"father of ragtime" SCOTT JOPHLIN (the entertainer)--O.T

In the 1940s, a group of jazz musicians seeking to revitalize
their art with the spirit of the past, included ragtime in their
development of “traditional jazz.” This inspired a “ragtime
revival,” and though it was slight, it continued to slowly gain
adherents.

The revival peaked in the 1970s as new
recordings of Joplin’s music, produced for the first time on
classical labels, set classical sales records. At the same time,
the notated music became available through reprinted
collections, most notably a two-volume set issued by the
New York Public Library, and Treemonisha was successfully
staged, finally reaching Broadway.

This quickly growing
presence inspired a film director to use Joplin’s music in his
film The Sting, which became immensely popular and brought
Joplin to the notice of the mass public. The result was
unprecedented in music history.

Led by music that Joplin had composed more than a
half-century earlier, ragtime became a
current and universally loved style. Piano recitalists
programmed it alongside Chopin mazurkas, dancers stepped
to its rhythms in discos, and pop artists played it in stadiums
filled with thousands of delighted rock fans.

Recordings of
Joplin’s music reached the top rungs of the marketing charts
for both classical and popular categories. Ragtime was back.