Rick Benjamin (band leader)
Encyclopedia
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.
Discovery of the Music of Arthur Pryor
Benjamin went to Juilliard with intentions to make his living playing the tubaTuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
. When his jaw was wired shut after his teeth were inadvertently shattered during a tooth extraction, he found himself temporarily unable to play that instrument and instead focused on writing a research paper on Arthur Pryor
Arthur Pryor
Arthur Willard Pryor was a trombone virtuoso, bandleader, and soloist with the Sousa Band. In later life, he was an American Democratic Party politician from New Jersey, who served on the Monmouth County, New Jersey Board of Chosen Freeholders during the 1930s.Pryor was born on the second floor of...
, an 1890s trombonist
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
, conductor and music director. Pryor was an influential figure in the early history of the Victrola, as he had served as first conductor for the company that produced them, Victor Talking Machine Co., and had accordingly been able to decide himself what recordings were released for the machine. Benjamin learned that an old theater in Asbury, New Jersey that was scheduled for demolition housed Pryor's personal collection of over 4,000 pieces of music and was given permission to take it. While Benjamin did not immediately understand the value of this collection, which was thought to have been destroyed, he soon realized that among the collection were many rare musical scores and manuscripts, including unknown compositions by such composers as Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...
, W.C. Handy, Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Edward Alexander MacDowell was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites "Woodland Sketches", "Sea Pieces", and "New England Idylls". "Woodland Sketches" includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose"...
, Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
, Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
and John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
.
In a 1997 interview with the Herald & Review, he explained the presence of these rare pieces: "Anybody who was anybody in that era would send their scores to Mr. Pryor in hopes that they would be recorded" for Victrola.
Controversy over Initial Concert at Juilliard
In 1986 Benjamin decided to form a 14-piece orchestra of fellow Juilliard students to perform the music as it had been originally arranged during the period. Benjamin made a request to Juilliard to perform a concert of turn-of-the-20th-century American composers but his request was rejected by Juilliard's dean, who felt Juilliard should focus on traditional composers. Benjamin scheduled a Mozart program on solo tuba at a concert hall, but instead led a group in performing ragtime music, leaving open the doors to draw in a wider crowd. Before a full house, Benjamin's group played selections by Irving BerlinIrving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
and Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
, the W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues" and Joplin's "Peacherine Two-Step." One witness to the event, Juilliard professor Vincent Persichetti
Vincent Persichetti
Vincent Ludwig Persichetti was an American composer, teacher, and pianist. An important musical educator and writer, Persichetti was a native of Philadelphia...
, approached Benjamin after the concert was over to encourage him to make it his "life's work" to preserve "America's original music."
The concert did not go over well with the dean, who put Benjamin on probation for it, but it had a much more positive impact on Grammy award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
winning Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
executive Thomas Frost
Thomas Frost
Thomas Frost is multiple Grammy Award-winning classical music producer, who won many of his awards for producing the albums of Vladimir Horowitz...
, who to Benjamin's surprise was given a recording of the concert and had within a matter of weeks arranged for the first album of the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra to be released. Benjamin quit Juilliard without fanfare and has since devoted himself to his orchestra.
Lincoln Center Debut
Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra made their New York debut at the Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in March 1988 with a program consisting of a medley of music from the 1890s and 21 songs from the period ranging 1905 to 1920 which Benjamin had found among Pryor's papers. Allan Kozinn for the New York Times remarked particularly on the variety of the "abidingly energetic fun" performance, which included "a concert waltz, a maxixe, one-steps, two-steps, foxtrots and blues, and, of course, numerous rags, some quite picturesque."Musical Activities
Oh, You Kid!
In February 1999, Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra premiered Oh, You Kid! at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, in collaboration with the Paul Taylor Dance CompanyPaul Taylor Dance Company
Paul Taylor Dance Company, is a contemporary dance company, formed by Paul Taylor, an American choreographer of the 20th century. One of the early touring companies of American modern dance, the Company has "performed in more than 500 cities in 62 countries" and still spends more than half of each...
. The work was commissioned under the Doris Duke Millennium Awards for Modern Dance and Jazz Music of the Kennedy Center and American Dance Festival, which promotes such pairings. Anna Kisselgoff wrote in the New York Times that the show was "exuberant romp to ragtime music."
Treemonisha
In June 2003 Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra premiered their version of Scott Joplin's opera TreemonishaTreemonisha
Treemonisha is an opera composed by the famed African-American ragtime composer Scott Joplin. Though it encompasses a wide range of musical styles other than ragtime, and Joplin did not refer to it as such, it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a "ragtime opera"...
at the Stern Grove Festival, the oldest festival of its kind in the United States, hosted in an amphitheater in San Francisco. Treemonisha had originally premiered in 1975 with full professional staging by the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
, but Benjamin thought that the Houston staging was "too heavy, too Verdiesque" and spent nearly half of a decade altering it to suit the kind of 12-piece theater pit orchestra prevalent in Joplin's day. In October 2005 Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra premiered his version of Treemonisha on the East Coast at Wake Forest University
Wake Forest University
Wake Forest University is a private, coeducational university in the U.S. state of North Carolina, founded in 1834. The university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina, the state capital. The Reynolda Campus, the university's main campus, is...
