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● Introduction
● Early New Orleans Jazz
● Jazz in Chicago and New York in the 1920s
● The Piano
● Boogie Woogie
Boogie Woogie
 Another
piano style was emerging in Chicago in the late 1920's and early
1930's. Pianists drifting into Chicago from the midwest were playing
blues pieces with a distinctive, rocking bass figure. The pieces
had themes of anywhere from 12 to 24 bars, and even 32 bars in some
instances. "Pine Top" Smith recorded his "Pine Top's
Boogie" in 1928, and the music with the rocking beat began
to be called “Boogie
Woogie.” Meade Lux Lewis recorded his "Honky Tonk
Train" at this time, too. But
it was left to a quiet, modest pianist, Jimmy Yancey, to standardize
this style to a 12-bar blues melodic line with 8 beats to the bar.
He worked with Meade Lux Lewis and the young Albert Ammons, both
of whom were driving taxis in Chicago in the early 1930's. Yancey
recorded only a few records for RCA
before suffering a
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Meade Lewis
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Jimmy Yancey
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RCA
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slight stroke,
that weakened his vigorous style, and made it more delicate and
introspective.
Again, Boogie Woogie is represented by specific pieces of music
as well as being an approach to nearly any tune. This is evidenced
most dramatically by a series of records Ammons made with Mercury
Records, in which he and his accompanying band play "The Sheik
of Araby," "The Eyes of Texas are Upon You," and
other popular numbers. Just as ragtime was not confined to the piano
only, so also a
Boogie Woogie piece was in the repertoire
of
every jazz band of the 1930's.
Jazz
developments after World War II until the end of the 20th century,
a period of over 50 years, are another, even more complex story
to tell.
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