ELI H.

NEWBERGER

ARCHETYPES AND ANTECEDENTS OF PIANO

BLUES AND BOOGIE WOOGIE STYLE

Jazz is essentially an improvised music; it is simultaneously composed

and performed. "Style" in jazz implies qualities of both composition
and performance. "Idiom," "structure," "phrasing," and "tech-
nique" are aspects of style, and a study of various jazz styles contrasts
musical " personalities" in the fullest sense.
The jazz piano is as old as jazz, and there have been as many jazz
piano styles as there have been jazz pianists. Some , however , seem to
show particular originality and imagination, and their work has been of
influence. The piano blues stylists to whom one can look as archetypes
for the piano blues and boogie-woogie school share these attributes.
In general, the performers represented here exhibit an impressive
technical command of the piano. This is not a prime requisite for the
effective use of the instrument in jazz , however. For that reason , Cripple
Clarence Lofton is present, while, for instance, Jose Iturbi is not.
To capture a sense of style, and to demonstrate the characteristic
features of this school of jazz pianism , each of the artists discussed in
this article is represented by a typical 12-bar blues improvisation.
Principal conceptual and methodologic issues pertaining to the tran-
scription and notation of these choruses are reviewed in a previous
study. 1
As did ragtime, piano blues and boogie-woogie derived from many
sources. But where ragtime shows in its notated music and its mannered
style the manifest influence of nineteenth century European and Ameri-

Eli H. Newberger is writing several articles as part of a larger study on the evolution of jazz piano
styles. At Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston, he is director of the Family Development ,
Study. He is also assistant professor of pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School.
PIANO BLUES AND BOOGIE WOOGIE 85

can " light classical" music , the earthy , gutty vitality of " the blues"
partly obscures an earlier, if no less profound , exposure of the West
African slave to the religious music of white America.
Consider for a moment that the music of West Africa was, and is only
recently acknowledged to be still , a highly sophisticated and
traditionalized unwritten form. Certain scales , modes, and rhythmic
configurations pertain to particular tribes , regions, secular and ritual
functions. 2 Tone-color and inflection are quite important, and there is a
highly elaborated correspondence between language and musical
sound . Tuned drums, so-called "talking drums ," and constantly tuna-
ble drums complement a wide variety of percussion and wind instru-
ments which are frequently pretuned to, say, a basic pentatonic or
seven-note scale. Simply stated, the governing principles of the music
of West Africa are polyphony , relationship of the number of notes in the
mode or scale to the rhythmic structure, theme and repeated variations .
Marshall Stearns ' s chapter on the American background of jazz dates
the "mass blending of the two musical traditions of Europe and West
Africa" to around 1800, the time in which the Methodist revival
movement known as "The Great Awakening" was gathering momen-
tum. He notes , too , that black preachers-such as Black Harry, who
accompanied Bishop Asbury , a founder of the Methodist Church, in his
travels-were known before the American Revolution, and that ''lining
out"-the practice in early New England congregations of answering
and embellishing a reader's chanted or spoken verse, a custom "which
lent itself so easily to the West African call -and-response pattern' '- can
be traced back to 1644, when "the Westminster Assembly recom-
mended the adoption of the practice in English churches because the
congregation couldn't read. " 3
Musical artifacts of the dynamic exchanges which took place between
black and white revivalists may yet be heard in black gospel music, ·a
vivid expression of the '' black aesthetic,' '4 and such white churches as
the Holiness Faith Healers. The music of both contains many elements
which are central to blues: antiphonal "exchange" between preacher
and congregation; repeated rhythmic patterns or "riffs"; and spontane-
ous improvisations on the words or melody to a hymn. Two quotes from
Hear Me Talkin' to Ya' perhaps better make the point. 5 Danny Barker
says of Bessie Smith:

Bessie Smith was a fabulous deal to watch. She was a pretty large
woman and she could sing the blues. She had a church deal mixed

 

 
  

   


PIANO BLUES AND BOOGIE WOOGIE 87

up in it. She dominated a stage .. . . If you had any church

background, like people who came from the South as I did, you
would recognize a similarity between what she was doing and what
those preachers and evangelists from there did, and how they
moved people . The South had fabulous preachers and evangelists .
Some would stand on corners and move the crowds from there.
Bessie did the same thing on stage ... . Bessie was in a class with
those people. She could bring about mass hypnotism.

And T-Bone Walker of the blues:

The blues? Man , I didn't start playing the blues ever. That was in
me before I was born and I've been playing and living the blues
ever since ....
Of course, the blues comes a lot from the church, too. The first
time I ever heard a boogie-woogie piano was the first time I went to
church. That was the Holy Ghost Church in Dallas, Texas. That
boogie-woogie was a kind of blues, I guess. Then the preacher
used to preach in a bluesy tone sometimes. You even got the
congregation yelling "Amen" all the time when his preaching
would stir them up--his preaching and his bluesy tone. Lots of
people think I'm going to be a preacher when I quit this business
because of the way I sing the blues. They say it sounds like a
sermon.
Certainly , too, the work song, the field holler, and the later guitar-
accompanied "country blues" contributed to what eventually became
piano blues and ''boogie -woogie. '' The special pertinence of blues to
the black experience shaped this communication. 6
In Speckled Red's chorus on "Wilkins Street Stomp" (Example 1),7
we note, in addition to a formal, chordal' 'introduction,'' a striking right
hand device between measures 4 and 10. Alternation of intervals and
chords with single notes in a limited range produce an easy -0stinato, not
unlike a strummed, subtly changing blues solo on the guitar.
With urbanization after the abolition of slavery came the integration
at the piano of such diverse elements as the rapid, chugging guitar
rhythms of "Fast Western" blues, presumably from the oppressiv e
lumber and turpentine camps; the melancholy "spirituals"; the ferven t,
frantic "jubilees" and "shouts"; and to a lesser extent, as we see in
Cow Cow Davenport's solo on "State Street Jive"(Example 2)8 ,
ragtime. Davenport's performance shows an unusual number of right
88 JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES

Ex. 2. Cow Cow Davenport, " State Street Jive"

,
PIANO BLUES AND BOOGIE WOOGIE 89

hand octave and "pivot" figures. His is a barrelhouse style with ex-
treme emphasis on repetition and embroidery; in each chorus in the
present recording, the left hand is nearly identical, and the right hand
incessantly decorates with grace notes , passing voices, and "ragged "
eighth notes . Adding further to the "rag time" sense is the unu sual ,
formally repeated' 'mi ddle section'' (measures 5 to 9) which is similarly
rarely altered.
The uncommonly fine left hand pattern begins with powerful octaves
which migrate into a stunning chromatic run (measures 5, 6). There after
broken fifths and a two-measure riff (measures 9 and 10) provide a
rocking , shifting accompaniment.
Yet it is notable that Davenport's cut of'' Atlanta Rag'' ~ sounds as if
he is shackled by the ragtime manuscript. There is much the same '' eight
to the bar' ' feeling as in the present example , but we have the impression
that the performer needs more freedom to improvise.
In addition to its several sundry other meanings, "blues" came later
to mean "12-bar blues," the standard three-chord scheme we hear so
eloquently improvised in these pages. Stearns remarks that W. C.
Handy's popular "Memphis Blues" was turned down several times
because of its "unusual" form before it was published in 1912. And
Count Basie , leader of the splendid '' band that swings the blues ,'' first
heard that "blues" meant only "12-bar blues " in Oklahoma City in
1926 from the celebrated blues singer Jimmy Rushing , who in turn had
been so taught by an uncle from the deep South around 1915 .10
In H ear Me Ta/kin ' to Ya' Bunk Johnson, among others, talks of the
blues in New Orleans around the turn of the century:

That was the Crescent City in them days, full of bars , honky-tonks,
and barrel houses. A barrel house was just a piano in a hall. There
was always a piano play er working. When I was a kid , I'd go into a
barrel house and play ' long with them piano players ' til early in the
mornin' . We used to play nuthin' but the blues.11

And Jelly Roll Morton, in the narrative acco mpaniment to his Library of
Congress recordings, 12 speaks often of hearing very many solo blues
pianists in Storyville whose inventiveness (by Morton standards) might
be called into question but who nonetheless improvised original var-
iations.
Perhaps Morton's objection to the blues he heard had to do with the
fact that the melodies in that idiom-particularly in the faster pieces-
90 JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES

differed markedly from those which he heard in, say , ragtime and
instrumental popular music. For where ragtime 's melodic figures are
maintained steadfastly throughout the "piece," altered, perhaps, by
grace notes, passing voices , and a rare extra syncopation, such blues as
Cripple Clarence Lofton's eleven-bar "Blue Boogie" (Example 3), 13
and Meade Lux Lewis 's slower "Fa r Ago Blues" (Example4) 14 (admit-
tedly recorded much later by men whose personal styles Morton could
not possibly have heard in New Orleans) show "melody" taking form
from a few repeated rhythmic figures, or "riffs," such as we hear in
measures I and 3 in Lofton' s chorus and in measures 6 and IO in
Lewis's. Generally there are three four-measure phrases in a blues. The
12-bar whole is frequently "filled out" by repetition, chords, and
occasional arpeggios or by simply allowing the underlying bass pattern
(or , as in Lewis's solo, bass "line") to carry on alone.
Lofton and Lewis spent much of their lives in Chicago, a city which
attracted and produced many superb blues players . There, in fact, began
the public renaissance of "boogie-woogie" in the late 1930s and early
1940s prompted by the rerecording of Lewis's popular ''Honky Tonk
Train Blues'' of 1929 (after, as Leonard Feather reports, 15 he was found
by critic John Hammond washing cars in a Chicago garage) and by Pine
Top Smith ' s splendid " Pine Top 's Boogie-Woogie " of 1928. Lewis , in
fact, was one of the major figures of that period, while Lofton, whose
tolerant ear and penetrating lack of technical discipline produced many
dissonances (such as one hears in measures I , 2, 7, and 8) and such
eleven-bar choruses as this present solo, remained always in relative
obscurity.
Montana Taylor was even less known to the general public, having
''disappeared'' after completing the very productive session from which
his solo on " Detroit Rocks " (Example 5)16 was taken . This chorus
clearly presents what came to be the archetypal features of popular
"boogie-woogie": steady ostinato accompaniment, repeated riffs and
triplet patterns, truncated phrases, and simple harmonies. Such right
hand ninths as these in measures 4 , 6, and 8 are not "atypical," as they
inevitably resolve . The clean lines and directness of the chorus are
accentuated by a virtual absence of dynamic variation.
Jimmy Yancey is a name that is rather more familiar than Montana
Taylor , although ironically he seems to have been publicized mainly by
Meade Lux Lewis's and Bob Crosby's recordings of "Yancey Special"
in 1936 and 1938 , respectively. Subsequently he himself did record , and
PIANO BLUES AND BOOGIE WOOGIE 91

Ex. 3. Crippl e Clarence Lofton, ''Blu e Bo ogie' '

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92 JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES

Ex. 4. Meade Lux Lewis, "Far Ago Blues"

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PIANO BLUES AND BOOGIE WOOGIE 93

Ex. 5. Montana Taylor, "Detroit Rocks"

94 JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES

Ex. 6. Jimmy Yancey, "The Fives"

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96 JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES

Ex . 7. Pine Top Smith, "Jump Steady Blues"

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PIANO BLUES AND BOOGIE WOOGIE 97

Ex. 8. Pete Johnson , "Lone Star Blues"

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98 JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES

Ex. 9. Albert Ammons, "Woo Woo"

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PIANO BLUES AND BOOGIE WOOGIE 99

Ex. 10 . Bob Zurk e, "Cow Cow Blu es"

