Composition and difficulties In March 1911, the
Ted Snyder Company in
New York City employed the 23-year-old Irving Berlin as a
Tin Pan Alley songwriter. One morning after arriving at work, Berlin decided to compose an instrumental
ragtime number. By this time, the ragtime phenomenon popularized by
pianist Scott Joplin and other African-American musicians had begun to wane, and over a decade had passed since the syncopated genre's initial heyday in the
Gay Nineties. A tireless
workaholic, Berlin composed the piece while in the noisy offices of
Ted Snyder's music
publishing firm where "five or six pianos and as many vocalists were making bedlam with songs of the day." Berlin composed the lyrics of the song as a narrative sequel to his earlier 1910 composition "Alexander and His Clarinet". This earlier composition recounts the reconciliation between an
African-American musician named Alexander Adams and his flame Eliza Johnson as well as highlights Alexander's innovative musical style. Berlin's friend Jack Alexander, a cornet-playing African-American bandleader, inspired the title character. By the next day, Berlin completed four pages of notes for the
copyist-
arranger. Berlin registered the song in the name of the Ted Snyder Company as E252990 and published it on March 18, 1911. Upon playing the composition for others, listeners criticized the song as too lengthy ("running beyond the
conventional 32 bars"),
too rangy, and not "a real ragtime number". In fact, the tune is a
march as opposed to a rag and barely contains a trace of
syncopation. Its sole notability consists of quotes from
Swanee River and a
bugle call. Due to such criticisms, the tune failed to impress listeners at the Ted Snyder Company. Undaunted by the lackluster response, Berlin submitted the song to
Jesse L. Lasky, a
Broadway theater producer planning an extravagant debut for his nightclub theater called the Follies Bergère. Lasky hesitated to incorporate the
pseudo-ragtime number into his show. When the show opened on April 27, 1911, Lasky chose only to use its melody whistled by performer
Otis Harlan. Thus the song failed to find an appreciative audience. Fortunately for Berlin,
vaudeville singer and
baritone Emma Carus liked his humorous composition, and she introduced the song on April 18, 1911, at the
American Music Hall in
Chicago. She next embarked on a tour of
the Midwest in Spring 1911. Carus showcased the song to the country and helped contribute to its immense popularity. In gratitude, Berlin credited Carus on the cover of the sheet music. The catchy song became linked with Carus in the public consciousness, although rival performers such as
Al Jolson later co-opted the hit tune. Amid the success of Carus' national tour, the comedic duo of
Arthur Collins and
Byron G. Harlan released a
phonograph recording of the song on May 23, 1911, which became the best-selling record in the United States for ten consecutive weeks. Five days later, Berlin performed the song himself on May 28, 1911, in a special charity performance of the first
Friars Frolic by the
New York Friars Club at the
New Amsterdam Theater. A fellow composer in attendance,
George M. Cohan, instantly recognized the
catchiness of the tune and told Berlin that the song would be a hit. Berlin's jaunty melody "sold a million copies of
sheet music in 1911, then another million in 1912, and continued to sell for years afterwards." ''Alexander's Ragtime Band'' became "the number one song from October 1911 through January 1912."
