The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra

In his extensive liner notes to this album (in a 36-page CD booklet of small print), Rick Benjamin, founder and director of the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, writes that the music of musical theater songwriter George M. Cohan (1878-1942) is remembered largely through the 1942 film biography Yankee Doodle Dandy and the 1968 Broadway musical +George M!, but that, in both cases, new orchestrations were used to make the music sound more contemporary. Here, Benjamin's purpose is to re-create the sound of Cohan's music as it was played originally, for the most part in the first decade of the 20th century. That means using the "Eleven & Piano" theater orchestra instrumentation of the day (flute doubling on piccolo, clarinet, two cornets, trombone, drums, piano, two violins, viola, 'cello, and double bass) and having that orchestra play the original orchestrations. Benjamin has also hired a Cohan soundalike, Colin Pritchard, to sing four songs, as well as a soprano, Bernadette Boerckel, to do another three. That accounts for seven of the musical tracks; the other seven are instrumentals. The album concludes with a speech given by Cohan himself in 1938. In his notes, Benjamin emphasizes Cohan's relationship to ragtime, suggesting that he popularized the style by bringing it to Broadway and by taking his shows on the road around the U.S. Certainly, listeners will recognize that connection. In these performances, Cohan's music comes across as similar to that of Scott Joplin (and occasionally, the march king John Philip Sousa). Since half the selections, constituting well over half of the running time, are instrumentals, this is much more music of the concert hall than the theater, and the recordings may serve to help the classical field claim Cohan from the popular realm. In any case, the album makes a welcome addition to the small library of recordings of one of Broadway's and popular music's outstanding songwriters of the early 20th century. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide