Ragtime to Riches Festival, Omaha, NE- 2007 Festival

Ragtime to Riches Festival, Omaha, NE- 2007 Festival

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE 2007 FESTIVAL...

If you missed the third annual Ragtime to Riches Festival, you didn't get to catch a weekend of performances that demonstrated that old-time piano is still very much alive. It all took place July 13-15, 2007, at the Strauss Performing Arts Center, on the main campus of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, 6001 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE. (The venue changed, but the goal didn't: The festival raises money for different nonprofit organizations in the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area...as well as raising ragtime's local profile.)

At 7:00 PM on Friday the 13th, R to R's first-ever sampler concert took place, with Jim Boston and Nan Bostick splitting the bill. Jim's six-song set included "School Days (When We Were a Couple of Kids)," while Nan's set featured tunes like her very own "That Missing You Rag."

Nan had the first of two festival workshops this go-'round. On July 14, at 1:00 PM, she answered the question of "Who Really Started Those 'Indian' Songs?" (Answer: It was Charles N. Daniels...Nan's granduncle! Charles penned "Hiawatha;" in doing so, he was honoring the Kansas town where he'd boarded a train rather than the Native American whose name was given to that town.) An hour later, Adam Swanson (three-time Junior Division champ at the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and now a Regular Division finalist at that Illinois event) made his R to R debut...and tore down the Strauss Center with tunes like "California, Here I Come." Then at 3:05 PM, fellow Iowan Marty Mincer (he teamed up with "Perfessor" Bill Edwards at the first R to R) kept the top-flight performances going...from his version of "Old Fiddle Tune" to his leading a singalong that featured "Sioux City Sue." Nan capped it all off with her own 7:00 PM concert; this one emphasized Charles' works...including "Chloe," which he cowrote (with Gus Kahn) under the handle Neil Moret. All in all, a most excellent day...one that saw Adam become the first R to R performer to attract applause DURING a tune.

The other R to R workshop happened at 1:00 PM on July 15; here, Jim touched on the music of one of Gus' collaborators, Walter Donaldson...who died on July 15, 1947 at 54. (Jim even got on the floor to impersonate Margie Cantor's mechanical pig...the toy that inspired "Yes Sir, That's My Baby!") Adam came back at 2:00 PM and offered another dose of his phenomenal talents, capping it off with a 1980s piece, "Space Shuffle." Jim came back at 4:00 PM with his own show, which had a 1904 rag called "Funny Folks." Three hours later, Burns Davis ran the festival's anchor leg, AKA "Tidbits: Some Ragtime Comfits." One of those tidbits was "Bean Whistle Rag," a 1974 number on which Rebecca Shacklett backed Burns on- that's right- bean whistle in this Nan Bostick composition. (Speaking of composition...the weekend crowd was composed of 37 people; they ponied up a record $485 for the Joseph F. Havelka Music Appreciation Endowment Fund.)