Joplin's music first came to the attention of most people through the 1973 film The Sting, but aside from the recollections of aging family and friends, little accurate biographical information was available on the composer prior to Curtis's account. Born to freedpeople in Texas in 1868, Joplin was a product of both slave traditions and the promise of Reconstruction. In 1893 he journeyed to Chicago and soaked up the influences that led to the flowering of ragtime music. By 1899, Joplin had composed Maple Leaf Rag, which set the standard for future ragtime compositions. The next decade found him in Missouri, where he continued to compose and teach music. Joplin's final years were spent on the ambitious, autobiographical opera Treemonisha. This scholarly work, concerned with race, society, and culture, is recommended for serious music collections.-Dan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L. Federation, Curwensville, Pa.
Staples of the 1960s ragtime revival, the compositions of Scott Joplin sprang back to life with real vengeance when his piano rag "The Entertainer" was chosen as the main theme of the Oscar-winning 1973 movie "The Sting". More than a purveyor of catchily syncopated piano music, Joplin sought to create serious music that would speak for and to black America. Curtis sets Joplin in his context and evaluates the scope and importance of his contribution to American culture. She traces Joplin from his origins in Texas through his evolution as performer and composer in Missouri to his success after 1900--a saga that ended with a troubled stay in Harlem culminating in the failure of his opera, "Treemonisha". She depicts Joplin as a composer who saw his work as assimilative, a cultural means through which blacks could join the rest of American society by discarding "primitive" qualities. Joplin sought to establish a distinctively black style of serious music grounded in vernacular musics. Especially good in avoiding cliches while discussing the tensions between white commercial demands on Joplin and his desire to compose his more serious music, this is a highly useful book well done.
In this interpretive biography, Curtis (American history, Purdue U.) recounts the life of the African American composer who helped break down racial barriers by creating a uniquely black musical form embraced by middle-class whites. Joplin's life, framed by two decisive events in American history--the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 and the entrance into the Great War in 1917-- illuminates a crucial period in the evolution of American culture. Includes b&w photos and reproductions. CIP shows the subtitle as A Biography of Scott Joplin. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
"A thoughtful and intriguing study of the life and world of ragtime creator Scott Joplin (1868-1917)."—Publishers Weekly
"A sensitive exploration of the complexities and anguish that an African American faced in producing music widely acknowledged today as quintessentially American."—American Historical Review
"Curtis sets Joplin in his context and evaluates the scope and importance of his contribution to American culture....Especially good in avoiding clichés while discussing the tensions between white commercial demands on Joplin and his desire to compose his more serious music, this is a highly useful book well done."—Booklist
"Curtis has written a fine book with a broad scope, one that needed to be written....Curtis has set impressive standards of historical inquiry in this book, creating a lucid argument about the meaning of Scott Joplin and ragtime."—Gateway Heritage
"What makes this biography truly outstanding is the author's skillful and always sharply analytical exploration of the varied worlds in which Joplin traveled....Curtis has composed an appealing tune of her own—a fine book that deserves a hearty ovation."—Historian
"For those who have fallen in love with Joplin's joyfully syncopated rags...or those who simply want to better understand the roots of the black contribution to American music, it is a rewarding read."—Christian Science Monitor
"Dancing to a Black Man's Tune is a much-needed addition. Aside from the general value of placing Joplin's life within the complex and dynamic cultural changes of his time, Curtis introduces or reinforces extremely important, but typically overlooked, facts....This is a significant contribution to the study of Joplin and his music and to the study of American culture."—Journal of Southern History
"Dancing to a Black Man's Tune renders Scott Joplin as a man and an artist whose musical genius served as his weapon in the struggle toward a whole America. Susan Curtis's book is more than biography, more than cultural history. It is a skillfully interwoven telling of Joplin's story within the mosaic of America's social and cultural evolution at the turn of the century."—John Hope Franklin
"If one is to know American culture and the place and trials and tribulations' of African American music in setting the foundation and flavor of American music, Dancing to a Black Man's Tune is, to date, the primary source....This is a book that students of American serious and popular culture should quickly read and place in their libraries."—Journal of American History
