The King of Ragtime

by Larry Karp

  Stark’s face darkened; his thick brows bristled.

  “They also found two music manuscripts, tucked away between Tabor’s desk blotter and the pad. Both had Dubie Harris’ name on them.”

  Stark grunted. “Perhaps Waterson will want to publish them.”

  “Oh yes, Waterson. He swore he had nothing to do with the murder and kidnaping. Supposedly, Tabor told him Berlin had borrowed the apartment key, and that the price of Tabor’s silence about the embezzling would be Berlin’s position in the company, once Berlin was arrested and convicted. He also insisted he’d taken Scott’s music in good faith, to consider it for publishing, and that he’d tried to tell Scott he was not Berlin. Ciccone didn’t believe him, but decided it wasn’t worth pursuing.”

  “I agree. At this point, it doesn’t matter.” Stark coughed into a handkerchief. “Mr. Ciccone was here before I’d had my breakfast. He asked a few questions, I gave him answers, and he was gone. He must have spent a lot longer talking to you.”

  “About half an hour.” Nell fidgeted with the straps of her handbag. “I made him some coffee, then after he left, I went up to Harlem and talked to Dubie’s aunt and uncle. I thought they ought to know how it all came out. Not that it made them feel much better.”

  “I’d forgotten—that was good of you, Nell.” Stark reached to the bedside table for a glass of water, took a drink. “The doctor came by a little while ago, checked me over, and said I’m doing fine. He thinks it’s just a concussion, no real damage, and he’ll probably let me go tomorrow.”

  Nell’s face brightened. “Dad, that’s wonderful. My hearing’s the day after tomorrow…and I’ll admit, I feel much better, knowing you’ll be there. Then I want to go back to St. Louis with you. It’s been a while since I’ve been home, and to tell the truth, I wouldn’t mind a little time to catch my breath.”

  On the verge of telling her he did not need a nursemaid, Stark caught himself. “Yes, of course. But what about Lottie? Who’s going to help her with Joplin, if there’s a problem?”

  “It’s all settled. While I’m away, Martin will stay in a room at Lottie’s, and Joe will be available if things get out of hand. I’ll be back in less than a week.”

  Stark smiled. “You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you? I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  ***

  As the St. Louisan pulled out of Pennsylvania Station, Stark stared relentlessly out the window. He’s closing the book, Nell thought, and sat in silence until the train had cleared the Hudson River and started to roll across New Jersey. At that point, Stark turned to her and said, “Nell, not a word to the family. Nothing about my dream or my injury.”

  She managed a crooked smile. “Don’t worry, Dad. As far as anyone else is concerned, it took a little while, but in the end you recovered the music from Berlin, as only you could have done.”

  Stark’s eyes were sad. “And nothing about any murders.”

  “We’re co-conspirators. But what are you going to tell Isaac about his gun?”

  “Exactly what happened. He deserves to know that his concern saved our lives. I’ll get him another pistol to replace his loss. Truth be told, my dear, I’m glad to see the last of that particular gun.”

  “Not to mention Irving Berlin.”

  Stark chuckled, then sighed. “I can’t help but feel sorry for Berlin.”

  “I find that difficult to believe.”

  “No, really. He thinks the castle he’s worked so hard to construct will stand forever, but everything on Tin Pan Alley is built on sand. One day, the public will tire of him and turn to someone else. And there he’ll be, on his bogus throne, screaming at the top of his lungs that he’s the King of Ragtime, but his court will be empty, no one to hear. He’d never admit it, but he’s going to worry his whole life long about that dustup with Joplin over ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’ ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,’ my dear—particularly when that crown was ill-gotten.”

  Nell grinned. “‘The saddest of all kings, crowned and again discrowned.’ She fiddled with a button on the front of her dress. “I have a confession to make.”

  “I’m hardly a priest.”

  “Dad, listen to me. While you were in the hospital, the day I went up to Harlem—that wasn’t just to see Mr. and Mrs. Barbour. I also gave Lottie some money.”

