Boogie-Woogie

Boogie-woogie is a jazz style that seems quite accessible to the listener. It is a piano style that was occasionally orchestrated successfully. This full-sounding style came into existence when it became necessary to hire a piano player to substitute for an orchestra. The resulting "barrel-house" piano which could be found in rural southern juke joints tried to imitate the sound of three guitars: one playing the chords, one melody, and one bass.

Most boogie-woogie is played on the blues chord progression with a repeated ostinato. The definite feeling of eight beats to the measure is the signature of this style.

During the 1930s, the strict blues form was being used more in jazz recordings as the tempos were speeding up. In the years just before 1940, the primitive blues form of boogie woogie became a popular fad. Music historians have credited Meade Lux Lewis for the boogie woogie craze. All during the 40s boogie influenced a number of arrangements within the big bands. The swing bands found great success when they added the element of boogie, such as the case of Will Bradley’s "Beat Me Daddy, Eight To The Bar," and Tommy Dorsey’s "Boogie Woogie."

Of the boogie woogie players who came to promeinence during the boogie fad; seven stand out as the major contributors and influences: Pine Top Smith, Albert Ammons, Jimmy Yancey, Joe Sullivan, Clarence Lofton, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis. In later years Freddie Slack, Cleo Brown and Bob Zurke came to promidence as the younger generation of boogie woogie players.

The blues based boogie would later merge with the stride style to became the main line of development of jazz piano playing, a form that would lead to a major movement in jazz, led by the "Fatha," Earl Hines.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity