Description:
Features Reser's own novelty rags, performed with great skill. The music on this highly entertaining CD is much more of a group effort than the title would suggest. Make no mistake, Harry Reser was one of the great banjo virtuosos, although his style was totally of the strummed, plectrum variety without a trace of the mystic quality of Appalachian banjo or the fingerpicking stunts of bluegrass players. With the banjo's rapid sound decay and complete lack of fortitude in certain registers, a combo with plenty of harmonic punch, like a good piano player, is required to pull off the kind of ragtime, early swing, and novelty numbers that make up the repertoire here. Some of the finest banjo playing here involves the beautiful tone he gets in the lower register. |