{"id":1272,"date":"2016-06-13T07:00:57","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T11:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2017-08-19T10:33:58","modified_gmt":"2017-08-19T14:33:58","slug":"the-pearls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/the-pearls\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pearls (Jelly Roll Morton\/Dave Van Ronk)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/52QXtCMSA3I\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I arrived on Dave Van Ronk&#8217;s doorstep just as he reached the high-water mark of his interest in ragtime guitar, <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1274 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Davis-Van-Ronk-11.jpg?resize=220%2C238\" alt=\"Davis-Van-Ronk 11\" width=\"220\" height=\"238\" \/>so I emerged from my year of study with &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/st-louis-tickle\/\">St. Louis Tickle<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/maple-leaf-rag\/\">Maple Leaf Rag<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;The Entertainer&#8221; (which was so overdone that I quickly forgot it), and Jelly Roll Morton&#8217;s &#8220;The Pearls.&#8221; (I don&#8217;t think Dave had yet composed his own contribution to the genre, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/antelope-rag\/\">Antelope Rag<\/a>,&#8221; but it followed in the next couple of years.)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Pearls&#8221; may have been my favorite &#8212; though audiences never got as excited about it as they did about &#8220;Maple Leaf,&#8221; so I played it a good deal less. I was not familiar with Morton&#8217;s piano version at the time, so Dave&#8217;s guitar arrangement was the first way I heard it, and it was so damn pretty, with neat chords and interesting harmonies. Morton was <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1277\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/jelly-roll-morton.jpg?resize=238%2C240\" alt=\"jelly roll morton\" width=\"238\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/jelly-roll-morton.jpg?w=275&amp;ssl=1 275w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/jelly-roll-morton.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 238px) 100vw, 238px\" \/>Dave&#8217;s favorite composer and one of his favorite musicians, alongside Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong.<\/p>\n<p>Dave would later say he worked out these piano rags as research projects to improve his understanding of the guitar, and that was certainly part of it, but there was also some pride involved. He was trying to get off the road and make his living from teaching, and he wanted to feel like he was the kind of guitarist an ambitious young student might want to study with, even in the musical mecca of Manhattan &#8212; and, damn it, he was the acknowledged pioneer of classic ragtime guitar and wanted to justify his reputation.<\/p>\n<p>That had gotten a lot harder by the mid-1970s, because like many pioneers he had inspired a wave of followers who didn&#8217;t have to labor under his handicaps &#8212; starting with his own lack of predecessors, but also a clumsy right hand that kept tripping him up, since he was a natural lefty. Dave Laibman and Eric Schoenberg had credited him on their debut LP, which was the first full album of ragtime guitar instrumentals, but soon a bunch of players came along who were only marginally aware of his contribution. He was particularly taken with the Dutch guitarist <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1275 \" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-bergeyk.jpg?resize=210%2C209\" alt=\"104 final booklet\" width=\"210\" height=\"209\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-bergeyk.jpg?w=200&amp;ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-bergeyk.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/>Ton Van Bergeyk, and also Leo Wijnkamp, and then I introduced him to Guy Van Duser&#8217;s work, which led him to begin musing about the unique affinity Dutch and Dutch-American guitarists seemed to have for ragtime&#8230; until his lady, Joanne, broke in to point out that he had about as much Dutch ancestry as he had Cherokee.<\/p>\n<p>I later got to know Leo, met Ton a couple of times, and took one lesson from Guy, but I continue to particularly like Dave&#8217;s arrangements, because they both feel and sound like something a guitarist would naturally play. Most classic ragtime guitar arrangements sound to me like attempts to play piano compositions on an instrument that has too few strings &#8212; like Dr. Johnson&#8217;s hind-leg-walking dog, one is impressed that it can be done at all, not because the results sound particularly pretty. Dave&#8217;s arrangements always sounded pretty &#8212; and when I finally heard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0MX1eb0cgU4\">Morton&#8217;s piano recording<\/a>, I was struck by how much of it he had managed to translate into guitar language, and reasonably simple guitar language at that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I arrived on Dave Van Ronk&#8217;s doorstep just as he reached the high-water mark of his interest in ragtime guitar, so I emerged from my year of study with &#8220;St. Louis Tickle,&#8221; &#8220;Maple Leaf Rag,&#8221; &#8220;The Entertainer&#8221; (which was so overdone that I quickly forgot it), and Jelly Roll Morton&#8217;s &#8220;The Pearls.&#8221; (I don&#8217;t think &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/the-pearls\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Pearls (Jelly Roll Morton\/Dave Van Ronk)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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In the early 1960s he did an arrangement of \"St. Louis Tickle\" that was the first recording of a multi-part piano or orchestral ragtime composition on fingerstyle guitar -- but\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"sunday st","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/sunday-st.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1869,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/st-louis-tickle\/","url_meta":{"origin":1272,"position":2},"title":"St. Louis Tickle (Dave Van Ronk)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"July 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This was Dave Van Ronk's first venture into classic ragtime, and spawned an entire generation of ragtime guitar virtuosos. Dave Laibman, Eric Schoenberg, Ton Von Bergeyk, Leo Wijnkamp, Guy Van Duser... they all started out with \"St. Louis Tickle.\" Dave had been singing and playing the second section since the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"ragtime jug stompers - front cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/ragtime-jug-stompers-front-cover-293x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3313,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/georgia-camp-meeting-kerry-mills\/","url_meta":{"origin":1272,"position":3},"title":"At a Georgia Camp Meeting (Kerry Mills)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"December 13, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By some measures the first major hit of the ragtime era, \"At a Georgia Camp Meeting\" was played by brass bands, mandolin orchestras, banjo virtuosos, pianists, and everyone else who tried their hand at the ragtime style. It was composed in 1897 by the violinist, music teacher, orchestra leader, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/campmeeting1-227x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1331,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/buddy-boldens-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":1272,"position":4},"title":"Buddy Bolden&#8217;s Blues (Jelly Roll Morton)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Dave Van Ronk had numerous musical heroes,\u00a0 but Jelly Roll Morton was number one. Over the years, I got used to the idea that if I stayed late enough at his place we would likely end up listening to Morton records (often back to back with Phillipe Koutev's Bulgarian ensemble),\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/jelly-roll-morton-commodore-300x295.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3254,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wining-boy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1272,"position":5},"title":"Winin&#8217; Boy \/ Winding Ball (Jelly Roll Morton)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"December 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I learned this from Dave Van Ronk, who got it from Jelly Roll Morton, and it's at this point in the Songobiography because my trip south in 1985 included a brief stint with a trad jazz band in Charleston, SC. I hitched down from Southport via Myrtle Beach and don't\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Michael-Tyzack.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3072,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions\/3072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}