBIE-BLAKE-etc_W0QQitemZ7353326890QQcategoryZ1456QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Bill E.

Yes, that does sound like a good deal. It's amazing what you can find
on there. I once purchased a 1965 Rand McNally road atlas of the
United States for the same princely sum!

Although personally, I am a bit saddened and disappointed that this
book is out of print. As an older person who lived through the
"Ragtime revival" of the 1970's, I guess I didn't realize at the time
how good I had it! The 1970's saw a lot of works published that had
been out of print for years. But it was too good to last, I guess.
I'm just thankful that I was fortunate to have lived through it.

While the Ragtime revival is clearly over, I don't believe Ragtime will
fall back into obscurity either. People like it too much. It makes
you wonder, though, why it fell into obscurity in the first place? I
can remember hearing the word "Ragtime" in the 1960's and asking my
parents what it was. They weren't really sure other than to say it was
a kind of "Old fashioned Jazz".

I never heard Ragtime played before about 1973 or thereabouts.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain