![]() My very favorite image of these two pals is of an afternoon in a particularly boring high school Latin class when the two friends decided to jump out the open first floor window and escape. In my mind I can see Max performing with his 1943 barbershop quartet and his high school mate. In 1947 Max described the display flying over Pike’s Peak while broadcasting for radio station KVOR aboard a military C-47 from Carson Air Base. The capital “A” represented the Colorado peaks and the group had begun the annual fireworks display back in 1922. The pyrotechnics were the work of his father Fred who was a co-founder of the AdAmAn club of hikers. I see him as a boy mesmerized by fireworks erupting from Pike’s Peak every new year. Max always loved to hike the back country of America. This may have been the experience that enticed him into a life on the boards.īack in Cripple Creek, I remember his stories of trekking up Cheyenne Mountain or Pike’s Peak and then running all the way back down. I can see Max “headlining” his fourth-grade play, Sonny Elephant, during his year in Long Beach, California after his parent’s divorce. He was a roaming balladeer teaching us about our musical heritage and entertaining us at the same time. His mother introduced him, and in a very real way America, to ragtime and the era that nurtured it. He was fond of reminding me that Gladys was a silent film piano player back in Cripple Creek Colorado where Max was born. However, as I recall Max’s remarkable life, I visualize him as a child rummaging through his mother’s piano bench. Max is also familiar because of his many recordings going back 70 years, or from his books and articles and the volume of record and CD liner notes and book prologues he wrote. Many will always remember seeing Max on stage, or on television, or perhaps hearing him on the radio. We would eventually end our daily visits, anticipating the next with my, “Later Max,” to his “ Take care, ma’boy.” Some (okay many) of those accounts have been repeated several times as our declining memories failed us and we enjoyed the telling all over again. I have had many wonderful experiences with Max this past half century of his life, and for over two years, our daily phone calls have allowed us to share many of our life stories. There are so many stories from his career, and it has been a privilege to hear him describe many of them over Mr. ![]() ![]() I first worked with Max when he helped us organize the inaugural Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in Sedalia back in 1974. He has been in my life for well over 50 years and Max was a treasured friend as he was to so many thousands of others around the world. Louis Riverfront and again in Atlanta at the 1972 premiere of Joplin’s opera Treemonisha. We first met at the 1968 Ragtime Festival on the St. Max Morath in his 96th year has made his final exit, so to help assuage my grief, I will stop right here and share my memories about our friend Max. Well, these aren’t the ragtime years, but we have lost a great entertainer who taught us about those times and entertained us with the songs and stories of that era. Morse’s telegraph and it would all be followed by wakes and memorial affairs across the land. Word would have spread rapidly by word of mouth, or by Mr. At night theater lights might be dimmed for a few seconds in remembrance and everywhere artists and audiences, crews and office workers, and many people just on the street would pause to tell a story or relate a memorable incident regarding the deceased. In the Ragtime Years when a great personality celebrity died, word would quickly spread through the entertainment districts, Variety shows might be interrupted to report the sad news and have a moment of silence to remember the departed personality.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |