Max Morath RIP

[Richard M Roberts]

Damn, I missed this somehow when he passed away back in June at the age of 96. Max Morath was a great Ragtime pianist and performer who did his part in bringing back the music of Scott Joplin a decade or more before THE STING and continued to do so for decades after and into the 21st Century. He also had a huge part in the early success of Public Television in America when his early NET shows THE RAGTIME ERA and THE TURN OF THE CENTURY were big hits in the early 1960's (they were two of NET's earliest shows that were actually entertaining). Those shows were Public Television mainstays in the 1960's and unfortunately have dropped off the map completely since then. I spoke with Max about these shows in the 1980's and at that time, he believed that they no longer existed, being produced on the early two-inch videotapes, he had nothing on them in his own collection but a few kinescoped clips. They really do need to be recovered and re-released, it was a terrific show that I remember well and it certainly introduced me to and fueled my interest in Ragtime and Tin Pan Alley Music of the early Twentieth Century.

This Obit from Rocky Mountain PBS (Max originally produced these shows for KRMA, the NET affiliate in Denver, Colorado), actually contains an episode from THE RAGTIME ERA that shows you just how entertaining and informative the show was:

https://www.rmpbs.org/blogs/news/max-mo ... -era-obit/

Max had a long, happy life performing the music that he loved, and kept Ragtime alive way after THE STING's big but short-lived revival brought it way back into the mainstream. Rest in Peace Max.

RICHARD M ROBERTS