![]() Today, racked by arthritis and other infirmities, she is confined much of the time to her home. As she herself has expressed it to me many times: “Scott did it all, and he did it first!” For years - long years before any of the rest of us - she went forth almost daily, doing whatever a lone and courageous woman could to promote wider recognition for Scott’s achievements in the field of American popular music. Since her husband’s death in 1917, she has remained loyal to his memory with a devotion that is both singular and touching. Whenever I am weary of the picayune cats who infest the world of jazz, I find it a richly rewarding experience to call upon her. However, it is a fact that King Oliver collected just about every Joplin rag ever written, at one time having the entire lot bound in red leather. This statement of the case may contradict the accounts of other writers. As a result, old-timers who played the lead regarded his compositions as embodying the real rudiments of jazz style, and thus they required younger men to master his works in order to win acceptance. Later, when he took up ragtime composition, he frequently incorporated trumpet-style passages. In the early 1890’s, some years before he turned to piano, Joplin himself played B flat cornet. ![]() That he could share my enthusiasm for the music of Scott Joplin is an altogether understandable circumstance, for Joplin has long been the admiration of trumpet-playing folk, from the days of Keppard, Perez, Johnson, Oliver and Armstrong. I first met Lottie Joplin - widow of the King of Ragtime Writers - through a mutual acquaintance, Hot Lips Page. Scott’s widow reminisces on the ragtime king
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