  Stark shrugged lightly. “I’m sure that was generous of you, but I don’t see—”

  “It wasn’t generosity, Dad. Not mine, anyway. I sold Scott’s music to Irving Berlin.”

  “You did what?”

  “Dad please—don’t make a scene, not here. Just listen. Right about noon, while Detective Ciccone was still at my place, Berlin called and asked me to bring Scott’s music to his apartment. I couldn’t imagine what he had in mind. When I got there, Mr. Hess played some of it, then Berlin said it was unpublishable, but he wanted to buy it anyway. He said he could use a lot of those short passages to help him get started on tunes, and offered five hundred dollars. I asked him how much that would work out to for every new ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band,’ which got him up to seven hundred. And by the time I was through telling him he owed Scott more than that, I had a thousand dollars in cash, and he had a promise that no one but you would ever hear about the deal. Then I went up to Harlem, gave Lottie the money, and told her not to ask questions.”

  Stark sat back in his seat, rested his head on the cushion, closed his eyes. Berlin! The man couldn’t even wait till the bodies were cold, had to call about the music the instant he was out of bed for the day. What kind of person does that? And then the answer came to Stark, and calmed him. Somebody got murdered? Fine, fine. Let’s get the blood cleaned up, so I can finish the tune I’m writing, and then start another one. As far as Irving Berlin was concerned, anyone or anything that got in the way of putting music on paper was a distraction and a nuisance. The man was a music-writing machine.

  Like Scott Joplin.

  Stark turned his head, looked at his daughter. “I’d have sent the scoundrel packing, never mind that would have meant depriving Lottie of a good deal of money. Of course I failed in New York. Had I made you a partner when I was in business here, and given you rein, we would have succeeded famously.”

  Nell chewed at her upper lip. “You know, Dad, I can’t tell whether you’re complimenting me or not.”

  The smile in Stark’s eyes spread across his face. “That, my dear, is something you must decide for yourself.”

  Nell’s eyes filled. She took a copy of Etude Magazine from her bag, opened it, then pretended to read as she ran an idea back and forth through her mind. Set up a branch of Stark Music in New York? The firm had begun in Sedalia, in 1899, as John Stark and Son. This time, do it right. John Stark and Daughter.

  Stark turned back toward the window, watched New York City fly into his past. Good-bye, Irving Berlin. Good riddance, Henry Waterson. Bartlett Tabor, Lieutenant Jordan—till we meet again. I’ll be watching for you.

  The haunting melody of Joplin’s “Solace” began to play in his mind. Damn, he could have published that one, and so many others. If only he’d listened to Nell…but there’s an idea. What might she think about opening a branch of the firm in New York? She’d have all of Tin Pan Alley eating out of her hand.

  Nell lowered her magazine. Stark looked around, met her gaze.

  No, they thought. We’d kill each other.

  Afterward, neither of them could say who laughed first.

  The Last Word

  Seattle, Washington

  October 22, 2007

  Morning

  1911 was a red-letter year for Irving Berlin. As sales of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” soared, its composer was welcomed into New York’s prestigious Friars Club, got to parade up Broadway in a top hat, performed in a one-week celebrity-vehicle show at the Victoria Theatre, bought a house in the Bronx for his mother, relocated to an apartment suite two blocks north of Central Park, and became a partner in
a large music-publishing firm. He also decided that “the name Irving Berlin on a musical composition tends to increase the sale thereof,” and so, filed a petition to make his new moniker his legal name, thereby protecting his “exceedingly valuable” piece of intellectual property from poachers.

  But not everyone was enchanted with the young rising star and his song about the Negro bandleader. When Scott Joplin heard it, he reportedly burst into tears and cried, “That’s my tune.”