.
Benjamin has expressed his hope that his simpler orchestration will allow the material to be presented in more modest venues, indicating that Joplin never intended for the "opera" to depend on a large orchestra. Describing the work as "unpretentious", he notes that the opera "is much more an amalgamation of the well-established American traditions of vaudeville, tab-show, melodrama, and minstrelsy, all held together by Joplin's marvelous music." He told the Wake Forest University newspaper that Joplin's "real dream was to give everyday people the opportunity, perhaps their only one, to experience opera on their own terms in the music halls and neighborhood theaters." In another interview, for the San Francisco Chronicle, Benjamin indicated that Joplin was probably himself barred from opera during his day because he was black, but expressed his belief that Joplin realized opera's ability to speak to the public. He has recently recorded the opera with new world records.
Silent Movie Performances
Benjamin has an extensive collection of period cinema-orchestra scores which his orchestra performs along with broadcasting of the films they were created to accompany. Silent movies for which they perform the score include Buster KeatonBuster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
's Cops, Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....
's Never Weaken, and Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
's The Immigrant. Another movie that Benjamin performs with his orchestra is 'The Mark Of Zorro' starring Douglas Fairbanks. Benjamin has expressed surprise that "Generation X
Generation X
Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation born after the Western post–World War II baby boom ended. While there is no universally agreed upon time frame, the term generally includes people born from the early 1960's through the early 1980's, usually no later than 1981 or...
" has responded so favorably to the music, suggesting in 1997 that younger listeners may resist the more commercially oriented music "crammed down their throats."
Other Musical Activities
Benjamin and his orchestra also have performed for diverse radio programs on New York Times WQXRWQXR-FM
WQXR-FM is an American classical radio station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, and serving the New York City metropolitan area. It is the most-listened-to classical-music station in the United States, with an average quarter-hour audience of 63,000...
, National Public Radio, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and the Voice of America
Voice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
networks, and Benjamin has conducted the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra (Denmark), the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra
RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra
The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra is the concert music orchestra of Raidió Teilifís Éireann...
, Olympia Symphony in Washington State, the New Jersey Symphony, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Washington Performing Arts Society, the Brucknerhaus in Linz, Austria. Benjamin is a touring lecturer and a published author and wrote liner notes on New World Records
New World Records
New World Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in American music. The label was established in 1975 through a Rockefeller Foundation grant to produce a 100 disc anthology covering 200 years of American music....
In addition to curating the collection of Arthur Prior, Benjamin also curates the collections of Simone Mantia
Simone Mantia
Simone Mantia was an American baritone horn/euphonium virtuoso and also trombone artist at the turn of the twentieth century. He was both a performer and administrator with many American band and orchestral ensembles...
, B.F. Alart, and Frank H. Wells and has worked with archivists and historians including Thornton 'Tony Hagert's Vernacular Music Research
Vernacular Music Research
Vernacular Music Research is an archival and historical collection of music. It includes print , 78' records, and other media featuring American music and dance from the early 19th century to the 1960s....
Awards and honors
In the World's FairWorld's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
held in Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Benjamin and his orchestra were the "Ambassador of Goodwill."
Composition of Benjamin's Paragon Ragtime Orchestra
The Road Manager for the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra is Leslie Cullen who also plays flute and piccolo and has been a member of the orchestra since 1989. Cullen studied at the Juilliard School and is an adjunct at Bucknell University. Cullen has appeared at the Ravinia Festival, The Kennedy Center, Chautauqua, and the Smithsonian Institution. Cullen is a native of Lawton, Oklahoma and was the former artist-in-residence for the State Arts Council of Oklahoma. Cullen has also played with the Royale Trio and the Linden Woodwind Quintet.
Personal life
In addition to his work with his orchestra, Benjamin lectures at Bucknell UniversityBucknell University
Bucknell University is a private liberal arts university located alongside the West Branch Susquehanna River in the rolling countryside of Central Pennsylvania in the town of Lewisburg, 30 miles southeast of Williamsport and 60 miles north of Harrisburg. The university consists of the College of...
, near his home in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Benjamin was greatly encouraged in his musical career by his grandfather, J. Edward Smith, who played violin, clarinet & piano, among other instruments, throughout his life, and was a musician with the Monmouth Symphony Orchestra, in Monmouth County, NJ, for many years until his death. Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra continue to perform regularly in Monmouth County, NJ venues, where both grandfather and grandson lived.
Discography
- You're A Grand Old Rag: George M. Cohan
- From Barrelhouse To Broadway: The Music Of Joe Jordan
- The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra (Finally) Plays 'The Entertainer'
- Black Manhattan: Music Of The Famous 'Clef Club'
- 'Round The Christmas Tree
- More Candy
- On The Level...Songs Of Vaudeville & Tin Pan Alley
- Knockout Drops
- That Demon Rag!
- The Whistler And His Dog
- On The Boardwalk
- Midnight Frolic
Videography
- Paragon's Mark of Zorro starring Douglas Fairbanks
- Paragon's Charlie Chaplin Moving Picture Show
- The Deserter (2004)
- The Forgotten Films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (2005)
External links
- Rick Benjamin's Paragon Ragtime Orchestra
- New World Records
- Photos of Rick Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra in Concert