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This group harkens back to a time when gentlemen and ladies would play the banjo in their parlors to demonstrate refinement and technique. Compositions range from parlor music to marches and dances from the turn of the 20th century and more.
The Music
"At Home" demonstrates the tradition of five-string finger-style, or "classic" banjo, played with piano accompaniment. Black-Tie Banjo has selected pieces composed over a span of more than 100 years, from the turn of the 20th century to the turn of the 21st. On this recording, Geoff Freed plays a nylon-string regular banjo.

Background
In the 1860s, a style of banjo playing emerged that became known as "guitar style" because it was similar to the refined guitar-playing techniques of the mid-19th century. Unlike the "stroke" style of banjo playing (the forerunner of today's clawhammer technique), guitar-style banjo required the player to pick the strings with the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand. This created a more melodious and legato sound than stroke style. In the following 30 years, guitar-style banjo-- also known as finger-style or, today, classic-- gained immerse popularity in the United States and England, particularly in sophisticated urban white society. Composers and performers sought to transform the banjo from an instrument associated with black culture and minstrels to one which was fit for "high society."
1 Espanola
2 Joe Morley's Cakewalk
3 Une Pensee
4 Fun on the Wabash
5 Gavotte in F
6 Dandelion Serenade
7 Rose Leaves
8 Serenade
9 Dancer's Dream
10 Noctures for Banjo and Piano, Op. 104: Evening Primrose
11 Noctures for Banjo and Piano, Op. 104: Moonlit
12 Noctures for Banjo and Piano, Op. 104: Morning Glories
13 Gypsy Love
14 Cigarette Polka
15 Dinkey
16 The Multiflora Rose
17 It's Monday Night!