a piano style particularly played between 1890 and 1910 in the USA and ranked among the jazz forerunners, although Ragtime is not improvised but exclusively composed music. Accompanying the hammering rhythm of the left hand is the right hand that plays a strongly syncopated melody. In the early phase of the jazz, with Jelly Roll Morton, Ragtime was adopted by ensembles and marketed after the success of the Irving Berlin hit "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (1911) as an internationally popular dance. In the modern popular music above all the Country Rock bands use the Ragtime rhythm as an nostalgic effect. As signature tune of the 1973/74 film "The Sting", Scott Joplin's song "The Entertainer", composed before the turn of the century, resulted in a Ragtime revival.