CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION HONORS TEXARKANA NATIVE SCOTT JOPLIN,
One of Texarkana’s most beloved residents, Scott Joplin, receives a grand celebration in a three-day, multiple-venue festival at the end of the month.
From Friday, March 31, to Sunday, April 2, the Regional Music Heritage Center presents the Scott Joplin International Centennial Celebration with Joplin’s music and more.
The new festival welcomes many musicians, including Texarkana native and acclaimed jazz artist Roseanna Vitro, MacArthur Genius Grant winner Reginald Robinson, rockabilly band Texarkana Trio (from the Netherlands), the Texarkana Jazz Orchestra, Carol CollinsMiles and Three of a Kind and more.
It all begins with a Centennial Celebration Preview that Friday at Silvermoon on Broad, start time 6:30 p.m., with a variety of performers, including Collins-Miles and her band, jazz singer Candace Taylor, the Texarkana Trio and John Tennison, who will perform boogie woogie tunes. Hors d’oeuvres and beverages are included.
The Scott Joplin International Centennial Celebration main event night starts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Perot Theatre. The program includes the winning ensemble from the Four States Student Jazz Showcase, which is held earlier in the day. Collins-Miles and her band will perform her composition “The Texarkana Jazz Rag,” too.
Robinson performs ragtime music next, the music for which he’s known. The selftaught Robinson, who hails from Chicago, heard Joplin’s “The Entertainer” as a 7th grader, which inspired his love for ragtime. Since then, he’s gone on to perform the piano internationally and with various ensembles, in addition to the Chicago Sinfonietta and Orbert Davis’ Chicago Jazz Philharmonic.
Vitro will perform with a small group of musicians, and then after an intermission, the Texarkana Jazz Orchestra performs under the direction of Dick Eckstein with Vitro joining them. Rule Beasley of the Texarkana Beasley family, long involved in the local music scene, will receive the first RMHC Lifetime Achievement Award, called a “Boogie.”
Also on Saturday in the morning, “Scott Joplin Way” will be dedicated downtown along 3rd Street.
Then, Sunday at the Perot starting at 2 p.m. it’s a rock and rock show with a tribute to Dr. Carl “Cheesie” Nelson, with the Texarkana Trio and Elvis tribute artist George Thomas, who will be backed by the Texarkana Trio. There’s also a tribute to Pat Cupp, also a Texarkana resident, who teamed with “Cheesie” Nelson and later became a rockabilly musician in his own right. His songs
included “Long Gone Daddy,” and he achieved recognition in Europe. He will attend the festivities.
After this “Texarkana ROCKS” show, two plaques will be dedicated at the Arkansas Municipal Auditorium’s Walk of Fame, one for Cupp and another for jazz musician Jay Franks. AMA tours will be offered, too.
For David Mallette, the RMHC’s executive director, the Joplin festival is a dream come true just about a century to the day after Joplin died. But there’s much more than music by Joplin, who achieved lasting fame with ragtime, on tap.
“There’s a good reason it’s varied, not just ragtime,” he said, noting ragtime’s connection to jazz, jazz’s connection to rock music and the presence of boogie woogie, which is thought to have started in our region.
“It’s all part of the same thing,” Mallette said, who’s amazed every day by Texarkana and the region’s roots in music history. This is what gets him jazzed for a celebration like this.
About the preview party Friday night, Mallette says they’ll have music performed both in the theater and in the Silvermoon’s Great Hall. While the Texarkana Trio performs on stage, rotating performances happen in the hall. “It’s going to be a free flow of people,” Mallette said.
Saturday night’s performance lineup is being produced by Vitro, who says she’s excited to perform in her hometown at the Perot.
“I was happy to help David Mallette put together a wonderful debut concert to blast off his dream of the Texarkana Regional Music Heritage Center,” she said. “I will sing a program appropriate for a Scott Joplin celebration.” Among those joining her will be Bass Deese on piano and, another jazz legend from the area, Tonk Edwards on guitar.
Songs like “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” “I’ll be Seeing You,” “On the Sunny Side of the Street” and more are on tap for them Saturday night. With the big TJO band, the repertoire includes “I Love You Madly,” “More Than You Know” and others.
The intermission that night provides something special, a recording by Paul Klipsch (of Klipsch speakers fame) of John Eargle, an Arkansas High School graduate who became a pioneering audio engineer and a musician.
“I’m going to play one piece he recorded at the Perot on the Robert H. Morton organ. It’s a miracle this thing turned up,” Mallette said. The recording was made in 1954. It will be first time the organ has been heard in the Perot since that time, the RMHC director said.
Mallette says of the three-day festival, “This is about as exciting an entertainment-packed weekend as has come along in a long time in this city and it highlights a whole new area.”
(Tickets are sold separately for each of the three main events. SJICC Preview Night: $35. SJICC: $15-$40. Texarkana ROCKS: $16-$43. They’re available online with more information at TexarkanaRMHC.org or at the door, if available. You can also call the Perot Theatre box office at 903-792-4992.)