DESCRIPTION:
When ragtime piano, which enjoyed a twenty-year fad at the beginning of the 2Oth century, faded away at the end of World War I, it was replaced by a lively variant known as "novelty piano." The pre-eminent example of this style was "Kitten on the Keys," which was introduced by its composer, Zez Confrey, in Paul Whiteman's Aeolian Hall Concert in 1924 (at which George Gershwin and Whiteman's orchestra also gave the first performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue). Confrey's piece was inspired by seeing the family cat walk across the piano keys. To play the tune
properly, the composer advised, "be sure to scramble up the octave in the part that's supposed to sound like a cat bouncing down the keyboard. In other words, make a fist when simulating the cat running up and down. Otherwise it won't sound real."
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