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100 JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES

patterns, a technique which was widely imitated in the boogie-woogie

''revival'' by such ersatz practitioners as Freddie Slack and Honey Hill.
While piano blues and boogie-woogie are traditionally played solo-
the ostinato left hand presumably supplanting a "rhythm section"-
such bands as Bob Crosby's and Ray McKinley's played arrangements
of boogie-woogie "numbers" in the 1930s, employing some capable
pianists to handle the piano chorus but-with notable exceptions, as will
be seen in Bob Zurke's solo----diluting the intensity and feeling of
"blues." Ammons and Johnson, however, each played with bands at
various times, the former frequently with drums and bass (the present
solo was notated from such a recording), and the latter enjoying success
in the late I 920s with the excellent blues singer Joe Turner, whom he
met when Turner was tending bar at Piney Brown's Sunset Cafe in
Kansas City. Their styles sharing a certain adroit unsubtlety and ten-
dency to play' 'triplet'' rather than more nearly ''straight'' eighth notes,
they joined forces to make many vigorous two-piano appearances in
clubs and on discs during the boogie-woogie "revival," and, in fact,
played and recorded some surprising three-piano boogie-woogie with
Meade Lux Lewis in New York in that time.
When Bob Zurke succeeded Joe Sullivan in the Bob Crosby Band in
1936, he played both a "swing" style which seems derived from Fats
Waller, Earl Hines, and Teddy Wilson, and the powerful, sincere
boogie-woogie which we hear on "Cow Cow Blues" in Example 10.21
After achieving such a measure of popularity as a boogie-woogie player
in the late 1930s that he won the Down Beat poll in 1939, he attempted a
band of his own which failed. Like very many other jazz pianists-
notably Pine Top Smith, who never lived to hear his "Pine Top's
Boogie-W oogie'' played far and wide-Zurke lived the last years of his
short life in obscurity.
Two singer-pianists who worked in Chicago and also did some superb
accompaniment for such more famous shouters as Big Bill Broonzy and
Sonny Boy Williamson are Memphis Slim (Peter Chatman) and Big
Maceo (Major) Merriwether, whose solos on ''44 Blues'' and ''Chicago
Breakdown," respectively, are heard in Examples 1122 and 12.23 If
Memphis Slim's recorded work gives the impression of being less
powerful than Big Maceo' s-the latter's chorus is singular for savage
intensity and devilish virtuosity-their styles show special similarities.
Each develops tension over a number of choruses, employing progres-
sively growing patterns or relentlessly repeated ''riffs'' over a more-or-
less unchanging ostinato bass. One feels that the sense of rhythm in their


 
   


   
 


 
 
!02 JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES

Ex. 12. Big Maceo Merriwether, "Chicago Breakdown"

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PIANO BLUES AND BOOGIE WOOGIE 103

playing, as with Jimmy Yancey and Pine Top Smith, is "eight to the
bar," consequent of a preponderance of more-nearly-" straight"
eighth-note types (note the remarkable conflicts between right hand
triplets and left hand couplets in Memphis Slim's solo), and their works
share an unusually deep blues feeling. In Example 11 we hear evidence
that Memphis Slim was particularly influenced by Jimmy Yancey. As in
Yancey's chorus (Example 6), there are frequent turns, conflicts be-
tween accompaniment eighth notes and treble triplets, fourths and fifths
in the left hand, and concise treble patterns.
Bob Zurke's solo (Example 10) has much of the same churning,
thrusting quality of Big Maceo' s. Their mighty left hands, furthermore,
sound virtually identical.
Three versatile musicians whose financial needs have brought them
through many bands and many styles but whose riffy inventions seem to
reveal fundamentally "blues" spirits are Jimmy Blythe, Sammy Price,
and Billy Maxted. Only Blythe spent an amount of time in Chicago in
the 1920s, but his chorus on "Mr. Freddie Blues" (Example 13),24
unlike Price's and Maxted's, shows an abundance of ragtime figures
which perhaps belie his close exposure to such influential pianists as
Jimmy Yancey. He uses right hand pivot notes in measures 1-4 and 6, a
modified two-beat bass in measures 5, 8, and 10, and a kind of rag
"release" into measure 5. At the same time his short, discrete phrases,
repeated right hand patterns, and heavy, continuous left hand pay
homage to the other Chicago blues artists.
Blythe's solo has a special pianistic quality. The various accents,
octaves, left hand anticipations and chords, ornaments, pedal points
(measures 11 and 12), and his relatively broad range indicate that
Blythe, like many of the blues players and such post-ragtimers (who
seem to have affected his playing) as James P. Johnson and Jelly Roll
Morton, was attentive to the resources of his instrument.
The syncopated progression in measure 12 of Morton's "Correct
Version" of "Maple Leaf Rag " 25 is much the same in sound and sense
as the chord series in measure 7 here. Jimmy Blythe, like Johnson and
Morton, spent most of his musical career as a soloist. His varied
rhythms, willingness to use the entire piano, and exceeding confidence
set him apart from many ensemble pianists.
Sammy Price's bellowing, two-fisted solo on "Lagniappe" (Exam-
ple 14)26 features incessant syncopation, hearty left hand-right hand
exchanges (measures 5, 6), and heavily accented chords. But neither is
Price's left hand a strictly ostinato affair, and like Jimmy Blythe's, his
104 JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES

