Early Interest in Ragtime Music
Benjamin's interest in ragtime music began in the 1970s when he was eight years old and found a 1917 Victorola in his grandparents' garage. He later recalled that the music he played on the Victorola connected with him in a way that the pop music of his era did not. He said, "I knew in my bones that these performers and their composers were expressing their sheer joy in life through their music."
Benjamin's interest persisted in ragtime, the first popular music conceived and created by Americans in an era where popular songs were brought over from Germany or England.
Read more about this topic: Rick Benjamin (conductor)
Famous quotes containing the words early, interest, ragtime and/or music:
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.”
—Willem De Kooning (b. 1904)
“Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, Boom,”
A roaring, epic, ragtime tune
From the mouth of the Congo
To the Mountains of the Moon.”
—Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931)
“Have you ever been up in your plane at night, alone, somewhere, 20,000 feet above the ocean?... Did you ever hear music up there?... It’s the music a man’s spirit sings to his heart, when the earth’s far away and there isn’t any more fear. It’s the high, fine, beautiful sound of an earth-bound creature who grew wings and flew up high and looked straight into the face of the future. And caught, just for an instant, the unbelievable vision of a free man in a free world.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)