![]() He can play with incredible dexterity and skill - as fast as you could want, never faltering - but he has something much rarer, which is the understanding that quiet music, sweet sounds usually reach far deeper into our souls than do pyrotechnics. ![]() What struck me immediately about Max was his gracious balance of technique and taste. I had the good fortune and immense pleasure of meeting and hearing Max for the first time at the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Missouri, just a few days ago, and you’ll hear why I am impressed. I don’t know what you were doing in 1991, but the young man pictured above - Canadian pianist / composer Max Keenlyside - was busy being born, which makes his remarkable talent even more remarkable. because I plan to be in Sedalia, Missouri, for that weekend of joy. To conclude the set, a new composition by Max, which he explains, THE RED MOON:Īnd not incidentally, the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival will take place next year from May 29 to June 1, 2019. First, THE PEARLS, which encapsulates the Master at the piano:Īnd from the Library of Congress recordings, SPANISH SWATĪ properly vigorous TIGER RAG, complete with elbow: Then, some Morton episodes, always welcome. Fats peeks in now and again, but it’s all Max: His next piece, Harold Arlen’s lovely IT’S ONLY A PAPER MOON, so captivated me that I posted it right after the Festival - but since I can’t be sure that everyone’s already enjoyed it, I post it here again. Max’s musical range is broad, as you will see and hear, and I think it’s splendid that he might allow audience members to pick the program from his list. ![]() (Max also told me that “the full story was written about at length, I think, by Chris Ware in an issue of The Ragtime Ephemeralist, which surely must now be as rare as hens’ teeth.”) I didn’t catch it all on video, but Max told me later that Joplin’s widow, Lottie, gave Brun Campbell a photo of Joplin at the piano, where there is visible part of an otherwise unknown Joplin composition, which Max transcribed, played, and amplified on. The young Canadian piano wizard Max Keenlyside is a fine player and composer, and we had a delightful brief meeting in person at the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival, where he played an untitled and incomplete Joplin piece that I’ve titled FRAGMENTS OF JOPLIN. Max Keenlyside at the 2018 Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival.
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