The repertory of the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra, formed in 1967, focuses on late 19th- and early 20th-century American ragtime music. Combining African rhythms with traces of post-Civil War marches and Euro-American dances, ragtime music is characterized by its syncopated rhythm or "ragged time" beat. Originally played as piano music, it was taken up by brass, wind, string, and percussion instruments. In this compilation, the first segment recorded in 1971 and the second in 1989, the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra plays both well-known and lesser-known music from the ragtime era