Adam Swanson is one of the world’s foremost performers of vintage American popular music, including ragtime, early jazz, the Great American Songbook, and more. He holds a bachelor’s in classical piano and a master’s in musicology from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. Adam has been a featured performer and lecturer at ragtime and jazz festivals across the United States, and he is the only four-time winner of the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest. He made his New York debut in Carnegie Hall at the age of nineteen, where he performed with Michael Feinstein. Adam has performed at the Cinecon Classic Film Festival in Hollywood and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as well as in Hungary, Switzerland, and Australia. He lives in Durango, Colorado, where he frequently performs in the Diamond Belle Saloon at the Historic Strater Hotel. Visit Adam online: www.adamgswanson.com.
My Nana, born in England in 1900, used to sing me the parody song they sang back in her day! "After the ball was over, Flossy took out her glass eye, she put her false teeth in water and hung up her wig to dry, she screwed her right arm from her shoulder, hung up her wooden leg ... and all that was left of poor Flossy hopped into bed!" I loved that song and would beg her to sing it often, and I giggled with delight and imitated plucking out my eye, teeth ... etc. My Nana was a lot of fun and cheeky too!
My mother went to the Wheeling Jamboree in the 1930s and she called that music "Cowboy Music" not country music. She was from northern Ohio but lived in Wheeling when she worked for Central Glass Works for awhile and just fell in love with that kind of music. I'm sure she would have enjoyed your concert very much just like I do!
I'm old: here's one of the reasons I love the Searchlight Rag. This story might be interesting depending on how nerdy you are. In 1978 I was a freshman in college and heard The Maple Leaf Rag for the first time from one of my classmates. After months of begging him to play it every time we were near a piano, I decided to teach myself how to play the piano so that I could play the Maple Leaf Rag for myself. After 6 months, I was able to hit the notes correctly at normal tempo. I wanted to learn more Joplin rags, so I bought the Collected Piano Works of Joplin, edited by Vera Brodsky Lawrence. That book had every rag and piece for piano that Joplin wrote EXCEPT ONE; due to some money problem with the people who owned the publishing rights, Lawrence could not get the rights to The Searchlight Rag. I got the impression that the owners of the music were holding out for more money, or hoping that by being the only rag not in the standard collection, they could make more $$. I don't know. In any case, everyone in the 70s and 80s who was obsessed with Scott Joplin (and ragtime was HUGE at that time) learned the rags via the Collected Works, and thus NO ONE played the Searchlight Rag. I knew it existed because I had Dick Hyman's Complete Works albums, but to hear it live never happened. Of course, now, The Searchlight Rag is available in the collected works and many other places on line, so lots of people learn it. But it will always sound a little fresher to me because I've heard every other Joplin song about 500 times more than I've heard The Searchlight Rag.
Thanks so much Adam for playing the Texas Fox-trot. I have it on Duo-Art #1585 played by Erlebach & Herzog from Keystone Music Rolls. I have also enjoyed Elliot Adams stylized version of the piece that he recorded so many years ago. If you have not had the opportunity, there are some video interviews of David Guion on RU-vid. Again, many thanks!
Oh, and another one!! If you ever want to play any Andrews Sisters songs, could you play Beat Me Daddy 8 to the Bar? I don't know how much new big band music you want to experience, but one of my very favorite songs is Ferryboat Serenade. The Andrews Sisters did a version of it, but my favorite is the slightly unhinged version by Kay Kyser's band. (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jTYRh7LX0dU.html). Kay Kyser, by the way, was HUGELY popular in the swing era, and yet you never hear about them anywhere anymore. For instance, the Ken Burns history of jazz makes no mention of them (and in fact completely dismisses the contribution of Glenn Miller to Jazz and American music in general). They were great musicians and singers, were musically experimental, and hilarious. I don't know if it's possible to work up a piano orchestration of Ferryboat Serenade, but if you have time I'd love to hear it.
Here's a man who first took to the stage while Rutherford B. Hayes was in the White House, was already a Vaudeville veteran by the time the Titanic sank, could've taken a Social Security check when the Second World War started, and had enough life left in him to appear frequently on the new medium of television in the 1940s and '50s. That's one hell of a run!
The saddest part in all this is society has manipulated black people into modern day entertainers without them even realizing. Whether it’s through theatre like hip hop or sports
Incredible playing, Adam!!!! Your concerts are now the soundtrack for my life! One of my favorite Glenn Miller songs is Caribbean Clipper. (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JS3IqM04CYA.html) One of these days I'd love to hear you play that one! It's a real barn-burner!
Adam! U will love this!!! I sure do!! Elite Syncopations LP [Stereo] - Scott Joplin Piano Rolls (1974) [Full Album] ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YuEctZfAwwQ.html
Your version of King Chanticleer was unbelievable! It reminded me of the first time I heard Vladimir Horowitz's version of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #6, where he took incredible liberties with the song-as-written to use his virtuosity to bring out all of the joy and passion. Your version was monumental!! Bravo! Thank you for sharing your genius with us.
