In June, 2025 I received an email from FSU graduate student Miranda Hughes asking me to answer some questions about my experience with the xylophone and ragtime-style music.
Dear Mr. Becker,
I hope this message finds you well. My name is Miranda Hughes, and I am a graduate student at Florida State University studying percussion performance and music theory. This summer, I am enrolled in an early jazz history course, and for my final paper, I’m researching ragtime xylophone and its leading figures.
As part of this project, I’ve been studying performers such as George Hamilton Green, Joe Green, Teddy Brown, Harry Breuer, and Sammy Herman. Your work has come up repeatedly in my research—especially your arrangements of Green’s rags for NEXUS and your duet projects with Yurika Kimura. I’ve also had the pleasure of performing many of your arrangements and medleys over the years and would be honored to learn more about them directly from you.
Bob Becker Interview Questions
MH: Are there any non-xylophonist ragtime musicians who have influenced your playing—especially when it comes to improvisation? If not specific musicians, what do you think has shaped your improvisational approach to xylophone rags? (For example: Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Charles L. Johnson, etc.)
BB: As far as style is concerned, I’ve been influenced by a few novelty ragtime pianists, especially the great Frank Banta, who accompanied George Hamilton Green and Sammy Herman on many of their recordings. Victor Arden (real name, Louis Fuicks) was the pianist in the All Star Trio along with Green and saxophonist F. Wheeler Wadsworth. The AST was a very prolific recording group, and I’ve studied dozens of their records. From time to time during the 1990s I performed with the virtuoso Canadian pianist John Arpin. He was a wonderful interpreter of piano rags from the Joplin era, but equally at home with Gershwin and dance styles from the 1920s. The published accompaniments to GHG’s Jazz Classics are technically challenging, especially at Green’s tempos. John played them with ease, and always added his own ideas, very much in the way Banta did on Green’s recordings. I made piano accompaniments for two of my medley arrangements, and John played them in fantastic ways as well.
As to the second part of your question, my approach to improvising in a ragtime style was shaped by all of my previous training and experience. When I was still a child my first teacher gave me various arpeggio exercises that he had composed himself, many of which were based on cycles of chords rather than continuous repetition of the same one. They also were written out in all keys. That alone formed a useful basis for making variations in a way similar to ideas used by GHG. I’m sure you’re familiar with Green’s various lesson collections (e.g., Instruction Course for Xylophone, Modern Improvising, and others). None of those had been republished in 1970 when I became interested in this style of improvisation, nor did I hear any examples of Green’s playing until the remastered LP collection of his duo recordings with Banta was released in 1973. In fact, I didn’t own a xylophone until 1974. At first, I played everything on my marimba in the wrong octave. Although eventually I was able to find and study all of GHG’s published (and some unpublished) materials, I mostly wanted to explore my own ideas within the structures of his pieces. I wasn’t terribly concerned about stylistic accuracy at first. I think everyone in Nexus approached this music in an open and adventurous way. We were living in the 1970s, not the 1920s. We didn’t consider anything to be sacred.
MH: In your view, what is the relevance or importance of ragtime xylophone today for percussionists? Do you think improvisation—especially in ragtime style—still plays an important role in the training or development of classical percussionists?
BB: I think it’s relevant in the sense that the repertoire composed by GHG represents the origin and basis for a very powerful technical approach to playing mallet percussion instruments. The method is explained in Elementary Studies, Instruction Course and Advanced Instructor. It’s not only useful for playing a xylophone with two sticks – it’s an approach that has applications across the board, including on timpani and multiple percussion setups. In addition, GHG was trained in composition, and his pieces, whether in dance styles or more classical forms, are very elegantly structured and use advanced approaches to harmony and rhythm. I think they continue to be challenging and instructive for performers today.
I believe experience with improvisation in any style can be useful for musical development. GHG’s approaches to improvisation are elaborate, and they require a serious commitment of study and practice to master. For anyone with an interest in improvisation within harmonic structures it’s well worth the effort. Green’s progressive approach to learning how to create spontaneous variations, as explained in Instruction Course and Modern Improvising, is one of the first comprehensive methods for jazz improvisation ever published for any instrument.
MH: What initially led you to start arranging pre-existing ragtime pieces, such as those by George Hamilton Green, for xylophone and marimba quartet with NEXUS? Were these arrangements primarily intended for performance, education, preservation, or other purposes?
