Intermediate
The Weary Blues
2:18
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Browse piano sheets by Artie Matthews on Zen Virtual Piano. Artie Matthews was the first to actually publish a blues, “Baby Seals Blues” (1912), and his “Weary Blues” (1915) has become an American standard. He is well known for his five “Pastime” rags published by John Stark from 1913 to 1920. Two forms, each with its own habits, ask a composer to keep more than one musical vocabulary within reach. Matthews was born in Braidwood, Illinois, on November 15, 1888, and grew up in Springfield, where his mother taught him music at an early age. He later learned ragtime from two local pianists, Banty Morgan and Art Dillingham, and after playing professionally around Springfield he moved to St. Louis in 1908 and became the house composer and arranger for Tom Turpin’s Booker T. Washington Theater; while in St. Louis he also continued his musical studies at the Keeton School of Music. In 1916 he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to become a church organist. A rag composer who was also a church organist and a house arranger for a theater had to be at home in very different rooms. In 1921 Matthews and his wife, Anna Howard, established the Cosmopolitan School of Music, the first black owned and operated music conservatory in the U.S., and he taught there until his death in 1958. Among his students was Frank Foster, who would become the principal arranger for the Count Basie orchestra. A school founded in 1921 and kept going until his death makes his teaching as lasting a part of his story as any single composition. He was a leader in the Cincinnati black community: a member of race relations committees that challenged the segregation laws, secretary of the black musicians’ union for over thirty-five years, an arranger of music for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and a choir leader, arranger and composer of African American religious music in the city’s churches. Leading a union and challenging segregation laws alongside arranging for a symphony suggests that music and civic work shared a path for him. In 1938 Central State University awarded him an honorary doctoral degree.
Browse piano sheets by Artie Matthews on Zen Virtual Piano.
Artie Matthews was the first to actually publish a blues, “Baby Seals Blues” (1912), and his “Weary Blues” (1915) has become an American standard. He is well known for his five “Pastime” rags published by John Stark from 1913 to 1920. Two forms, each with its own habits, ask a composer to keep more than one musical vocabulary within reach.
Matthews was born in Braidwood, Illinois, on November 15, 1888, and grew up in Springfield, where his mother taught him music at an early age. He later learned ragtime from two local pianists, Banty Morgan and Art Dillingham, and after playing professionally around Springfield he moved to St. Louis in 1908 and became the house composer and arranger for Tom Turpin’s Booker T. Washington Theater; while in St. Louis he also continued his musical studies at the Keeton School of Music. In 1916 he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to become a church organist. A rag composer who was also a church organist and a house arranger for a theater had to be at home in very different rooms.
In 1921 Matthews and his wife, Anna Howard, established the Cosmopolitan School of Music, the first black owned and operated music conservatory in the U.S., and he taught there until his death in 1958. Among his students was Frank Foster, who would become the principal arranger for the Count Basie orchestra. A school founded in 1921 and kept going until his death makes his teaching as lasting a part of his story as any single composition.
He was a leader in the Cincinnati black community: a member of race relations committees that challenged the segregation laws, secretary of the black musicians’ union for over thirty-five years, an arranger of music for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and a choir leader, arranger and composer of African American religious music in the city’s churches. Leading a union and challenging segregation laws alongside arranging for a symphony suggests that music and civic work shared a path for him. In 1938 Central State University awarded him an honorary doctoral degree.
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His five “Pastime” rags, published by John Stark from 1913 to 1920, and his “Baby Seals Blues” (1912), the first blues to be published, along with “Weary Blues” (1915).
A school Matthews and his wife, Anna Howard, established in Cincinnati in 1921, the first black owned and operated music conservatory in the U.S.; he taught there until his death in 1958.
Among his students was Frank Foster, who would become the principal arranger for the Count Basie orchestra.