Ragtime, and the dance craze that went with it - the 'cakewalk'- first hit the world of entertainment in the 1890's. Some say its syncopated rhythms are derived from banjo music, and the name from 'ragging' - the negro word for clog dancing. This seems plausible because the banjo figuration which often accompanies the dance breaks the beat into two short notes, and this is traceable to the hand clapping and foot-stomping of onlookers to this often frenzied dance.
Others maintain that ragtime is the response of black musicians to the white military march, particularly those of John Philip Sousa, and that the name is a derivation of 'ragged time', describing the syncopation of the melodic line.
(note - when played on a keyboard the 'time'- i.e. the rhythm in the left hand - remains strictly constant in ragtime. Only the melody is syncopated, so that melodic accents fall between metrical beats).

Whatever the derivation, one man emerges as the king of this musical style - Scott Joplin - whose best-known piano compositions, Maple Leaf Rag (1899) and The Entertainer (1902) are now world famous. Another seminal figure, Jelly Roll Morton, wrote many rag-influenced numbers, including Granpda's Spells and King Porter Stomp, but is more important as a key transitional figure between ragtime and jazz.

Tin Pan Alley writers like Irving Berlin later drew heavily on the style, bringing it to the centre of popular culture, where it contributed to the Charleston dance craze of the 1920's. It was also an influence on later piano styles, especially the stride and walking bass figures found in the left hand of boogie-woogie, popularised by James P. Johnson and Fats Waller in the 1920's and '30's, and also the 'ragtime guitar' of the Piedmont blues, of which Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Boy Fuller are probably the best known proponents.

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