When Joan Reynolds was in junior high school, one of the most popular movies at the time was “The Sting.”
A budding pianist, she especially loved the ragtime music in the movie that included the popular “Maple Leaf Rag” written by Scott Joplin.
And she’s still loving it — playing ragtime and other traditional jazz music since the 1980s with the Red Rose Ragtime Band. The group performs Jan. 12, 2020, at the Gorton Community Center in Lake Forest.
Seven musicians playing tuba, trombone, trumpet, clarinet, banjo, piano and drums, have played at Gorton for at least 30 years, said Reynolds and it’s often sold out.
Perhaps it’s because the music they play is what Reynolds calls “happy, cheerful music.”
They work to play ragtime and other early jazz music as it was performed years ago.
“We try to be true to the idiom. We don’t play it too fast or too slow. We listen to recordings and get the feel for it. You always go back to the original recordings.
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The early jazz music the group performs is not just ragtime, but also blues and tunes made famous by Louis Armstrong, King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton, among other early jazz greats. “We play several blues songs made famous by Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey,” she said.
Reynolds started playing piano when she was about 6 years old, she majored in music college and taught music to elementary and junior high school students for decades in the Lake Forest area.
She’s retired from teaching, but still tinkles the ivories with the band, which she co-founded with Mike Schwimmer in the early 1980s.
“He loved ragtime and played washboard of all things,” she said. The washboard, an old-time cleaning instrument, was used as a percussion instrument in early jazz bands.
Schwimmer has since passed. Today, seven folks ranging in ages from the 30s to the 80s, belong to the band. One of them is trumpeter Art Davis, who teaches jazz studies at Northern Illinois University and has toured with Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra. Others include trombonist Tom Bartlett, clarinetist Kim Cusack, tuba player Mike Walbridge, drummer Andy Schumm and banjo player, Leah Bezin.
Reynolds leads the group and plays piano, while the guys sometimes sing, she said.
Reynolds likes to let folks know that ragtime is a true form of music. Each tune contains four melodies and each melody is 15 measures long, she said. “It has a good beat and lots of rhythmic syncopation where the accent is on the offbeat where you don’t expect it.”
“You can learn ragtime by buying the sheet music,” she said. “But you also have to have a feel for it, a rhythmic feel.”
One of her favorite rags is “Roberto Clemente.”
It was written in 1979 by David Thomas Roberts to commemorate the passing of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball star Roberto Clemente in a plane crash.
“That’s our signature tune. We play that at every concert. It has a Spanish tinge,” Reynolds said. “The composer gave me permission to arrange it for the band and we’ve been playing it at every concert.”
She also likes “Cole Smoak” by Clarence St. John written in 1906.
“It’s an obscure rag. It’s a minor key — half of it — and it changes into major key. It’s a fun one to play.”
One of her favorite pieces is “I Must Have It,” a King Oliver Tune.
“It’s not very well-known, but we play it. I love it. It has a beautiful melody and lots of fun breaks,” where individual instrumentalists can improvise, she said.
Over the years, Red Rose Ragtime Band has performed in France, the Netherlands, England, different jazz clubs in England, Wales, on the West Coast, Reynolds said. “Those were the days,” she said.
They also have produced several albums including, “Hot Jazz, Blues … & Ragtime.”
These days the group performs locally at concerts, for example, at Gorton and one coming up at the Woodstock Opera House and at the Illiana Club of Traditional Jazz’s Glendora House in Chicago Ridge.
“They have concerts every month and they encourage dancing. People of all ages will come out dancing,” she said. “The way to keep this music going is to encourage dancing. It’s infectious. Your feet are tapping. You might as well get up and dance.”
Red Rose Jazz 2020
When: 4-6 p.m. Jan. 12
Where: Gorton Community Center, 400 E. Illinois Road, Lake Forest
Tickets: $25 adults; $10 students
Information: 847-234-6060; gortoncenter.org
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Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.