Dominic Vautier 2/7/2012
Jimmy Monico was a piano player. This was not your average piano player. Jimmy was a living breathing personification of the barroom piano player. “Ragtime Jimmy” was known from coast to coast for over forty years.
He came from Genoa, Italy, and instantly became a natural pianist with little teaching. Monaco gained his nickname “Ragtime Jimmy” when he was seventeen in the cafes and bars of Albany, N. Y., where his family lived. When he moved to Chicago, he was still "Ragtime Jimmy" to those who frequented The Savoy, Freddie Train’s, Frank Wing’s and other all-night bars. The nickname followed him to New York in 1910, when he played at the historic Bohemia Cafe on West 29th Street, next door to John Daly’s gambling emporium. He was still known as Ragtime Jimmy in 1945 when he died.
Here's one of Ragtime Jimmy's 1916 songs.
back cover
