The Herald-Palladium, 1/21/2010

From rags to riches

Ragtime pianist Milne brings wealth of history, talent to St. Joseph show

By JEREMY D. BONFIGLIO
H-P Features Writer

ST. JOSEPH — Bob Milne has long been called a musical marvel.

Until recently that was just an opinion. Now the pianist has scientific proof.

“I was just in Hershey, Pa., because some doctors of neurology wanted to study my brain,” Milne says by telephone while traveling along the Ohio Turnpike. “… They had me playing two and three rhythms on a keyboard and told me that what I was doing on a piano isn’t supposed to be able to be done. Apparently, I was using different parts of my brain that aren’t supposed to work at once. I don’t understand any of it, but they added that one to the portfolio.”

Milne, who lives in Oregon Township in Lapeer County, Mich., is a master of the ragtime and boogie-woogie piano styles that developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He’s been asked to perform for President George H.W. Bush more than a dozen times and has even been designated a National Treasure by the Library of Congress. On Friday, Milne will do what he enjoys the most – performing in front of a local crowd at the Berrien Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in St. Joseph.

“Most people think there’s something magical and mystical about music,” Milne says. “They think that it’s something they can never understand. Well, they can. A chord is made up of three notes, that’s all. You can add more notes to it if you want to. I like to show people how simple this stuff actually is and how you can then take it and make it as complicated as you want to.”

For Milne, the piano has never been a complicated instrument. In fact, it’s something he knew how to play long before he decided to make it his life’s work.

“My brother, who was two years older than me, took piano lessons,” Milne says. “When his piano teacher would leave, I’d go over and play what he’d played. When I’d hear a piece of music I knew how to play it on a piano, but I couldn’t coordinate my hands to go with the music I could hear in my head.”

So Milne instead turned to the French horn, playing in high school and at the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. At 19 years old, he became assistant First Horn in the Rochester Philharmonic, but Milne’s real musical education happened after hours.

“As students, we used to go over to this sing-along bar that was in a hotel,” he says. “There was a piano player in there, and he’d play ‘Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue’ and ‘Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey.’ I had never heard these tunes before because I was a classical musician, but I thought it was fun.”

One night, Milne says, the piano player didn’t show up.

“I was surprised none of the other guys – trumpet players, trombone players, whatever – none of them went over and was playing the piano,” Milne says. “So, I said, ‘If they’re not going to do it. I’ll do it.’ I really thought it was that easy. I’ve been playing ever since.”

Milne gave up the French horn, returning to Michigan to become a staple on the Detroit bar circuit. He found his niche playing ragtime tunes six and seven nights a week for 25 years in places like the Dakota Inn Rathskeller.

“When I would play that toe-tapping stuff, everyone, including me, seemed to like it,” Milne says. “The barrelhouse and ragtime styles, I just never got tired of.”

Ragtime, which uses a syncopated, or “ragged,” rhythm, began as dance music in the red-light districts of cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published as sheet music for piano. Although the style peaked in popularity between 1897 and 1918, it has seen numerous revivals, most notably in 1973, when the film “The Sting” created a soundtrack filled with Scott Joplin tunes, including his 1902 rag “The Entertainer,” which became a Top 40 hit in 1974.

In addition to Joplin, Milne also plays the music of Texas barrelhouse and boogie-woogie composers such as Meade Lux Lewis. Few pianists attempt Lewis’ solos because as a musical illiterate, Lewis played what many consider to be impossibly conflicting rhythms.

“There’s many, many moods to the ragtime style,” Milne says. “Blues used to be called ragtime. Boogie-woogie was named ragtime right up until 1927. There’s a ragtime waltz, ragtime songs. It goes on and on. It’s just a huge area of music that stems from the American folk music tradition, so it seems to reach out to everyone.”

Since 1991, Milne’s penchant for such styles has made him a fixture on the festival and concert hall circuit. He has composed more than 40 piano rags and produced 13 solo piano recordings, but it’s Milne’s 2001 CD titled “America: Go USA!” – recorded during an impromptu patriotic concert at the 1000 Islands Ragtime Festival in upstate New York – that got the attention of President George H.W. Bush.

“One day I get a call from Mr. Bush Sr., asking if I can come play for him and Barbara (at the family compound) in Kennebunkport (Maine),” Milne says. “We were out there the next week. Then he called me two months later and asked if I’d come back. At the risk of sounding stupid, he and Barbara have become personal friends of ours. Since 2003, I think I’ve now played for them 12 to 15 times.”

In 2004, after seeing him perform in California, another Washingtonian – Librarian of Congress James Billington – invited Milne to the nation’s capital for three days of interviews and a concert performance. After the concert, Billington declared Milne a National Treasure, and the interviews and performance have now become part of the national record of American music.

“(Billington) was fascinated because I don’t rehearse, I’ve never taken piano lessons, and I hate to read piano music,” says Milne, adding that he does, however, hold a music degree in the French horn. “He wanted me to do this documentary for future generations, in case someone could learn something from me. That really was a surprise because to me, I’m just some guy trying to make a living.”

Milne, however, has taken that role to heart. In addition to his 250-plus performance dates a year, he teaches music history workshops at various universities around the country, founded the Frankenmuth Ragtime Festival in Frankenmuth, Mich., and each September holds the four-day Michigan Music Retreat in Lapeer, Mich., where he teaches music and music history.

“It’s about music that relates to people in general,” Milne says. “That’s what I like about ragtime. It’s got no hidden meaning. It has no hidden agenda. It’s just good stuff.”

jbonfiglio@TheH-P.com