Ragtime Revue celebrates lost era of popular music

CAMDEN — The words floated in the air during Saturday evening’s intermission at the Camden Opera House: “I really would like to take piano lessons again.”

Just moments earlier, pianist Dick Zimmerman sent chills up the spines of listeners with one of the most popular ragtime pieces in history, Euday Bowman’s “Twelfth Street Rag.”

It was, Zimmerman explained, “the biggest moneymaking ragtime song ever,” yet Bowman collected a paltry $50 for the music in 1915.

The evening was certainly ragtime all the way – turn-of-the-century melodies in two-four time, in ear-catching syncopated style.

Zimmerman’s nimble fingers seemed to roll over the keys during the tune, one of the highlights of the Harvest Ragtime Revue, an annual event organized by musician-composer Glenn Jenks. Zimmerman also took time to show off his considerable abilities as a magician, pulling silvery coins from air and ear, but he performed his real magic on the ivories.

Shouldn’t that guy record Scott Joplin’s works? He has – all of them. Moreover, he treated Saturday’s audience to wonders such as his own “Lost and Found Rag” – a more relaxed piece than one normally thinks of as ragtime; and to an unpublished work previously heard only on a piano roll from the 1920s. Zimmerman also brought up unsung ragtime greats such as Joseph F. Lamb. He played Lamb’s ragtime march, “Reindeer Rag,” and dedicated it to the composer’s daughter Patricia Lamb Conn, who was in the audience.

Pulling the concert together with both his music and humor, Jenks, a Camden resident, kept listeners wondering whether each new piece would stay serious or venture into the whimsical. At the end of the sassy “Sugar Babe,” a ditty he played and sang with great vaudevillian verve, Jenks wound up on bended knee. His version of Rob Hampton’s “The Agitation Rag” was, as he put it, “finger-busting.” Yet he also offered seriously, and with great feeling, the most romantic “Un Recuerdo” (A Remembrance), a Cuban piece by Ignacio Cervantes.

Jenks and Zimmerman took turns at the baby grand to back up Susan Boyce, a flapper somehow dropped into the wrong end of the 20th century. Wide-eyed, curly haired and sometimes wearing oversized hats to accent her costumes, she led off with the bouncy “When the Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam.”

Going on to introduce a song from 1909, Boyce explained that the lyrics were “exactly pointed to e-mail” before she jumped into the lusty rendition of “Hello, Ma Baby.” Later in the piece, she beckoned listeners to join her – which they did – in lines such as “Send me a kiss by wire, Baby my heart’s on fire.” The audience seemed especially to enjoy one of Boyce’s popular novelty songs, “Some Little Bug is Going to Find You Someday,” laughing at references to tainted clam chowder that would speed up their trip to see the angels.

The singer brought out yet another of her assets during the show’s second half, 13-year-old nephew Michael. The handsome, dark-haired teen-ager, who obviously inherited his aunt’s itch to perform, provided harmony on “Down in Harmony Hall,” then proceeded to turn on the charm on “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?”

Those attending the show ranged from kids to senior citizens. The youngsters were mesmerized by Michael Menes, a visual humorist who used mime, magic and juggling to enchanting effect. Three generations of one family sat forward in their seats as Menes juggled fluorescent balls so quickly that three looked like four, and five seemed too many to count. Maneuvering the “Chinese Swinging Water Meteors,” the young man gave those in the front row fair warning: “I know what you’re thinking down in front. These aren’t such good seats after all.”

Yet he didn’t lose a drop, and by the end of that skit, there was doubt that he really had poured water into the shiny cups. But then he poured it out. In truth, Menes’ command of his rubbery body was so exquisite that he could have done a whole show without props. Fingers, elbows, arms of indeterminate length and facial muscles did his bidding to create little stories.

Mainers have seen such fine-tuned visual humor before by students of Celebration Barn in South Paris. Indeed, the talented Michael Menes, a world-class juggler whose performance venues include cruise ships, is himself a veteran of that program.

Joining the principals of the Harvest Ragtime Revue was Dean Jorgenson, who performed a deep-voiced “There’s No Hidin’ Place Down There.”

Saturday’s show raised money for Midcoast Substance Abuse Counseling. On Sunday, the show moved on to The Alamo in Bucksport.