  Some thirty-five years later, members of the Stark family told interviewers Joplin had left some music with Irving Berlin, who returned it, saying he couldn’t use it. Lottie Joplin was both more and less specific: “After Scott had finished writing his opera, and while he was showing it around, hoping to get it published, someone stole the theme and made it into a popular song. The number was quite a hit, too, but that didn’t do Scott any good. To get his opera copyrighted, he had to re-write it.” Joplin’s friend Sam Patterson stated that Irving Berlin had stolen two of Joplin’s pieces, “Mayflower Rag” (a composition not known to exist) and the “Marching Onward” portion of “A Real Slow Drag” from Treemonisha. And W.A. Corey, a columnist for American Musician, wrote in his column for November 11, 1911: “Scott Joplin is anxious to meet Irving Berlin. Scott is hot about something.”

  Tin Pan Alley’s grapevine buzzed with rumors about the authorship of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” Word was, the young composer had paid a Black man a paltry sum for his breakthrough hit, and perhaps for other tunes as well. Berlin denied it, demanding that his accusers name the wronged man and bring him forward. If they did, Berlin said, and if the man could write another hit like “Alexander,” Berlin would pay him twenty thousand dollars. So far as I know, Berlin never had to pay up.

  What can we make of this tangle of accusations and innuendoes? Ragtime historian Ed Berlin compared passages from “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “Marching Onward,” and concluded “the resemblance is not close enough to charge Irving Berlin with plagiarism. Yet…the recognizable melodic linkage…does explain Joplin’s perception of a theft. And the resemblance between the two pieces may originally have been closer, for Lottie had said Joplin rewrote his theme after hearing the melody used by someone else…But neither can the evidence of a misappropriation be dismissed…It seems unlikely that the greatest of all Tin Pan Alley empires could have been built upon a succession of misappropriations…But could Berlin have pirated a theme once, early in his career? Did he take from Scott Joplin, the first King of Ragtime, a jewel for his own coronation?”

  Case dismissed, lack of evidence. But the file likely will never be closed.

  ***

  There are people who don’t read fiction because “that’s just made-up stuff. It never happened. It’s not true.” But truth has a broader compass than reality. A truth may come into clearer focus when viewed through a fictional lens.

  Several biographies of Irving Berlin include a specific account of a champagne party thrown by Henry Waterson in December, 1911, to celebrate Berlin’s becoming a partner in the firm (and, incidentally, to get the company a bit of publicity). In a room full of reporters, Waterson, having drunk more of the evening’s beverage of choice than perhaps he should have, announced that Broadway wise guys were saying “Alexander” was only the tip of an iceberg—that most or all of Berlin’s hits were written by a “colored picka-ninny” man Berlin kept hidden away. Supposedly, the remark so offended the composer that he determined then and there to leave Waterson, Berlin, and Snyder when he could, and start up his own music publishing company.

  When I mentioned that story to a prominent ragtime scholar, he advised me to take a careful look at my source material. When I did, I saw that one biographer had presented the incident without reference, and all the others had cited his account. A request to the first author for a primary source brought the reply, “It’s just a story, probably a myth.” And I could find no report of the incident in a newspaper or magazine of the time.

  In my afterword to The Ragtime Kid, I explained that my goal had been to use history as a framework for a fictional attempt to illuminate and comprehend the motives of the people involved. Consequently, I’d done my best both to get background information straight and complete, and not contradict or alter established history.

  I took the same approach in writing The King of Ragtime, and so, my initial reaction on learning that the champagne party probably never took place was to remove all references to the event from my novel. But in the end, I decided to leave the material in. Though I could not verify the anecdote, it was true to my story—consistent both with the envy and resentment engendered in Tin Pan Alley by Berlin’s prodigious early success, and with written accounts of Henry Waterson’s character.

  ***

  On September 7, 1916, a reporter for the New York American wrote that Scott Joplin had written a musical play called If, and was working on his Symphony Number One. No manuscript of either work has ever come to light, but Joplin did leave a large stock of unpublished work that disappeared, largely due to careless and/or improper actions by people to whom he’d entrusted the material. By the summer of 1916, Joplin’s health was in serious decline; historical references contain many comments as to his physical limitations and peculiar behavior. I don’t think we’ll ever know whether the symphony and the musical play existed beyond the disturbed mind of the composer.

  ***

  The falling-out between Joplin and John Stark has been variably reported as having occurred in 1908 and 1909, and it resulted in a permanent rupture of the relationship between the men. For several years, Stark fulminated against his former associate both in speech and on paper; curiously, Joplin seems to have maintained at least a public silence on the matter. Angry as Stark was, would he have gotten on a train in 1916 and come to New York to help Joplin through serious trouble? I think he might have, particularly if the trouble involved allegations of improprieties by a prominent Tin Pan Alley publisher. One can read a good deal of pity along with the anger in Stark’s declamations against Joplin, but the old publisher had nothing but contempt and disgust for Tin Pan Alley, its music, and its composers. When Joplin died, Stark wrote a moving obituary, which began, “Scott Joplin is dead. A homeless itinerant, he left his mark on American music.” And later that year, Stark put aside his vow to never publish another piece by Joplin, and brought out Reflection Rag, a tune that had been lying for years in the company files.

  ***

  The clinical presentation of syphilis is extremely variable, both in range and severity of signs and symptoms. Belle and Scott Joplin’s baby, who lived only a few months, was said to be weak and sickly from birth. One cause of this “failure to thrive” is congenital syphilis, transmitted to the fetus from an infected mother. Though some historians have assumed that Belle contracted the infection from Scott, it’s entirely possible that the reverse was true—that another partner infected Belle, who passed the disease along to both her husband and their baby.

  ***

  According to her contemporaries, Nell Stark was an excellent ragtime pianist. She was a major stockholder in Stark Music Company, vetted tunes submitted for publication, and championed Scott Joplin’s work. For some three years, John Stark refused to publish The Ragtime Dance, but in 1902, his daughter finally persuaded him to the contrary. As far as I’m aware, no historical or biographical document mentions a romantic attachment between Nell and Joplin.

  ***

  The Century Girl opened November 11, 1916. The audience and the reviewers were enthusiastic, but not for Irving Berlin’s music. The Ziegfeld show was a visual extravaganza; the sets, costumes and lovely girls utterly overshadowed both the book and the music. None of Berlin’s tunes became hits. The show ran for 200 performances.

  ***

  In 1916, Jim and Nell Stanley really did live at 114 West Seventy-second Street, just four blocks from Irving Berlin’s suite at the Chatsworth. I doubt they socialized.

  **
*

  Irving Berlin never wrote a ragtime opera.

  ***

  What became of the people in this story?

  Scott Joplin’s mental and physical decline progressed. He suffered increasing depression, and even burned some of his manuscripts. From October, 1916 to January, 1917, he told reporters he intended to go to Chicago to visit his sister, but never did. Near the end of January, Lottie was compelled to take him to Bellevue Hospital, from where he was sent to a psychiatric ward in Manhattan State Hospital. He died there on April 1, 1917, the same day Victor released the first recorded jazz tune, “Livery Stable Blues,” by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Some music historians cite this event as signifying the death of ragtime.

  John Stark lived the rest of his life with his son Etilmon and Etilmon’s family in the St. Louis suburb of Maplewood, and remained active in the family publishing business until shortly before his death on November 20, 1927. He never wavered in his belief that ragtime music was the classical American music form, and his last act on behalf of both ragtime and his company was to secure Lottie Joplin’s re-assignment to Stark Music Company of rights to “Maple Leaf Rag,” after she had renewed the copyright.

  Little is known about Eleanor Stark’s subsequent life. She continued to live in New York City with her singer-husband, James Stanley, and probably accompanied the quartets in which he sang. Nell survived her father by less than a year and a half; she died of an unspecified illness on April 7, 1929. She had no children.