Seeing its release today is the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra’s third volume in its “Black Manhattan” series on New World Records. The group specializes in neglected works by African American musicians from the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries. The sum total of their efforts on all three of their recordings is some sixty pieces by thirty-two composers.

The recording supplies abundant variety to enjoy: ebullient dances, reflective blues, and uplifting renditions of Gospel hymns. It has only created one “problem” for me: it is so good, now I will have to acquire copies of the their first two volumes!