TT 538: Boogie Woogie

from "Rhyme and Repetition Symposium" in THE THREEPENNY REVIEW, now with small selected discography

Yesterday’s post included comments on boogie woogie, so perhaps it’s the appropriate time to post a short overview originally published in 2020 under the auspices of Wendy Lesser for her magazine The Threepenny Review. The topic of the symposium was “Rhyme and Repetition,” so naturally I wrote about:

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Boogie woogie is one of the few genres of music whose name rhymes. Rhymes repeat sound, and the musical characteristics of boogie woogie include melodies and rhythms that constantly replicate.

Standard boogie woogies feature an unaccompanied pianist. Both hands of the player repeat short musical ideas, in each case looking to generate hypnotic and danceable joy. The left hand stays in the bottom of the keyboard, romping through a churning ostinato pattern, sometimes called “eight beats to the bar.” The right hand offers a bit more variety, but it is still repetitive. Short, groovy, and shouting blues phrases are called “riffs,” and a good boogie pianist has a full complement of them at the ready. When “riffs” cycle over “eight beats to the bar,” the effect can turn from hypnotic to ecstatic.

Usually boogie woogies are structured like a twelve-bar blues. The blues is rightfully considered one of the most soulful and humane musics, but many boogies add in the unfeeling repetition of industrial mechanization, namely the steam locomotive. In Meade Lux Lewis’s “Honky Tonk Train Blues,” first recorded in 1927, older African polyrhythms blend with the bumping and thumping of the rails. Lewis’s left keeps steady sophisticated time while his right decorates with an elaborate gallery of whistles and bells. Some of the polyrhythms conjure the sound of a level crossing, and eventually the pianist slows down as the train pulls into the station.

Lewis’s masterpiece was the end product of several decades of community research. After the Civil War, African-American musicians in the South were allowed access to pianos. They began using that keyboard to combine ragtime, blues, church music, European classical music, guitar jangles, popular song, and everything else. The primitive turn-of-the-century bars known as barrelhouses frequently had pianos: If you could play for dancing, you could drink for free.

Pinetop Smith knew Lewis—they practiced together—and a year after “Honky Tonk Train Blues,” Smith released the 78 LP that named the form: “Pinetop's Boogie Woogie.” This hit record is one of the key documents in American music, a template for hundreds of records since, from Tommy Dorsey to Ray Charles. Tragically, Smith was accidentally killed at dance hall soon after his record was released.

“Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” features exhortations from the pianist explaining what the dancers should and shouldn’t do. It’s party music. The best boogie woogie remains connected to that celebratory party feeling, but the pianism is refined into high art. Meade Lux Lewis and Pinetop Smith made their mark in Chicago alongside two other legendary practitioners, the outstanding virtuoso Albert Ammons and the surreal poet Jimmy Yancey. From Kansas City came Pete Johnson, a drummer turned pianist whose direct approach offers an obvious link to rhythm ‘n blues, rock ‘n roll, and even the most repetitive American music of all, hip-hop.

Many other great pianists contributed to posterity during those early halcyon years, often bearing colorful names: Cow Cow Davenport, Little Brother Montgomery, Big Maceo Merriweather, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Montana Taylor, Speckled Red. I have a special fondness for the 1939 side of “Little Joe From Chicago” by Mary Lou Williams, who suavely varies both the top and bottom patterns in a notably carefree fashion. Musicians call that kind of initiative “mixing it up.” Williams mixes it up, but her performance still has enough hypnotic danceable repetition to make it classic boogie woogie.

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NEW: Listening guide.

The best boogie woogie tracks were made from 1924 to 1945.

In the streaming era, the discography is a bit of a mess, especially as many small cash-grab labels issue “albums” of old music in the public domain without dates or editorial rationale. Occasionally the tracks are brutally put through a noise-reduction filter, usually making the elderly sonics even worse.

Perhaps even more of a problem is the prioritization of whatever the algorithm thinks should be popular. For example, if you type in “Meade Lux Lewis,” the first thing the search engine is going to show on the streaming services is the 1954 LP Cat House Piano. There’s a bit of double jeopardy in action, for this LP also features in a famous scene in Kurt Vonnegut’s breakthrough novel Cat’s Cradle. People like the Vonnegut book and search the sexy-sounding LP, and over time, Cat House Piano has become the answer for a computer looking for Meade “Lux” Lewis. This LP isn’t bad, but nobody who loves Mr. Lewis would argue that this is his best work. The best stuff is from the era of 78s—a rule of thumb for not just Lewis but for the whole genre.

The next level of confusion: Any given player might have recorded the same title several times, and, again, the earliest track is probably the best. The pianists were artists of the highest caliber, but the world treated them like novelty entertainment. Few practitioners evolved their playing, let alone discovered a late style. It was party music through and through; it paid; it was also one of the most technically and rhythmically demanding popular music approaches of all time, a piano machine that wore the players out.

For those serious about their pre-LP collection, there are two recommended reissue series, The Chronological Classics and Document Records. Between them most everything is collected and in good fidelity.

