Who is Scott Joplin?

Illinois, a few months after his mothers death from a liver condition at the age

He was born on 1886 in Lenox, Massachusetts, the 2nd oldest of six siblings, and was a skilled violinist since he was a kid (The Black Past). When he got a promotion at his magazine job when he was 14, he got his first camera. He was one of the first people in his town to own a personal camera so it was up to him to photograph lower class African American life at the time. At least until he, his brother Walter, and his dad would move to the Big Apple where he would work as an elevator operator and a waiter. While there,

In 1850 he and his family moved to Wisconsin where he lived for 5 years until his mother died. He moved with his father back to Freeport. While he was a young man he got $1,000 of inheritance money from his Grandfather and went to Michigan in an attempt to join the University of Michigan.

Ferdinand Joseph “Jelly Roll Morton” LaMenthe was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 20, 1890. As a child he began to learn how to play the piano at age 10 years old. He was taught by Tony Jackson; compose of songs like “Pretty Boy” and other hits. Tony Jackson is among the few musicians whom Morton admired and respected. Jackson was also known to him as the greatest single-handed entertainers in the world. After his mother’s passing, Morton began playing in gigs in the bordellos of the Storyville district of New Orleans. In New Orleans he became active as a gambler, pool shark, and many more things that made him get kicked out by his grandmother. With him doing all of this gambling she didn’t want his sisters to see that life that he was going down.

approach the area musicians he most respected, and invite them to listen to his musical

Many people knew Louis Armstrong as the “first real genius of jazz”(Shipton 26). He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 4, 1901. Louis was the illegitimate son of William Armstrong and Mary Est “Mayann” Albert. He was abandoned by his father, a boiler stoker, shortly after his birth and was raised by his paternal grandmother. Then, at the age of five, he was returned to the care of his mother, who at the time worked as a laundress. Together with his mom, they moved to a better area of New Orleans. This is where Armstrong first fell in love with music; he would listen to people playing any chance that he would get(Tirro). He would attend parades, funerals, churches and go to cheap cabarets to be able to hear some of the greats play

Still started to learn how to play the violin at the age of fifteen. He taught himself to play a bunch of instruments including the clarinet, saxophone, double bass, cello oboe, and the viola. Then at the age of 16 he graduated from M.W. Gibbs High School in Little

Travis arrived in Texas in early 1831 after he acquired land from Stephen F. Austin. Shortly after arriving in Texas Travis grouped up with

Born in Minnesota in 1941, Bob Dylan, then Robert Allen Zimmerman, befriended those less fortunate than him as a child. Through his childhood friends Dylan learned a

Born November 1801 in New York state, Borden spent parts of his childhood in New York Kentucky and Indiana. In his late twenties he moved to Mississippi and worked as a surveyor before coming to texas in late 1829 After spending some time farming and raising stock, Borden replaced his brother as official surveyor in Austin's colony, headquartered at San Felipe. He then represented San Felipe at the Convention of 1833.

This opera did not actually reach popularity until some 60 years later. New York proved to be stimulating for Joplin's creative mind. There he published many ragtime jewels, on right after another.

in Kansas City and became one of the most famous jazz musicians of all time. He led us

Duke Ellington was the only jazz artist that grew up in Washington D.C. Jelly Roll Morton, Joe King Oliver, Sidney Bichet and Louis Armstrong all grew up in New Orleans. Jelly Roll Morton learned to play piano at age 10. He began playing at “entertainment” buildings and began playing in cities in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. He moved to places like St. Louis, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Jelly Roll enjoyed his time in Los Angeles and stayed there for 5 years. He decided to move back to the city of Jazz, Chicago. He was a solo artist and also formed a 7-8 piece band. He continued his solo career to New York. Songs like Kansas City Stomp, Tank Town Bump, and Blue Blood Blues all inherited his New Orleans sound. He settled in Washington and died from illness in 1940.

He was later discovered here by John Stark who eventually published his first composition know as the Maple Leaf Rag. He later moved to St. Louis where he had the opportunity to perform for the next five years. Furthermore, he later left for New York, where he developed his own opera in 1911. This opera, called Treemanisha, was the first and only ragtime opera, but unfortunately, it only lasted one show. This was the falling point of his career, and he never regained the popularity he once had at the beginning of his career. In the 1970’s, Joplin and his opera was rediscovered with the revival of ragtime.

print titled” False Start”. He took that for the of his own artistic creations. However,