PureVolume

Members: me.

I play piano, reed organ, and percussion.

So far, I only have recordings of my piano playing but this may change. I also play in the bands Sister Rogers, City Country City, The Surrenders, The Dough Rollers, The Unurban Irregulars, Jonathan Stout and His Strutters' Ball Band, The Cherry Willow Jazz Band, and The Dixiedelics, as well as performing occasional gigs solo and with friends Jerron Paxton, Meredith Axelrod, Vincent Johnson, Jared DiBartolomeo, Mark Fletcher, and others. Many of the gigs I list in my "events" are not solo gigs, however I have not yet figured out a way to specify with which group I am playing.

"Frequent Flyer Rag" is my own composition, circa 2003. Yes, the sheet music is available from me.

"The Legend of Lonesome Lake" is an excellent tone poem by Eastwood Lane and part of his 6-part suite, "The Adirondack Sketches", from 1922.

"FANTASTIC untitled blues" is something I improvised on the spot with the tape recorder running, and then promptly forgot about. A few months later, I was transferring my home tapes to CD and then mp3 and discovered it. It is "fantastic" because when I heard the first chorus, I thought "who is this?" because I didn't think I could play like that! I actually wondered if I had accidentally dubbed in some other recording of somebody else!

"Flying Rhino" is my own composition from 2007. The sheet music is also available from me.

"Hot Hands" is a 1916 ragtime fox-trot by Charley Straight. This is the slow version... it also sounds good about medium-fast. Charley Straight's style of playing (on piano rolls and recordings) is an important influence on my own style. He made rolls from about 1914 to about 1924, although his big "hey-day" for roll-making was circa 1916 to 1919. He was an important 'teens ragtime stylist and influenced many other pianists including Roy Bargy, Jimmy Blythe, and Bertha Wolpa.

finally,

"Junk Man Rag" is the 1913 composition by Luckey Roberts. This version, which is currently the newest recording on this page, is also my own personal version that has very little to do with either the composer's own recordings, or with the published [song, verse-and-chorus] sheet music. Just pull it up on one of the free university sheet music websites and compare! Junk Man Rag is a FREE DOWNLOAD and will remain that way.

I will state up front that while this is not my very best rendition of the tune, it is also not my worst, and I hope is still fun and genuinely interesting to hear. I have been trying to play as authentically as possible lately, and you can hear me struggling to do just that, even if it means fighting with myself at times.