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(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first in a series of stories that will run each Sunday in February to commemorate Black History Month.)

Works newly available to copy, republish and remix in 2022 also include poems by Langston Hughes and Dorothy Parker

Hal Smith: Jeff, when you think about the traditional jazz “warhorses”—like “At The Jazz Band Ball,” “That’s A Plenty” or “Fidgety Feet”—traditional jazz musicians usually don’t make too many variations on the order...

Ragtime music, with its syncopated or "ragged" rhythms, is considered by many observers to be the first purely American form of popular music. Drawing on a diversity of styles, ragtime emerged from Black communities in cities like St. Louis toward the end of the 1800s, and one of its most famous composer-performers, Scott Joplin, had plenty of ties to both St. Louis and Sedalia. In Sedalia in 1899, Joplin often played piano in a downtown saloon to help pay his way through college. While doing so, Joplin composed and copyrighted a song, "Maple Leaf Rag," that became the model for much ragti...

The Shreveport Symphony Orchestra will honor the musical legacy of “The Father of Ragtime,” Scott Joplin with two live in-person and virtual performances this weekend. Joplin, an Ark-La-Tex native, is credited as the inventor of the revolutionary musical style ragtime. The pianist’s works would influence musicians to also push boundaries, leading to the formation of other groundbreaking genres in the 20th century. “It’s fair to say he essentially was the standard-bearer for a brand-new kind of music which is a precursor of jazz and blues,” said Michael Butterman, SSO’s music dir...