Ragtime

A wave of vulgar, filthy and suggestive music has inundated the land," declared the Musical Courier in 1899. "It is artistically and morally depressing and should be suppressed by press and pulpit."

Without art, what is our existence but chaos?" asks one of the main characters in the musical Ragtime. Adapted by playwright Terrence McNally from E.L. Doctorow's landmark novel, Ragtime was, in this critic's opinion, not merely an artistic triumph, but the best new Broadway musical of the 1990s. It's also, however, a devilishly complex show to stage. Interweaving a handful of historic characters with fictitious characters representing three disparate ethnic groups in early 20th-century America, the show has such a broad, epic scope that, in the wrong hands, it could conceivably dissolve into chaos.

Singing is just one of the things Delores Lynn does.Just as she performs volunteer work, caters, designs clothes, works as a security guard at the National Aquarium, moonlights at Harrison's at Pier 5, upholsters furniture, tends to four children, eight grandchildren, a stepmother, father, and 89-year-old aunt who raised her, Ms. Lynn sings jazz and blues.Her voice is a natural gift, unpolished by formal training. Once, she sang professionally around town to support her family. But as demand diminished for ballad singers with the heart of a Sarah Vaughn or Betty Carter, she turned to other things.

IF JOHN ROACHE had been born with larger hands, he might never have created one of the World Wide Web's most delightful sites.The 57-year-old pharmacist from Torrance, Calif. has been playing the piano since he was 5, but he doesn't have the octave-plus-two-keys range it takes to make a concert ragtime pianist. So he creates exquisite MIDI recordings of famous ragtime, stride and swing compositions. He shares them on a page that offers great music, scholarly dissertations, and a superb tutorial on what makes ragtime ragtime.

Broadway's two new blockbuster musicals, "Ragtime" and "The Lion King," racked up the largest number of Tony Award nominations in New York yesterday. The lion's share, however, went to "Ragtime," which garnered 13 nominations, compared with 11 for "The Lion King."In most categories, "The Lion King," the stage adaptation of Disney's 1994 animated feature, will go head-to-head with "Ragtime," based on E.L. Doctorow's novel about three turn-of-the-century families (a touring production opened at Washington's National Theatre last week)

The weather is warm and school is out, but one group of young people is spending three weeks at Reservoir High School exploring racial tensions, social inequality and the struggle to realize the American dream. Those members of the Teen Professional Theatre camp also have to learn dance steps, blocking, dialogue and lots of big Broadway songs in three weeks as they tackle the musical Ragtime. Program founder and director Toby Orenstein said her 55-member cast, chosen from more than 200 who auditioned from throughout Central Maryland, is up to the challenge.

The last line of an article on the Tony Awards was inadvertently omitted in yesterday's Arts & Society section. The final paragraph should have read:Twenty years from now, when your neighborhood dinner theater, community theater or high school stages "Ragtime," it will still be a great musical. But when -- or if -- they stage "The Lion King," it will still be a cartoon.The Sun regrets the errors.NEW YORK - "The Lion King" vs. "Ragtime." Tonight's Tony Award competition for best musical boils down to a spirited race between two shows that, on the surface, have several things in common.

"IF I'D KNOWN I was gonna live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself," Eubie Blake remarked while celebrating his 100th birthday.Sadly, if he hadn't lived until he was 100, James Herbert "Eubie" Blake wouldn't be the household name he is. What a shame if younger people had missed the pleasure that his music brings."Love Will Find a Way." "Memories of You." "I'm Just Wild About Harry" (Harry Truman's presidential campaign song in 1948). Those were among the 300 songs he wrote.The revival of ragtime in the late 1960s and 1970s, with its syncopat- ed rhythms and feel-good quality, brought Blake out of retirement.

A SONIC revolution started 100 years ago, ignited by a joyous, herky-jerky, syncopated beat. Everywhere, it seemed, people could not get enough of this new music. They wrote songs about it, danced to it.The music was ragtime, and its signature song, Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag," was published in 1899. "Maple Leaf" is the biggest-selling piece of instrumental ragtime music. Perhaps 1 million copies ended up in American homes before phonographs and piano rolls killed the market for sheet music.

Setting: A smoky night at Aggie Shelton's house of ill repute near Gay and Aisquith streets. Circa: 1898. Scene: Card sharks, hustlers and gamblers come and go all night long. Women lounge in the parlor, converse and occasionally take a customer upstairs. Everybody is white, except for the 15-year-old black kid at the piano. Lord knows he's not supposed to be here. His mama would have a fit. She's a good, Christian woman. But every night her son sneaks out of the family's home at 424 N. Eden St., rents a pair of long pants from a local pool hall owner for a quarter and makes his way to Miss Aggie's.