Ex. 13. Jimmy Blythe, "Mr. Freddy Blues"

PIANO BLUES AND BOOGIE WOOG IE 105

Ex. 14. Sammy Price, " Lagniappe"

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106 JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES

Ex. l 5 . Billy Maxted, "Memphis Blues"

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feeling of time is not always 4/4. The background in this chorus shifts
from octaves (measure I) to stride (measure 2) to chromatics (measures
3, 4) to patterns (measures 7, 8). His left hand coordinates with his right
to outline passing harmony and to shape phrases . And the rhythm
charges ahead of or lags behind the strong beats, which, as in measures
2, 3, 4 , and 6, are frequently enough the first and third beats to convey a
sense close to 2/4 time.
Billy Maxted ' s small stature may have much to do with the prepon-
derance of right-hand -fitting chords and interval s in his solo on "Mem-
phis Blues" (Example 15).27 His left hand , furthermore , appears to lean
toward linear, chromatic, and within-the-octave patterns. Nonetheless
Maxted plays with impressive power, harkening to Bob Zurke, whose
hefty unsubtlety and crisp phrasing he shares. Maxted is a pianist whose
versatility enables him to sustain an association with the artists and
places of New York " dixieland " (he worked at Nick's both alone and
with ensembles for many of the club's last years). He plays fine, rich
blues , similar in many respects to Meade Lux Lewis ' s and Jimmy
Yancey's .
Blues and "boogie-woogie," like ragtime, contributed a certain
basic quantity to the evolution of the jazz piano. In the hands of the
' ' New Orleans ' ' and ' ' Stride'' piani sts, a synthesis of sorts took place.
Bluesy patterns and "riffs" came often to be played by , say, Fats
Waller, over typical ragtime basses; and, conversely, such artists as
Eubie Blake display ragtime -derived decorations and traditional
melodies over standard ostinato blues accompaniments.
Often members of ensembles rather than soloists , pianists adapted
their styles to integrate with their rhythm sections . They supported other
players and had only a chorus or two to impart their message to the
audience. So their styles grew, and changed.

NOTES

I. E. Newberger, " The Transition from Ragtime to Improvised Piano Style," Journal of Jazz
Studies 3, no . 2 (Spring 1976): 3-18.

2. The relationships of the performers themselves, as well as the music , to the structure and social
life of West African societies, are treated by S. Kinney , " Drummers in Dagbon: The Role of the
Drummer in the Damba Festival ," Ethnomusicology 14 (May 1970): 258-65; and D. W . Ames ,
"lgbo and Hausa Musicians: A Comparative Examination, " Ethnomusicology 17 (May 1973):
250-78.

3. M. Stearns, The Story of Jazz (New York: Oxford , 1956), chap. 8.

 108 JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES

4. "Gospel has distilled the aesthetic essence of the black arts into a unified whole. It is a colorful
kaleidoscope of black oratory, poetry , drama and dance. One has only to experience a gospel
' happening ' in its cultural setting to hear black poetry , in the colorful oratory of the black gospel
preacher , or to see the drama of an emotion-packed performance of a black gospel choir interacting
with its gospel audience, and the resulting shout of the holy dance. It is indeed a culmination of the
black aesthetic experience. '' P. Williams-Jones, '' Afro-American Gospel Music: A Crystallization
of the Black Aesthetic," Ethnomusicology 19 (September 1975): 373-385.

