By Mary van Tamelen

Toes were tapping, fingers snapping, heads nodding with joyful abandon at the irresistible rhythm the audience heard at Morning Forum last Tuesday. The music they were listening to was once called depraved, vulgar “devil’s music,” which would lead to criminal behavior and brain damage.

The music was ragtime. And the performer and lecturer was Scott Kirby, hailed by critics as “one of the best interpreters of ragtime music on the scene today.”

Stereotypically, ragtime is associated with honky-tonk, saloons, silent movies and jazz. But in fact it is none of these.

Whereas jazz is improvised and loose, with a 4-4 beat, rag is very carefully composed and has a march-based beat of 2-4.

Not all ragtime is happy, fast or upbeat, as was shown by the performance of a haunting melancholy rag, “Solace,” from 1909.Ragtime has a “call and response” in it, as does much music, a sort of melodic questioning and answering, clearly shown in the next piece Kirby played - “The Entertainer,” from 1905. This piece of music, featured in the movie “The Sting,” is the only one that made it to the Top 40 70 years after it was written.

It was also the music that propelled Kirby into his career. Having studied piano since the age of 6, he saw the movie at the age of 10 and became intrigued by ragtime music though still studying the classics.

Currently he is the musical director of the annual Rocky Mountain Ragtime and American Music Festival in Boulder, Colo., a composer in his own right, and the musical director of the yearly Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Mo.

Whereas Joplin’s ragtime is termed “classical,” that of Eubie Blake is flashier, called “Eastern ragtime.” Blake, who lived 100 years - from 1883 to 1993 - was not allowed as a child to play rag, and had to sneak out to hear it. He went on to become one of its primary exponents. Kirby’s performance of Blake’s “Charleston Rag” illustrated new elements being brought into rag - boogie, Latin-American rhythms, a more jazzy style.