BB: My acquaintance with Green’s compositions came about through my teacher at the Eastman School of Music, William Street, giving me a large file of original copies of solos from the Jazz Classics and Solo Series upon his retirement in 1967. I had never seen or heard any of this music before then, and I was completely surprised by how complex and demanding it was. After learning that material I began searching for additional published music for xylophone solo, which opened the door to an avalanche of repertoire, instruction manuals, and 78rpm recordings dating from around 1900 to 1930. To this day I’m still trying to digest all that I found from what was truly a golden age for the xylophone.
The first GHG piece I arranged for xylophone and marimba quartet was Rainbow Ripples, in 1973. Nexus premiered it as an encore at an all-improvised concert in March, 1974. At that time the group was not playing any composed repertoire – it was the first piece we had to rehearse. I already had been playing many of Green’s solos from the Jazz Classics series with a quartet of piano (Michael Holmes), bass (Tony Levin), and drums (Steve Gadd). We first played together as students at Eastman, and then worked together occasionally from 1971 – 1974 while we all were living in the Connecticut/NY area. The name of the group at that time was Xylophonia.
I thought Green’s music would be fun for Nexus to play, and I wanted more opportunities to explore it myself. We had no idea what kind of reaction to expect from an audience, but the response to the first performance was overwhelming. I believe some older people remembered the style and rhythmic feeling from their youth, and many younger people found the sound of a keyboard ensemble to be new and exciting. Based on that experience Bill Cahn and I decided to make many more arrangements, which created a large repertoire for the group and led to the direct-to-disc LP Nexus Ragtime Concert in 1976, and the CD Nexus Plays the Novelty Music of George Hamilton Green in 1986.
At the time, none of us had thoughts about reviving a mostly forgotten style, or the possible educational uses of a serious xylophone solo repertoire. We enjoyed the energy and intricacies of Green’s music, which made for a wonderful ensemble interaction. The continued positive response by audiences everywhere kept the momentum alive, and with the group’s on-going support, I could develop more as an improviser in the ragtime and novelty dance styles. It was a new world for all of us.
MH: Approximately how many of George Hamilton Green’s rags have you arranged? Aside from G.H. Green, what other composers’ rags have you arranged? I’d be curious to know how many ragtime works you’ve arranged in total and if there are any you’ve intentionally chosen not to arrange—and why.
BB: KPP currently publishes more than twenty of my arrangements of GHG’s compositions. There are another half dozen or so that are unpublished, but that Nexus used to perform regularly. Bill Cahn also arranged a number of Green’s pieces for Nexus, and Yurika Kimura transcribed and arranged quite a few from recordings by Green with the All Star Trio and other groups. I think I’ve arranged all of Green’s published solos except for Gavotte en badinant and Arabian Minute Dance. They’re beautiful pieces – I just never got around to them. I also arranged some pieces that Green composed but never published (e.g., Charleston Capers, Stop Time, Rajah and Keep Movin’). I found manuscripts of those and others in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
I did arrange a few Scott Joplin rags for Nexus, as well as some concert pieces from the early 1900s. I should mention at this point that the word “rag” is appropriate for the piano solos by Joplin and other composers from the late 1800s, but it’s not correct to apply it to any of GHG’s pieces. All of his compositions are either strict concert works (e.g., Valse Brillante, Rain, The Humming Bird, etc.) or pieces in various dance forms popular during the 1910s and 20s (e.g., waltzes, fox-trots, Charlestons, slow drags, one- and two-step dances, etc.). Although many of his pieces are in a “ragtime style”, Green himself never used the word “rag” to title any of his compositions. If you’re not familiar with some of the excellent historical research about GHG and his music, you should take a look at the dissertations by Ryan Lewis (Much More Than Ragtime – The Musical Life of George Hamilton Green) and Jonathan Singer (Noodling Changes – The Development of Xylophone Improvisation in New York City 1916-1942).
MH: What inspired you to compose your four xylophone medleys? Were they conceived as a cohesive set from the beginning, or did they develop independently? How did you choose and sequence the source material for each medley?
BB: Girlfriends Medley and States Medley were arranged in 1987 and 1988 respectively, and Whispering and Bye Bye in 1999 and 2000. I arranged Girlfriends originally for a performance together with Sammy Herman at PASIC 1987 in St. Louis. That version is for accompaniment by two marimbas – played by Gordon Stout and Dana Kimble at the convention. I wanted the medley to be an homage to Sammy, and I chose the three songs (Margie, Jean, and Dinah) partly because they were included in his collection Modern Hot Xylophone Solos with Piano Accompaniment. Following the convention, I decided to expand the accompaniment to the usual four marimba parts that we were using in Nexus. By this time, we were touring with two 5va concert grand marimbas, and I began to incorporate the lower range in this and the following medley arrangements.
