New England Ragtime Ensemble

These period arrangements from the collection "Standard High-Class Rags", commonly known in early accounts as the Red Backed Book (later shortened to The Red Back Book), had been preserved by New Orleans musician Bill Russell and forwarded to Schuller by pianist and music historian Vera Brodsky Lawrence.

[2] Orchestrations for later repertoire included oboe, bassoon, French horn and guitar and banjo, a routine period practice.

He expanded their repertoire, adapting existing arrangements as well as arranging and transcribing the music of James Scott, Joseph Lamb, Louis Chauvin, Arthur Marshall, James Reese Europe, Jelly Roll Morton, Zez Confrey, and Claude Debussy.

They appeared on WGBH-TV and WNAC (now WHDH) in Boston; WETA-TV in Washington DC; WTIC-TV in Hartford; KENW (TV), Portales, New Mexico;[31] and performed live on NBC Today (Nov. 1, 1974) and A Prairie Home Companion (Jan. 18, 1986).

[33][34] Their final performance on July 16, 1998, brought them back to the stage on which they had debuted, Jordan Hall at The New England Conservatory.