5. N. Shapiro and N. Hentoff , eds. , H ear Me Ta/kin' to Ya (New York: Rinehart , 1955), pp. 243 ,
249-51.

6. "It is interesting to compare the popularity of blues (which stressed suffering) among Blacks
with that of black-face minstrel songs (which stressed the simple happiness of blacks) , performed
widely before white audiences. (Footnote: This difference is roughly comparable to the division
between the 'Uncle Remus' tales which were projected at white audiences and the more obscene
protest tales which circulated only among Blacks.) Each performance was directed toward a.racial
audience , and their differences suggest the dilemma of the black musician who performed for both
white and black audiences. It is clear that the same materials would not be appropriate for each, and
thus two distinct repertoires developed." W. R. Ferris, Jr., " Racial Repertoires among Blues
Performers," Ethnomusicology 14 (September 1970): 439-449.
A rich and vivid scholarly study of the meaning of blues-and wry and trenchant commentary on
blues scholarship-is found in Charles Keil , Urban Blues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press ,
1966). Individual players ' styles can be understood in reference to the social and cultural contexts
of their lives, to definable geographic regions, and, importantly, to the changing demands and
tastes of the musical marketplace. One scholar's perceptions of the whole panoply may draw from
lyrics in the country idiom: " ... mules , boll weevils , highways , trains, boxers , prisons , hurri-
canes, floods, bloodhound s, lawyers , chauffeurs, Pearl Harbor, fire departments, cities, rivers,
gambling, beer, whiskey , voodoo, sex, " (p. 70), where "In the later city blues styles, like those of
the best-known Chicago singers at the present time , the accent is either on bravado and virility
or-----<:onversely-helplessness" (p. 71).

7. Brunswick 50414. Recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, January 24, 1929.

8. Brunswick 50414. Recorded in Chicago, July 16, 1928.

9. Riverside SOP 11. The influence of ragtime on piano blues is attributed by Paul Oliver in The
Story of the Blues (Radnor , Pennsylvania: Chilton, 1969) both to the deep ragtime_tradition in such
cities as St. Louis and Indianapolis (p. 80) and to the generation of the artist: " It is noticeable that
the first generation , born a decade later, were exclusively blues players. Most of them seemed to
have met at some period in their formative years" (p . 83). Charles Cow Cow Danveport was born in
1894 in Anniston , Alabama, and was "ex pelled from seminary for playing ragtime," according to
biographic notes by Leonard Feather in The Enclyclopedia of Jaz.z. (New York: Bonanza, 1962).

10. Steams , Story of Jaz.z., pp. 105-106.

11. Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Ta/kin' to Ya, p. 7.

12. A. Lomax , Mister Jelly Roll (New York: Grosset and Dunlap , 1953).

13. Riverside SOP 11. Recorded in Chicago, 1939.

14. Riverside SOP 11. Recorded in New York, 1939.

15. L. Feather , The Encyclopedia of Jaz.z. (New York: Bonanza Books, 1962).

16. Brunswick 50414. Recorded in Chicago, April 23, 1929.

17. Riverside SOP 11. Recorded in Chicago, 1939.

PIANO BLUES AND BOOGIE WOOGIE 109

18. Brunswick 50414. Recorded in Chicago, January 14, 1929.

19. Riverside SOP 11. Recorded in New York, April 16, 1939.

20. Columbia CJM 1013. This is a chorus from an ensemble recording led by Harry James.

21. Columbia CJM 1013. Recorded in Chicago, May 8, 1940.

22. Folkways FG 3524. Notes for this 1959 release by Charles Edward Smith, which do not list a
recording date , state: " Slim believes this special and original style of playing was created by a man
called Ernest 'Forty-Four.' The lyrics, not sung on this record , involve a faithless woman and a
44-calibre pistol."

23. RCA LPM 2321. Liner notes by George T. Simon date the recording to 1945. It include s
sidemen Tampa Red, guitar, and Charlie Sanders, drums.

24. RCA RLP 1031. Recorded in Chicago, 1926.

25. Newberger, "Transit ion from Ragtime," pp. 13-14.

26. Jazztone J 1213. This is a chorus from an ensemble recording led by Omer Simeon.

27. Decca 8282. This is a chorus from an ensemble recording led by Eddie Condon.