States Medley was designed as a showpiece for 4-mallet playing on the xylophone. Again, Sammy Herman was the inspiration. I chose the three songs because I liked the chord changes and the variety in the forms and keys. Also, all three felt good in the same tempo. Of course, there is a connection among them because of the references to specific US states in the lyrics. Girlfriends and States became a regular part of Nexus’ touring repertoire during the 1990s.
Whispering and Bye Bye were added around 10 years later. Both included tin pan alley hits from the 1920s that I liked and had titles that seemed to link. I look at the four medleys as a kind of compendium of the approaches to xylophone performance I was using during the 1980s and 90s. They were designed to allow for improvised choruses in many places as well. All four medleys were recorded for the Nexus CD Drumtalker in 2003.
MH: I’ve come across several of your blog posts about the Bob Becker Ragtime Xylophone Institute. Could you share how the Institute came about, how many summers it ran, and what its structure or curriculum looked like?
BB: The idea for a ragtime xylophone institute came about in 2000 during a residency at the Leigh Howard Stevens Summer Marimba Seminar. That year Leigh had suggested I spend a few days with selected students and concentrate on ragtime improvisation. One of the participants was Harvey Price, professor of percussion at the University of Delaware, and a fine jazz vibist as well as ragtime xylophonist. He saw that what we were doing could be developed into a week-long intensive course. Harvey proposed we hold it at his school, which had excellent facilities for classes and concerts, and enough practice rooms and keyboard instruments to accommodate each student. The first Bob Becker Ragtime Xylophone Institute was held the next summer in 2001 at the University of Delaware in Newark, DE, and continued there until 2012. I retired as director after that, although Harvey continued the program himself for several more years. The last ragtime seminar that I directed was held in 2014 at Wright State University in Dayton, OH, hosted by Jerry Noble.
During the twelve years at UDel the BBRXI averaged around 10 students – primarily college students, university professors and professional players, from the USA, Canada, Japan, England and Australia. The curriculum for the course evolved quite a bit over time, but generally consisted of daily lecture and/or listening sessions; a group lesson where I and each participant was on his/her own instrument, and we practiced every new exercise and improvisation idea together in real time; and a rehearsal in preparation for the final concert, which consisted of each student performing at least one ragtime xylophone solo piece, accompanied by four others on marimbas. On the concert I always played a few solos myself – enough so that every student had the opportunity to play along with me. The final number on all of our concerts was a round-robin tag-team performance of Jovial Jasper, in which each student played an improvised chorus while the rest of us took turns on the four marimba parts. We developed a large and supportive following in the local Newark community, which made the concerts an important and enjoyable part of the course.
Throughout the sessions Harvey and I shared teaching and coaching roles. His wife Linda, a very fine pianist, often agreed to be accompanist for solos that were not arranged for marimba quartet. Eventually the handout materials totaled over 300 pages and filled two large binders – one for technical and conceptual exercises, and another for historical information. It was always an exceedingly intense but rewarding six days.
MH: Are there any rags you find yourself returning to again and again as a performer? What draws you to them? Are there any pieces you think are underperformed or misunderstood in the repertoire?
BB: During the time Nexus was performing this repertoire, the GHG pieces we played most often were Charleston Capers, The Ragtime Robin, Valse Brillante, Spanish Waltz, Jovial Jasper, Stop Time, Fluffy Ruffles and Dotty Dimples. Later, we programmed my medley arrangements more often than Green’s music. For a number of years in the late 1970s we offered entire concert programs of ragtime and novelty music, and on those we played up to a dozen of my arrangements and many of Bill Cahn’s as well. We also performed shows with small theatre orchestras, sometimes featuring a soprano soloist, and often including a Mack Sennett silent film (Teddy at the Throttle) for the finale. Bill created most of our theatre orchestra arrangements, and he often played drumset and conducted on those concerts. We presented the full show in the Orpheum Theatre in New Orleans for PASIC 1992.
