Zac Salem The Ragtime Inquirer "Don't Chew The Rag, Sing It!" Extract From a 2004 interview: Tell me about your musical debut? I was seven years old. It was a piano recital at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, California. Ragtime? No, that was later. I took lessons from Jonathan Khuner, who was open to that, as long as I also learned some systematic classical technique. As long as I ate my vegetables, so to speak. Your first paid work as a musician? That was at the Victorian Museum in Nevada City. Today I believe it is also known as the Teddy Bear Museum. I was about sixteen. Dinner was included. I recall the occasion was an anniversary of Charles Dickens' birthday. The impresario that hired me, well into his cups and dressed like an undertaker, kept requesting that I play the theme to Doctor Zhivago. When was the next time anyone ever paid you any money to play music? Come on. So you studied music in Mexico? What, Ragtime? Would you believe it. Actually, I heard quite a bit of Agustin Lara's musical legacy. I spent a lot of time at the Lagunilla Flea Market near Tepito searching out just that sort of thing. I then became interested in early 20th Century Mexican vocal music, Guty Cardenas, Juan Arvizu, Trio Garnica-Ascencio and so forth. I used to go around door to door in the colonial city of Oaxaca looking for 78rpm records. I tried to get into the National Conservatory Of Music in Mexico City, and finally succeeded. That is, they let me onto the grounds of the school to have a look around, after much persuasion. Later I met the daughter of Julian Carillo, of "Thirteenth Sound" fame, and got to try his different pianos tuned to quarter notes, whole notes, etc. I played a recital at the Casa Wagner in Mexico City. Shall I go on? In retrospect, Mexico is a great country for music and art, mainly because people cherish artistic expression and show a lot of enthusiasm for it on a popular level. What got you started singing and playing guitar? That was back in California. One thing led to another. I met and interviewed some of the surviving members of the original group "Los Madrugadores", Josefina Caldera and Victor Sanchez. I learned from them. I later met Nancy Torres, and learned from her. Since then I've had the good fortune to learn from a lot of fine people, but they were the first. So where was that? In Los Angeles, back in the old chaw and spit days. I tell you, sonny, things has changed considerable since then. Ever since that thar railroad come through..... Our three minutes are almost up. I'd have to mention Margarita's Restaurant on 24th street in San Francisco. I sang with Margarita for a few years, we had a repertoire of great old songs from the 1920s: Tata Nacho, Lorenzo Barcelata, Alfonso Esparza Oteo...a wonderful guitarist, Jacinto Castillo, used to perform with us. A lot of great singers came to her restaurant, a real bohemian rendezvous. What are some of your current musical endeavors? I've started playing with a group called Dodge's Sundodgers. For this I am developing my banjo and mandolin skills under the tutelage of Allan Dodge. A lot of what we play is ragtime based, but not what I would call revivalist. Rather I think we are approaching the music with certain stylistic precepts, some of which pre-date the ragtime era proper, and some of which are more typical of the 1920s and 30s. Did I just say that? What are some of your influences? If you look back to the era in which "popular musician" was a career option, though maybe not a good one, there are a million vibrant influences. What you might call the "Golden Age" of popular music worldwide. That would be the late 'teens to the mid 1930s. People still wanted live music for every occasion, the song writing business was flourishing, and a quick exchange of musical ideas was first happening via radio and phonograph recording. There was also a high degree of musicianship amongst the population in those pre-T.V. days, whether you were a cowboy on the range or a student at Vassar. And the well-springs of traditional music were still flowing on a world scale. Anyone in particular? I've been religiously viewing the Vitaphone musical short subjects that have become available. These are some of the first sound films of vaudeville and variety acts and date from 1926 onward. In a sense we are living in a utopian period for accessing this wealth of early recorded music and early film. When I was growing up you were lucky if you could get ahold of a Document LP, or find a rare 78rpm record. Now there is a virtual blizzard of reissues in digital format. And cataracts of early films are being unearthed and issued by the thousands. An embarrassment of riches, so to speak. But you want specifics? James Reese Europe and his famous 369th U.S. Infantry "Hell Fighters" band, for one. Then there are the compositions of Stephen Foster, Charles K. Harris, Harry Von Tilzer... Aren't those last rather sentimental? I see that you know your onions. But many are unaware of how difficult life was in America in those days, and how brutally short many people's existences were. Our first native musical forms expressed sympathy for that harsh reality. Viewed from a comfortable modern perspective, it is easy to ridicule that sentimentality, but no one was laughing about it back in the day. Don't forget that a lot of what Irving Berlin wrote was informed by the same current of sentimentality that runs through much of 19th century popular culture. Mind you, there are more modern writers, such as Ernest Hogan, Charles H. Daniels, and Percy Wenrich.... Five most overrated things in todays music world? Can we make it ten? Racial identity (I myself am African-American, but let's not make a big thing of it) Singer-Songwriters (Woody Guthrie was one of the last really great ones) Cool (If you are going to ridicule something, make it coolness, not Charles K. Harris) Tattoos. (Great literary quotations are O.K.) Piercing. (You guessed it. I'm unbelievably square) Are you still playing Ragtime piano? Then as now. Thank you. Zac Salem, signing off. Abyssinia. The opinions expressed are those of both the interviewer and the interviewee.