Brian Dykstra is a professor of music and chair of the music department at the College of Wooster in Ohio. As a pianist, he’s something of a ragtime specialist and has composed nearly 40 rags that clearly draw upon Scott Joplin’s legacy, albeit with the harmonic twists and turns of contemporary pop music and jazz. The 11 solo piano rags presented here are charming, unpretentious, well crafted, and fair game for pianists interested in the genre. I love the tender, minor-key Sweet Daydreams with its extensive musings in the piano’s high register; Caffeinated Rag conservatively incorporates some of the unexpected silences and rhythmic displacements you find in Debussy’s Golliwog’s Cakewalk; The Indolent Life lopes along its lyrical way, resting its tired head upon tangy cluster chords and blues-tinged passages that wouldn’t be out of place in a Harold Arlen or Frank Loesser tune.
Dykstra’s melodic gift flowers best and most movingly in the reflective Taking Leave, while the stark textures of Aurora Rag (for violin and piano) bring a Shostakovichian aura into play. The wistful mood evoked by Interlude (for alto sax, violin, and piano) will please listeners familiar with the acoustic world/jazz/fusion ensemble Oregon, and the same instrumental combination proves effective in Umgawa Rag, a strange, episodic piece that can’t quite decide on a groove or a style. Noel Lester’s excellent pianism sensitively serves Dykstra’s aesthetic, although some of the faster pieces (like Rio Rag and Raggedy Blue Romp) might benefit from punchier, more aggressive bass lines and less inhibition–less Joshua Rifkin, more Jo Ann Castle, if you get my drift. All in all, this disc is a sure thing for ragtime buffs.