It’s difficult to say whether anyone really understands this music today. None of us in Nexus was alive during the 1920s, and none of us can do the Charleston or Fox-Trot. Hundreds of college students now perform arrangements of Green’s solos, but I doubt many of them have heard his playing on the old recordings. I think all of us respond to these solos in our own ways, and apply the rhythmic feeling and approach to phrasing that seems natural based on our personal backgrounds. George Green and his contemporaries (including his brother Joe, Teddy Brown, Lou Friscoe, et al.) played with very particular approaches to groove, tone and articulation, which characterized the styles of music and dance popular in their day. The very next generation of xylophonists began to expand on those ideas – players such as Harry Breuer and Sammy Herman. Other xylophone players (Red Norvo, Adrian Rollini and Lionel Hampton) began to conform their playing to new dance styles and new recording technologies, and by the end of the 1930s many of them transitioned to a radically new type of instrument, the vibraphone.
MH: Has your interpretation of early ragtime xylophone repertoire changed over the years? For instance, do you approach tempo, articulation, or phrasing differently now than you did when you first began performing these works?
BB: Yes, of course – my interest in performing this kind of music, or any kind of music really, was always about exploration and adventure. Whether it is music by GHG or John Cage, playing together for years with a group like Nexus inevitably leads to evolution, sometimes in unexpected ways. A few years after we began including ragtime arrangements on our programs, my colleague Bill Cahn began collecting old 78rpm records featuring the xylophone. At first, we had no idea how prolific Green and groups like the All Star Trio had been around 1915 – 1925. George Hamilton Green appeared on a majority of the records Bill found on his searches in record stores and antique shops, and those records, much more than his lesson books, were what gave me some insight into Green’s approach to improvisation. Bill’s collection quickly grew to hundreds of records. It became an encyclopedia of information about how to play this music. As you know, up until the advent of digital recording technologies the primary way for students (and professionals) to learn about any kind of jazz or ragtime music was through listening to records, whether LPs or the older 78rpm discs and even cylinder recordings. Ask anyone my age how many records they wore out trying to copy phrases or entire choruses played by the great jazz artists. Sammy Herman told me he went through three copies of the original All Star Trio recording of Fluffy Ruffles, which was released in 1918 – well before GHG published any of his lesson series. At that time Green’s style was completely new and unique. Basically, he was the Gary Burton of his era.
Other things that prompted me to change how I play the xylophone were more about equipment. Between 1979 and 1988 I was able to acquire a number of beautiful vintage instruments, including two Deagan #264 four-octave Artists’ Specials and a five-octave Deagan #268. These instruments had larger keyboards with a different kind of rosewood than any xylophones I had experienced previously, and demanded some adjustments to my stroke and grip. I also began experimenting with mallets, trying to find the best weight, hardness and shaft length to create the sound I was after. All of that required some time before I began to feel comfortable. I grew up playing the marimba – xylophones were really alien things to me, but after hearing Green’s tone and touch on his records, I knew it was the right instrument for the music.
MH: From your perspective, what makes a xylophone performance feel “authentically ragtime”? Are there any stylistic markers you listen for (e.g., touch, phrasing, articulation, ornamentation)?
BB: In general, the main hallmark of “ragtime” is the four against three cross-rhythm, and the larger grouping of beats into 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 2 (and all the permutations of that grouping). In the duple meters common to the dance styles of the 1920s, both rhythmic effects cross over barlines and create a lot of tension. Green gives dozens of examples of ways to create and apply these effects throughout his lesson books. Players who employ this kind of syncopation while improvising sound authentic to me.
MH: Are there any active xylophonists today—particularly those working with ragtime—whose work you find especially interesting or worth knowing about? I’ve come across names like Heather Thorn, Jon Singer, Yurika Kimura, Susan Powell, and Harvey Price in my research, but I’m sure I’m missing others. Who comes to mind for you in this niche specialty?
BB: All of the people you mention are wonderful performers, and not only in relation to the xylophone. I also would include Wade Culbreath and the late Ian Finkel in that list; and particularly for the music of Harry Breuer, Gordon Stout. Many who came through the BBRXI went on to develop a specialty in ragtime improvisation, including Morris Palter, Ryan Lewis and Michael Murphy. The Hungarian ensemble Amadinda, especially Aurél Holló and Zoltán Racz, embraced Green’s music early in their career, and made it a significant part of their repertoire.
MH: Beyond xylophonists, are there any ragtime specialists—whether instrumentalists, historians, composers, or educators, past or present—whose work you find meaningful or influential?
BB: Bryan Wright, the current executive producer of Rivermont Records, is both a fabulous ragtime piano player and an historian/archivist who has been doing important work to preserve and promote ragtime, jazz and “hot dance” music. You can learn more about him and his company at: https://rivermontrecords.com/
