Max Morath

Max Edward Morath (October 1, 1926 – June 19, 2023) was an American ragtime pianist, composer, actor, and author. He was best known for his piano playing and is referred to as "Mr. Ragtime". He was a touring performer as well as being variously a composer, recording artist, actor, playwright, and radio and television presenter. Rudi Blesh billed Morath as a "one-man ragtime army". He studied piano and harmony as a child and was exposed to the rudiments of ragtime piano by his mother, a schooled pianist who had spent several years playing for silent films. He received a bachelor's degree in English from Colorado College in 1948,

Career Early years His appearances as pianist and musical director with melodrama companies in Cripple Creek and Durango, Colorado, triggered his interest in early American popular music and theater, including a study of its social and economic history, largely inspired by George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and his ragtime heroes Eubie Blake and Scott Joplin. and on Morath, Eric Salzman wrote in Stereo Review: "he person who kept rag alive almost single-handedly during all the dark years was really Max Morath."

From 1959 to 1961 Morath wrote, performed, and co-produced 26 half-hour television programs for PBS, then NET (National Educational Television). His one-man show, Max Morath at the Turn of the Century, was a critical success and played Off-Broadway at the Jan Hus Playhouse in 1969, followed by a four-year national tour.

With his wife Diane Fay Skomars, Morath co-created an illustrated book on his experiences on the road, titled Max Morath: The Road to Ragtime.

Morath's musical revue One For The Road, a serio-comic exploration of American culture's dealings with drugs and alcohol, was produced in 1982 by the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and MUNI.

The screenplay of Blind Boone, written by Morath and his colleague Moss Hall, was a first-prize winner in the category 'Music-Inspired Drama' at the Nashville Film Festival in March 2015.

Morath's interest in American popular culture extended to the work of humorist Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936), creator of the popular "Mister Dooley" editorials. An academic article he wrote on Dunne's work titled Translating Mister Dooley: A New Examination of the Journalism of Finley Peter Dunne was published in the Journal of American Culture in 2004. Dunne's editorials also form the text of Morath's musical play "Trust Everybody... but Cut the Cards," presented in staged readings at the York Theater in New York. He had been working on a 60,000-word volume of "translations" of Dunne's writings out of the Irish dialect in which they were originally published and into standard English.

Recordings After recording a handful of albums in the then-popular honky-tonk style, Morath recorded albums for Vanguard, Epic, Solo Art and RCA. These included solo piano and vocal albums, performances with his Original Rag Quartet and orchestral works.

In the early 1970s, Morath recorded four vinyl LPs for the Vanguard label which presented ragtime in an unprecedented fashion: namely, recording and presenting ragtime in a truly serious manner, and creating four non-commercial albums for a commercial recording company. These albums notedly highlighted Morath's pianistic abilities for a warmth and roundness of tone; a spontaneity and lightness of touch; and a complex use of dynamics, changes of mood and tempi. He has also been recognized as a major influence on younger pianists recording ragtime.

Death Morath died in Duluth, Minnesota, on June 19, 2023, at age 96.

Awards and honors In 2008, Morath received the Louis T. Benezet Award from Colorado College. In 2022, Morath received the Glenn Jenks Lifetime Achievement Award.

Partial bibliography Solo authored

"Ragtime Then and Now". In The Oxford Companion to Jazz, Bill Kirchner, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 29–38.

Coauthored

Discography Albums Year Title Record label 1955 Max Morath at the Gold Bar Room Gold Camp 1956 Max Morath at the Gold Bar Room, Volume II Gold Camp 1957 Music for Moochers, Gold Diggers, and Cattle Rustlers Talking Machine Records 1958 Honky Tonk in Hi-Fi Gold Camp 1959 More Morath Gold Camp 1963 Presenting that Celebrated Maestro Epic 1964 Oh, Play That Thing: The Ragtime Era Epic 1969 Max Morath at the Turn of The Century RCA-Victor 1972 Max Morath Plays the Best of Scott Joplin & Other Rag Classics Vanguard 1973 The World of Scott Joplin Vanguard 1974 Irving Berlin: The Ragtime Years Vanguard 1975 Max Morath Plays Ragtime Vanguard 1975 Good Friends Are for Keeps (with other performers) Bell System/United Artists 1976 The World of Scott Joplin, Volume 2Vanguard 1976 Jonah Man: A Tribute to Bert Williams (1996 CD release added four tracks from Morath's 1981 album)Vanguard 1977 Living the Ragtime Life (not to be confused with similarly titled later release) Vanguard 1977 The Ragtime Women Vanguard 1978 These Charming People (with Bolcom & Morris) RCA-Red Seal 1978 Don't Give the Name a Bad Place (with other performers) New World Records 1979 Max Morath in Jazz Country Vanguard 1979 The Great American Piano Bench Vanguard 1981 Max Morath & His Ragtime Stompers Vanguard 1983 More Rodgers and Hart (with Bolcom & Morris) RCA 1987 Living a Ragtime Life (1990 SoloArt CD version contained additional tracks and is re-sequenced) Normacks 1991 The Ragtime CenturyPianoMania Music Publishing 1992 The Ragtime Man Omega Music 1993 Siren Songs (Piano Accompaniment for Ann Fennessy ) Bilnan Productions 1994 Fountain Favorites from the World of Coca-Cola (with Bolcom & Morris) Coke 1995 Drugstore Cabaret Premier 1995 Real American Folk Songs Solo Art 2003 Sing Yip Harburg (with Bolcom & Morris) Original Cast 2004 Sing Gus Kahn (with Bolcom & Morris) Original Cast 2005 One for fhe Road (Compilation, Includes Previously Unreleased Material) Skomax 2015 Max Morath: The Complete Ragtime Works for Piano (Performed by Aaron Robinson) MAISource: