Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
To celebrate one year since I started this channel (with Axel Christensen playing 'Teasing the Klassics'), I am once again posting a Christensen recording. Thanks to all those out there who have made these past 121 videos possible.
A rare recording of Axel Christensen's voice, with himself at the piano. This is a surviving remnant of his typical vaudeville routine, which consisted of the following, according to a 1927 promotional brochure:
'For vaudeville, where his time is naturally limited to not more than 20 minutes, his routine is usually as follows:
1. Novelty Piano Solo.
2. Pianologue – A Reminder of Bert Williams, in colored dialect.
3. Monologue – Skandinavian atmosphere in dialect and full of laughs.
4. Piano Solo – Medley of popular tunes, played in his own style, with plenty of breaks, fills and embellishments to delight the modern music lover.
5. Encore: His impression of a tobacco chewing old soldier telling a duck story.
For club entertainments this routine is lengthened out to about 30 minutes by adding a character monologue in English dialect, such as:
6. The Honorable Bassington- Bassington talks on Physiology.
7 . Monologue – Mrs. Gilhooly's experience with the bottles, in Irish dialect.
8. Piano Solo – A syncophonic version of the Overture "Poet and Peasant," or "An Alpine Storm."
For full evening programs he delves deeper into his repertoire and gives serious pianologue readings such as James Whitcomb Riley's "An Old Sweetheart of Mine" and "The River Smile." This is followed by selected piano solos, interspersed with pianologues, monologues, stories, etc., etc.
Anyway, when the evening is over you'll say you've been ENTERTAINED.'
Brochure excerpt courtesy Ted Tjaden.
More Axel Christensen:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbGAQvbfY3Z2W89jwdwoQm3BlqRl0dlvE&si=PiULqgwK9kSHIbtR
To celebrate one year since I started this channel (with Axel Christensen playing 'Teasing the Klassics'), I am once again posting a Christensen recording. Thanks to all those out there who have made these past 121 videos possible.
A rare recording of Axel Christensen's voice, with himself at the piano. This is a surviving remnant of his typical vaudeville routine, which consisted of the following, according to a 1927 promotional brochure:
'For vaudeville, where his time is naturally limited to not more than 20 minutes, his routine is usually as follows:
1. Novelty Piano Solo.
2. Pianologue – A Reminder of Bert Williams, in colored dialect.
3. Monologue – Skandinavian atmosphere in dialect and full of laughs.
4. Piano Solo – Medley of popular tunes, played in his own style, with plenty of breaks, fills and embellishments to delight the modern music lover.
5. Encore: His impression of a tobacco chewing old soldier telling a duck story.
For club entertainments this routine is lengthened out to about 30 minutes by adding a character monologue in English dialect, such as:
6. The Honorable Bassington- Bassington talks on Physiology.
7 . Monologue – Mrs. Gilhooly's experience with the bottles, in Irish dialect.
8. Piano Solo – A syncophonic version of the Overture "Poet and Peasant," or "An Alpine Storm."
For full evening programs he delves deeper into his repertoire and gives serious pianologue readings such as James Whitcomb Riley's "An Old Sweetheart of Mine" and "The River Smile." This is followed by selected piano solos, interspersed with pianologues, monologues, stories, etc., etc.
Anyway, when the evening is over you'll say you've been ENTERTAINED.'
Brochure excerpt courtesy Ted Tjaden.
More Axel Christensen:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbGAQvbfY3Z2W89jwdwoQm3BlqRl0dlvE&si=PiULqgwK9kSHIbtR
![I Want to See My Child (1911) by Scott Joplin [1976 SMOOTH JAZZ SOLO]
Mike Wofford plays a famed Treemonisha opera segment, in which Treemonishas parents yearn for her return from her captors, in the improv style of smooth jazz.
#ragtime #scottjoplin #smoothjazz
A Real Slow Drag is the most popular song in Joplins opera, Treemonisha. Treemonisha is the greatest American opera, and it tells the story of a woman who is abandoned at birth and grows up to become a leader of her community after she is kidnapped by evildoers. Though it would only be performed once in Joplins lifetime, lacking orchestration and heavily abridged, it experienced a grand revival in 1972, and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1976.
©1976 Flying Dutchman Productions, Ltd.
More Scott Joplin:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbGAQvbfY3Z3FDwU5UdnwCnkd7zkbX4mS&si=dlDrjm5EjRfaaUKt
Full album of this song:
https://youtu.be/BL_43JExzVY?si=vnv4U-eSJCvV5Rxh I Want to See My Child (1911) by Scott Joplin [1976 SMOOTH JAZZ SOLO]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tuNlxaa0cWI/mqdefault.jpg)
![Phoebe Thompsons Cake Walk (1899) by Sadie Koninsky [1900 Cylinder Recording, Metropolitan Band]
An exceedingly scarce cylinder recording of a rag from the cakewalk craze. And whats more, it was written by a woman, Sadie Koninsky. She was one of the most notable female composers of the era, and one of the first to use her birth name rather than a male-sounding pseuydonym. Eli Greens Cake Walk (1898) is her other famous work, but she continued to compose until 1918.
The cover art is outdated and derogatory. It is presented in its original form for historical purposes.
More Sadie Koninsky: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLMkuz4vEFoOsErnA0BuoqIRx6DDgIqg3&si=v6pNR9Xvz6lH9dkv Phoebe Thompsons Cake Walk (1899) by Sadie Koninsky [1900 Cylinder Recording, Metropolitan Band]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tun-K1_Tx54/mqdefault.jpg)


![Albert Reiss - Witches’ Ride [Hexenritt] (1911)
From the 1893 opera, Hänsel und Gretel, by Englebert Humperdinck.
#halloween #opera #1910s
My Official Halloween Playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbGAQvbfY3Z16cs9lZ1jh9sM0xZI0_jRV&si=O1odoPf7oNCg5udB Albert Reiss - Witches’ Ride [Hexenritt] (1911)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uWRzvizoS08/mqdefault.jpg)
![St. Louis Rag (1903) by Tom Turpin [1948 Pianola Recording]
Tom Turpin wrote this classic rag ahead of the 1904 St. Louis Worlds Fair, one of many ragtime composers to do so. It is played here on pianola, piano roll courtesy of George Moore. Note how the record label erroneously says Turpin is the pianist. Turpin is not known to have recorded any piano rolls, so I rule this out.
I posted the flip side of this record nearly two years ago, as the second video on this channel. It is kind of shocking it took so long to post the flip side: https://youtu.be/NGGALrlZepo?si=P_UolNFY0Fn H5Q
Tom Turpin (1871-1922) was the composer of the first ragtime piece with the word rag in the title. Harlem Rag is his greatest hit. It was written from 1889-1892, but it wasnt published until 1897, making so that Mississippi Rag by William Henry Krell got moniker as the first piece with rag in the title. Other famous pieces include Buffalo Rag and St. Louis Rag.
This record is not yet public domain; all rights reserved to the copyright owner. Obviously, these videos are not posted for financial gain.
More Tom Turpin: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLMkuz4vEFoOzFldAWPzj6flrm7lG-c3H&si=NqMzp-z2GiLUoY0B St. Louis Rag (1903) by Tom Turpin [1948 Pianola Recording]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uoDAe8HJAPc/mqdefault.jpg)



![Prelude to Act III (1911) by Scott Joplin [1976 SMOOTH JAZZ SOLO]
Mike Wofford plays a famed Treemonisha opera segment, the first song of the final act, in the improv style of smooth jazz.
#ragtime #scottjoplin #smoothjazz
A Real Slow Drag is the most popular song in Joplins opera, Treemonisha. Treemonisha is the greatest American opera, and it tells the story of a woman who is abandoned at birth and grows up to become a leader of her community after she is kidnapped by evildoers. Though it would only be performed once in Joplins lifetime, lacking orchestration and heavily abridged, it experienced a grand revival in 1972, and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1976.
©1976 Flying Dutchman Productions, Ltd.
More Scott Joplin:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbGAQvbfY3Z3FDwU5UdnwCnkd7zkbX4mS&si=dlDrjm5EjRfaaUKt
Full album of this song:
https://youtu.be/BL_43JExzVY?si=vnv4U-eSJCvV5Rxh Prelude to Act III (1911) by Scott Joplin [1976 SMOOTH JAZZ SOLO]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vvXqBMA8Qq4/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Murray Walk (1914) by Paul Biese and F. Henri Klickmann [Played by Princes Band in 1916]
The Murray Walk (1914) by Paul Biese and F. Henri Klickmann [Played by Princes Band in 1916] The Murray Walk (1914) by Paul Biese and F. Henri Klickmann [Played by Princes Band in 1916]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wkZlFOAeHGU/mqdefault.jpg)