Louis Chauvin: Complete Works (Songs & Slow Drag) • Ragtime Music скачать в хорошем качестве

Louis Chauvin: Complete Works (Songs & Slow Drag) • Ragtime Music

Born on March 13th, 1881 in St. Louis Missouri, Louis Ignatius Chauvin was well remembered & respected as the consummate ragtime musician and beyond amongst his friends & peers of the Ragtime Era. Unfortunately however as with many young musicians bestowed with great talent of the time, Chauvin had passed away at only 24 years old, leaving virtually none of his life or history behind him to reflect on. Being the youngest out of nine siblings, Chauvin's father Charles had passed in 1890 when Chauvin was only 6 year old, prompting his mother & nearest siblings to move in with one of her oldest sons for the next 15 years. As a young boy growing up in St. Louis, he picked up piano largely on his own, showing both a passion and a talent for the instrument. Later on down the line, he had also displayed an inherent sense of harmonic flow and melodic improvisation. Having been both baptized (3/9/1884) and confirmed (5/17/1896) in the Catholic church, it can be assumed he got some of his early training there as well. A natural musician, Louis was both very capable of playing as well as composing, even if he could not notate it. Much of his composition was extemporaneous and fleeting, with brilliant tunes flowing forth from his fingers ever time. Of course, only for them to disappear the next day, being replaced by a newer tune just as fantastic. When he was around 13 years old, Louis and his good friend Sam Patterson had left school and ran away from home to join the famous Alabama Jubilee Singers, a touring ensemble based in St. Louis. (This may have also been when he started inflating his age a bit, leading to the earlier birth year contention.) Whether or not Chauvin & Sam had ever made it to meet the Singers at any point is still left unknown to this day, but it is known that Chauvin had become one of the great draws at Tom Turpin's famous Rosebud Café during their travels, where he encountered other well-known ragtime players and composers, including Scott Joplin. They had also become part of a private club annex around the corner which they dubbed "The Hurrah Sporting Club," with Louis becoming a member of a unique ragtime piano quartet made up of himself, Patterson, Tom Turpin and Joe Jordan. They performed for a short time at social events in St. Louis, but Chauvin had eventually found his own interests in the more unsavory activities that St. Louis had to offer, including brothels, bars and opium dens, something that may have contributed to the ultimate defeat of his great talent. In the historical book "They All Played Ragtime" by Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis, Sam Patterson describes Louis & his lifestyle as follows: "About five feet five and never over 145 pounds. He looked delicate with his fine features and his long, tapering fingers, but he was wild and strong. He never gambled, but he stayed up, drank, and made lots of love. He loved women, but he treated them like dirt. He always had two or three. He loved whisky, too, but he only seemed to be living when he was at the piano. It's authentic, I guess, that he smoked opium at the last." There have been some rumors from time to time about a particular song or piano piece that Chauvin had composed & actually managed to put to paper. Although claims have been left unsubstantiated with no drafts or forms of the piece in existence today, there has been three recovered drafts of works possibly put down by Sam Patterson. They all came from a vaudeville musical play that Patterson and Chauvin wrote and produced together titled "Dandy Coon," with Joe Jordan as their musical director. In it, Chauvin sang and played piano, and both he and Patterson danced the cakewalk, often in women's attire. However, their act folded after just a few performances on the road, leaving Chauvin & Sam to carry on with casual street performances, in & out of clubs. Biography is continued in the pinned comment below. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Timestamps: 0:00:00 - The Moon is Shining in the Skies [With Sam Patterson] (1903) 0:03:06 - Babe, It's Too Long Off [With Elmer Bowman] (1906) 0:06:23 - Heliotrope Bouquet [With Scott Joplin] (1907) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music composed by Louis I. Chauvin & performed by Reginald R. Robinson with his album "Euphonic Sounds" Music description provided & written by Bill Edwards © 1998-2024 Bill Edwards ℗ 1998 Delmark Records This video is solely for the purposes of compiling and sharing the music of Louis I. Chauvin and in no way or means is being used for monetary purposes.