"Elephant St. Rag"

Hal Isbitz's newest rag composition. When asked to explain the title, Hal responds: " I wrote the piece for Mimi Blais, the fine French-Canadian pianist, whose English is fluent but heavily accented. In June 1994 during a concert at the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival, Mimi announced her next number as Euday Bowman's "Eleventh Street Rag," placing the accent on the first syllable of "Eleventh". I turned to my neighbor in the audience and said, "If I ever write a piece for Mimi, I'm going to call it "Elephant Street Rag.'' A year later in Savannah I presented the score to Mimi. She roared and said I was crazy. I've endured worse criticism."