For the more casual listener, YouTube may be the best bet, for true fans of the music simply upload their favorite tracks.

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Meade “Lux” Lewis

“Honky Tonk Train Blues” (1927) After all these years, I’m still shocked by the rhythm, the independence, and the virtuosity. (Cited above in the overview.)

“Bear Cat Crawl” (1934). This has the simplest boogie bass on record, and thus a bit more approachable for study. (Obviously, it is still very hard to play like this, especially in terms of the beat.)

“Six Wheel Chaser” (1940). Another train piece. The two hands are not quite together; what a feel. This was one of the first records made for Alfred Lion’s new Blue Note label.

Albert Ammons

“Shout for Joy” (1934). Originally the other side of Lewis’s “Bear Cat Crawl.” There’s literally nothing better.

“Boogie Woogie Stomp” (1936), with Albert Ammons and His Rhythm Kings. I prioritize the solos, not the band performances, but this track was an early hit and it still jumps like crazy. Chicago, the same year as “Lady Be Good” and “Shoeshine Boy” from Count Basie and Lester Young in Kansas City. The bassist with Ammons is Ahmad Jamal’s future collaborator Israel Crosby, while Ammons’s son would grow up to be saxophone great Gene Ammons (not heard on this track).

“Suitcase Blues” (1941). A moodier piece with repeating triplets. The compositional credit goes to Hersal Thomas, a shining light of blues piano who died at 19 in 1926.

Pete Johnson

“Roll ‘Em Pete” (with Big Joe Turner) (1938). Cecil Taylor said nobody played better boogie woogie than Pete Johnson. “Roll ‘Em Pete” was a big hit and includes the rather shocking lyric, “You’re so beautiful, but you’re gonna die someday.” If you want to hear a lot of the same piano material without a fabulous shouting vocal, listen to Johnson’s “Climbin' And Screamin.’”

“Death Ray Boogie” (1941). Bright tempo! Sheer endurance! They could play like this partly because they played for many hours at a stretch in bars and dives.

“Kaycee on My Mind” (1940). A bit slower and more reflective. The right hand tells a story.

Comment on Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Pete Johnson together. The music was a sensation with the larger public, and the three masters made a lot of appearances two at time, sometimes even all three at once. These tracks come up right away on the streaming services and in the general histories. I always paid a little less attention to this corner of the discography, judging the four- or six-hands gambit as mostly a novelty trick. I admit the rhythm automatically gets a little fatter: any of those two-or-three piano tracks are great for dancing.

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Jimmy Yancey

“State Street Special” (1939). The poet and his piano.

“35th And Dearborn” (1940). The Yancey cross-relations can be a bit Stravinskian. We are in B-flat, but no matter the key, Yancey ends in E-flat.

“Yancey Stomp” (1939). The visionary dreamer at his fastest and most exciting.

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The boogie woogie trio (Albert Ammons, Meade “Lux” Lewis, and Pete Johnson) plus Jimmy Yancey are the key figures when making quick survey. However, it was a community music, where all sorts of players made a valuable contribution, and some of it was recorded.

Jimmy Blythe, “Chicago Stomp” (1924). Probably the earliest boogie on record.

Pinetop Smith, “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” (1929). The trope namer and still a terrific listen. (Cited above in the overview.)

Cow Cow Davenport, “Cow Cow Blues” (1928). This is some real country stuff, but also ramrod straight.

Cripple Clarence Lofton, “Had a Dream” (1939). This is some real country stuff, and woozy as hell.

Mary Lou Williams, “Little Joe From Chicago” (1939). Sophisticated city music, with a superb rhythmic feel. Williams mostly played jazz, but this boogie is one of the best. (Cited above in the overview.)

Art Hodes, “Ross Tavern Boogie” (1938). Hodes was possibly the first white blues or boogie pianist who was really inside the music’s subtler rhythmic and harmonic shadings. He wrote: “I recall Zutty Singleton having me play for Art Tatum. The great one said, ‘The cats back home were hipping me to listen to that black cat play the blues but I knew you was white.’” (Note: A picture of Pete Johnson is in the thumbnail of the upload.)

Big Maceo Merriwether, “Chicago Breakdown” (1945). Huh. Just noticed that this has almost 350,000 views on YouTube, which shows that once in a while, the truth will out. Amazing track.

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Boogie woogie wasn’t over after 1945, of course. The most artistic development was probably be found in New Orleans, where basic mastery of boogie piano was an essential element of swampy yet fresh sounds from Professor Longhair, Dr. John, James Booker, Allen Toussaint, and many others. R ‘n B and Rock ‘n Roll is unthinkable without boogie woogie, be it as hip as Louis Jordan or as crass as Jerry Lee Lewis. The style still gets trotted out on the big stage once in a while for a certain effect: my generation was thrilled by “Cleanin’ Up the Town” from The BusBoys in the 1984 comedy Ghostbusters. (I loved it at 11, but now that track strikes me as pretty weak.)

Still, working on this post reminds me again of just how incredible that wave of original boogie masters really were. Nobody has played more piano, anywhere, ever.