“Ragtime Era was everything educational television was not supposed to be: upbeat, fun and entertaining,” former NET President James Day wrote in his book, “The Vanishing Vision.” The show provided not only music, but a deep dive into the history of ragtime, musical comedy and Tin Pan Alley. Working with KRMA-TV in Denver (now Rocky Mountain PBS), Morath wrote and produced “The Ragtime Era” for National Educational Television (NET), which was the predecessor of PBS. By 1959 he was playing piano for dramas in Cripple Creek. For the next decade he worked in music and theater. In 1948, Morath graduated from Colorado College, where he earned a degree in English. Youmans was in a nearby Tuberculosis Sanitorium listening to Max’s late-night program in Denver." The studio phone rang, and it was the composer Vincent Youmans thanking Max for playing the composer’s old songs. “While still in high school I recall Max describing his job as a disc jockey on Colorado Springs KVOR radio and I can hear him remembering one incident just before a midnight sign-off. ![]() His longtime friend Larry Melton, the founder of the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival, recalled a story about a teenage Morath: His first job was in high school at KVOR radio in Colorado Springs. Morath had a fascination with older music from a young age. ![]() ![]() Morath’s mother, Gladys, was a silent film piano player in Colorado. Morath was born in Colorado Springs in 1926, roughly a decade after ragtime’s national popularity concluded. DENVER - Max Morath, the trailblazing pianist who revived ragtime and showed America that public television could be fun with his show “Ragtime Era,” passed away June 19 in Duluth, Minnesota.
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