Cultural sensation Although neither Irving Berlin's first commercial hit nor his first composition to attract international attention, "Alexander's Ragtime Band" nevertheless catapulted Berlin's career. American newspapers hailed Berlin's jumpy tune as the decade's musical sensation, and he became a
cultural luminary overnight. An adoring international press touted him as the "King of Ragtime", an inaccurate title as the song "had little to do with ragtime and everything to do with ragtime audacity, alerting
Europe to hot times in
the colonies." Baffled by this new title, Berlin insisted that he did not originate ragtime but merely "crystallized it and brought it to people's attention." Historian
Mark Sullivan claimed that, with the auspicious debut of "Alexander's Ragtime Band", Berlin "lifted ragtime from the depths of sordid dives to the
apotheosis of fashionable vogue." Although not a traditional ragtime song, Berlin's jaunty composition kickstarted a ragtime
jubilee—a belated popular celebration of the musical style which African-American composers such as
Scott Joplin had originated a decade earlier in the 1890s. The positive international reception of "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911 led to a musical and dance revival known as "the ragtime craze". , At the time, ragtime music caught "its
second wind" and ragtime dancing spread "like wildfire." One dancing couple in particular who exemplified this
faddish sensation were
Vernon and Irene Castle. The charismatic, trendsetting duo frequently danced to Berlin's "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and his other
modernist compositions. The Castles'
modern dancing paired with Berlin's
modern songs came to embody the ongoing
culture clash between the waning propriety of the
Edwardian era and the waxing joviality of the Ragtime revolution on the eve of
World. The
Daily Express wrote in 1913 that: Writers such as
Edward Jablonski and
Ian Whitcomb have emphasized the irony that, in the
1910s, even the
upper class of the
Russian Empire—a
reactionary nation from which Berlin's
Jewish forebears had been
compelled to flee decades earlier—became enamored with "the ragtime beat with an abandon bordering on
mania."
British socialite Lady Diana Cooper described Prince
Felix Yusupov, an affluent
Russian aristocrat who married the niece of
Tsar Nicholas II and murdered
Grigori Rasputin, as dancing "around the
ballroom like a demented worm" and shouting, "More ragtime!" Hearing of such behavior, commentators diagnosed such individuals as "bitten by the ragtime bug" and behaving like "a dog with
rabies." They declared that "whether [the ragtime mania] is simply a passing phase of our
decadent culture or an
infectious disease which has come to stay, like
la grippe or
leprosy, time alone can show."
Continued popularity with actors
Tyrone Power,
Alice Faye, and
Don Ameche on the set of ''
Alexander's Ragtime Band'' (1938). As the years passed, Berlin's "Alexander's Ragtime Band" had many recurrent manifestations as many artists covered it:
Billy Murray, in 1912;
Bessie Smith, in 1927;
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, in 1930; the
Boswell Sisters, in 1934;
Louis Armstrong, in 1937;
Bing Crosby and
Connee Boswell, in 1938;
Johnny Mercer, in 1945; Al Jolson, in 1947;
Nellie Lutcher, in 1948, and
Ray Charles in 1959. "Alexander's Ragtime Band" had a dozen hit covers within the half-century prior to 1960. Reflecting decades later upon the song's unlikely success, Berlin confessed his amazement at its immediate global acclaim and continued popularity. He ascribed its unexpected success to the
farcical lyrics which were "fundamentally right" and "started the heels and shoulders of all America and a good section of Europe to rocking." In 1937,
20th Century Fox approached Irving Berlin to write a
story treatment for an upcoming film tentatively titled ''
Alexander's Ragtime Band''. Berlin agreed to write a story outline for the film which featured twenty-six of Berlin's well-known musical scores. During press interviews promoting the film prior to its premiere, Berlin decried articles by the American press that painted ragtime as
jazz's forerunner. Berlin stated: "Ragtime really shouldn't be called 'the forerunner of jazz' or 'the father of jazz' because, as everyone will tell when they hear some of the old rags, ragtime and jazz are the same." Released on August 5, 1938, ''Alexander's Ragtime Band'', starring
Tyrone Power,
Alice Faye, and
Don Ameche became a smash hit and grossed in excess of $5 million. After the film's release, writer Marie Cooper Dieckhaus sued Berlin for
plagiarism. At the trial, she argued that Berlin had taken the plot of her unpublished 1937 manuscript and reused many of its elements in the film. She had circulated the manuscript in 1937 to various
Hollywood studios,
literary agents, and other individuals for their perusal. The judge ruled that Berlin, after rejecting her manuscript, appropriated her work. In 1946, an
appellate court reversed the ruling on
appeal. == Alleged plagiarism ==