The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra

During 1985 Rick Benjamin discovered invaluable scores belonging to the Arthur Pryor Orchestra that had remained missing for 65 years. Once he obtained this extensive repertoire he assembled the 15-piece Paragon Ragtime Orchestra. Over the subsequent decade the ensemble has presented compositions that span rags, early popular music, novelty pieces, and parodies of classical works. Three distinguished albums issued thus far on Newport Classic and Dorian Discovery confirm that ragtime always extended well beyond piano solos alone.