According to the Internet source given below, Wally Rose was an American pianist and composer, born in Oakland, California, who helped revive interest in both Ragtime and classic early Jazz.
It was Wally Rose who first brought Rags back into popularity in the 1940s. A second wave of interest came in the early 1970s when Joplin's The Entertainer (1902) was heard in The Sting, a film with Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

 

 

Websites:
	Wally Rose and the Rebirth of Ragtime	Brief biography by jazzhotbigstep.com