The Joy of Joplin: A Conversation with Marcus Roberts
Acclaimed composer, pianist and educator Marcus Roberts on his relationship with ragtime and stride piano
In my previous post, I discussed how I met Marcus Roberts and how he has long been an important mentor of mine since I was a child. Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to have conversations and lessons with him that have been invaluable to my development as a musician. I’m grateful that he took the time to sit down and speak with me for this piece and I hope that this conversation will be the first of many that we will have over the years for WyntonsNotes.com.
Q: Your album Joy of Joplin was my first exposure to Scott Joplin as a child. After learning an arrangement at the end of an intermediate beginner piano book, hearing your version was an eye-opening experience for me. I had no idea the piano could be played like that! What was your impression when you met a 9-year-old pianist who idolized your solo piano playing?
Marcus:
It gave me a lot of hope for the future because it's always young people who take the next step for the next generation. When a young person—especially a talented child like you were and are—is engaged, it shows that our music has universal appeal if it's presented in the right way, if people hear it in a context that speaks to them. I can't ever guarantee who will like the music I play, or the music other jazz musicians present, but I do know that when it's played with depth and received with openness, even by a child, it keeps our whole cultural code of ethics moving forward. For me, it was great to see.
Q: Can you explain a little about your experience with the music of Scott Joplin? What initially made you interested in recording an album of his work?
Marcus:
When I went to Columbia Records in 1994, I had a strong interest in exploring the relationship between jazz and classical music. I met with Peter Gelb, who was president of Sony Classical at the time, and told him I wanted to do two recordings. One of them was Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue—I felt there was uncharted territory for me to put my own jazz interpretation on the piece with jazz musicians. The other recording was a solo piano project of Scott Joplin and my own original music. Joplin's music has always intrigued me. Even though ragtime has its own straight-laced ethos—and Joplin wanted it played that way; he was very upset when people like Jelly Roll Morton started improvising over his work—it still sounds so American. There's this blend of gentleness and urbanity, this feeling of mechanical machinery, but with a lilt and cultural perspective that doesn't sound European.
For me, I wanted to create a foundation for how jazz evolved in my playing. I felt that by writing some original music inspired by Joplin and playing the rags that moved me, it would enrich my own artistic development. I've always used recordings as opportunities to grow, evolve, and challenge myself. I felt the need to go back to the roots of the tree—or at least one of them. And Joplin's music has so much joy in it. You don't often find rags written in a minor key!
Q: You found one—"A Real Slow Drag."
Marcus:
Well, the intro is in a minor key, but the song itself is in F major. There's just something about his music—the syncopations. I think he influenced everybody.
Q: How did you go about coming up with the arrangements of the songs?
Marcus:
I don't really have a set process. I'll start by recording myself playing the piece as it's originally written, and then, through improvisation, if I hear something that feels authentically connected to my personality, I gradually integrate that into the arrangement. Over time, it evolves into my own way of playing it.
Sometimes, it comes to me more directly: I'll know there's a section I want to swing, or I'll insert a chord progression, or change the form—like putting a blues section in the middle, as I did with "The Entertainer." But with "Maple Leaf Rag," I stuck more to the formal structure. And then there are things like what I did with "Bethena's Waltz," where I'm not sure if Joplin would have approved or not!
Q: "Maple Leaf Rag" has a restrictive-sounding form. "The Entertainer" and "Bethena" feel a lot more open to me.
Marcus:
Exactly. He was an interesting character—he took his compositions so seriously. Maybe that's what made ragtime such a clearly defined style: he stuck to those rules and didn't allow them to be stretched too much.
Q: With stride piano, like James P. Johnson, he would just write a head. That gave a lot more room for interpretation. Often, you either had to learn it from a recording or find the lead sheet somewhere. Duke Ellington and Fats Waller learned "Carolina Shout" from the piano roll.
Marcus:
That's what I heard too. I think Duke said he would learn something so thoroughly that he could digest it completely, but then he'd forget it and do his own thing with the piece. I think that eventually developed into his compositional process. But when an interviewer asked Duke about his process and strategies, he famously said, "I have no strategy!" Of course, he had some strategy, but I think he was annoyed by being pigeonholed. When he first started playing professionally, you could hear the ragtime and New Orleans influences. All those musicians—James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, Luckey Roberts, Willie "The Lion" Smith—understood ragtime. Like I said, ragtime introduced them to an American way of playing the piano, and they all inspired each other to create the virtuosic stride style, which I think is the most difficult form of jazz piano.
Q: From the vantage point of 2025, where do you think the music of ragtime sits within the jazz canon and jazz piano? How important is it for a jazz pianist to learn and understand this music?
Marcus:
It's critical, I would say. It's as important as playing music from the Well-Tempered Clavier is for a classical pianist. It's foundational. At the very least, it gives you an approach to building technique with both hands. The melodies and harmonies are crystal clear. It forces you to focus on the balance between your left and right hands and helps you develop an understanding of how chords move. There's a lot to learn from it—and I just think it's great music.
Q: How hard is it to preserve a music that is so based on improvisation? Improvisation used to be a central part of classical music pedagogy; musicians and pianists were expected to improvise, even fugues at times. Over time, these skills lost their central place, though some teachers and researchers have sought to preserve them. How would our perception of classical piano be different if we could have heard Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, or Chopin improvise?
Marcus:
That would have been incredible, especially if we could have actual recordings of it. I heard that Rachmaninoff, for example, used to warm up by improvising on late Beethoven sonatas. With jazz, the great thing is we don't have to wonder as much about Duke Ellington's compositional process—we have his recordings and some of his scores. We have both the standards, like "Satin Doll" and "Sophisticated Lady," and the suites—The Far East Suite, The Queen's Suite, The New Orleans Suite, and many others. Ellington's canon, and how he played, is very clear because of that record.
Q: What is your advice to young pianists today?
Marcus:
The biggest thing is to determine whether you want to do this because you are deeply serious about it, or whether you do it just for entertainment. You have to decide which path to follow, as the answer will dictate how you should approach your development.
The thing we all share is that we have recordings of Thelonious Monk, Nat King Cole, Chick Corea—these giants who could really play. Learning piano at a serious level requires a lot of time, which will get in the way of other activities you might want to pursue as a young person. It has to be something you would do, even if you couldn't make money from it. If you realize you would still want to know it, even with no financial incentive, then it's probably worth pursuing.
You should try to find mentors—people who can help you get started with the right information to help bring out your unique voice and talent. And, finally, play as much as you can with others. Playing the piano is often a solitary activity, but whenever possible, use it to socialize, perform at parties, and take part in the rituals of your culture. I think there's real value in that.
Great piece on Marcus!