ABOUT THIS STATION
Ragtime is a style that became popular between 1895 and 1919. An influence on early jazz, ragtime was a modification of the Sousa march with the addition of polyrhythms coming from African music. Ragtime quickly established itself as a distinctly American form of popular music, with piano "professors" playing in the bordellos of New Orleans. Dance orchestras started evolving away from Ragtime towards the big band sounds that predominated in the 1920s and 1930s when they adopted smoother rhythmic styles.
