Albert Ammons - Meade "Lux" Lewis - January 6 1939
Richard Havers - udiscovermusic - The First Blue Note Record is Released
What’s the story behind Blue Note Records’ first record release? Well, it all starts five days after John Hammond’s “From Spirituals To Swing” December 23, 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall when “a club like no other” – according to owner Barney Josephson – opened at 2 Sheridan Square in downtown New York. The club was Café Society, and it really was like no other in that there was no color bar; blacks and whites were welcome and treated as equals. The greeting at the door was: “Welcome to Café Society, the wrong place for the right people.”
Michael Cuscuna – Blue Note Photos – Francis Wolff
Alfred always insisted that the experience of seeing Albert Ammons, Meade “Lux” Lewis and Pete Johnson playing live boogie-woogie piano at that concert drove him to record Ammons and Lewis. Days later, Alfred introduced himself to the pianists at Café Society, where they had an extended engagement.
Dan Morgenstern - The First Day
On the first day of what was to become a legendary jazz label, Alfred Lion brought to a rented recording studio two of the great masters of boogie woogie piano, Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis.
Michael Cuscuna – Blue Note Photos – Francis Wolff
On the 6th of January at 2 p.m., Alfred took Ammons and Lewis into a small Manhattan studio and recorded two duets and seventeen solo performances.
Richard Cook - Blue Note Records: The Biography – Secker and Warburg 2001 p.8
It was a sunny winter's day...he established a congenial setting for the two men to perform - mostly, through the provision of plenty of Scotch and bourbon. The producer was somewhat in awe of the situation and had no real idea how to direct the occasion, preferring to let the music and the musicians take their course. That resulted in a notable peculiarity which, in a sense, set the tone for Blue Note's future: instead of the three-minute duration which ten-inch 78s customarily enforced, Lion allowed both Ammons and Johnson to play longer solos...
MC
They took turns at the one piano, recording four solos each before relinquishing the bench to the other man.
Richard Havers - Uncompromising Expression p46-9
Lion seems to have done little in his role as 'producer' except suggest to Ammons that he leave out the middle waltz section on 'Boogie Woogie Stomp'...and keep up the excitement of the 'hot stuff'.
RC
Lion allowed both Ammons and [Lewis] to play longer solos, and the resulting masters had to be pressed as twelve-inch discs, a rarity in jazz terms. Ammons cut nine sides, Lewis eight, and Lion cajoled them into playing two duets.
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| ©Charles Peterson |
DM
Two weeks earlier, he had attended the first of John Hammond's famed "Spirituals to Swing" concerts at Carnegie Hall, in which the two piano giants were featured, along with a host of other performers in what Hammond considered the pure jazz, blues and gospel idioms. It was a powerful for the 29-year-old jazz fan — a recent refugee from the murderous thugs who had seized power in Germany and made even his native Berlin (where he had discovered jazz at 16 at a concert by Sam Wooding's band) a place fraught with danger.
RH
Five days after Hammond's "From Spirituals to Swing" concert, Alfred Lion went to the [Café Society] club with the sole purpose of getting the two piano players to record for his new, and as yet unnamed, record label. After their initial surprise the two pianists had just one question, would they get paid? Of course he'd pay them, and pay them well. The deal was sealed.
DM
Lion had a special touch from the start. The session produced an astonishing 19 usable masters, 12 of which were issued on the extra-length 12-inch 7Bs that were to become a Blue Note trademark — no other jazz label of the 78 era devoted so much of its output to this more costly format, giving the artists more space in which to create. From day one, Blue Note had class.
RH
When the session ended and Lion had paid their fees, he didn't have enough money to cover the studio time. The would-be entrepreneur left empty handed, returning a few weeks later to pay for the masters. Upon listening to the discs at his apartment, he was convinced that this music deserved to be more widely heard. Lion is said to have remarked, "I decided to make some pressings and go into the music business."
RH
Anyone starting out in the record business needed financing, and while Lion was working in the import/export business, he did not have sufficient funds to back this project. He had met a number of people since arriving in New York and became particularly close with Max Margulis, a writer and musician.
MC
With [writer] Max Margulis's financing, Blue Note Records was finally a reality.
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| Blue Note business registration, March 25 1939 |
Leonard Feather - The Blue Note Story, 1955
Blue Note Records was in business.
The events that took place that day seem more memorable in retrospect than they may have appeared on that day to Alfred Lion, Blue Note pioneer who was then in the throes of his very first recording date. They have acquired added importance today because. after sixteen years of activity, Blue Note has a record of uninterrupted successful participation in the jazz scene — the only company that can make that claim.
MC
It's still unclear whether he intended to issue these recordings on a label from the start or if he wanted to keep them for his own enjoyment and those of a few friends
When Alfred actually moved ahead with the idea of releasing this music, he found that because he had let the musicians stretch out beyond three-and-a-half-minute mark, he would have to issue them on 12” (30cm) 78s rather than on the standard 10” (25cm) 78s. Although the larger discs sold for a dollar more, this was seen as a positive development for the image of Blue Note.
DM
On that first day, Alfred Lion could not have had even an inkling of what his enthusiastic experiment would lead to. He only knew that he wanted to capture for posterity (and immediate dissemination) some music that seemed remarkably beautiful and special. That first day's rich harvest showed that he was able to create a climate for recording - a process fundamentally different from other performance modes - that was stimulating for the artists.
MC
Lion pressed up some 50 copies of 78s by each of them.
MC
Those first records carried the same label design that Blue Note would use for the next thirty years, but the colors were black and deep pink instead of blue and white. A few small orders began to trickle in as these first records received glowing reviews. Alfred didn't exactly run out and quit his day job, but at least Blue Note was in business.
RH
Another of Blue Note's founders was Emanuel Eisenberg, When Blue Note records came out in March 1939, the accompanying press release referred to the label's founders as 'sponsors', which echoed the egalitarian approach of the business partners.
RH
Friday March 3 1939 was the release date for the first two Blue Note recordings. On BN 1 were two slow blues tunes, 'Melancholy' and Solitude', which were takes 11 and 12 by Lewis. BN 2 consisted of two numbers by Ammons with a quicker tempo.
With no real distribution in place, Lion offered these records by mail order at $1.50 each, which was double the standard retail price for a 10-inch record. Lion pressed just 25 copies of each disc.
Years later, Alfred Lion would recall the huge challenge Blue Note faced: “There was nothing in ’39. No [music trade] books where you could check out things. Nothing. You had to go by your wits.” Through his friendship with Milt Gabler, Lion persuaded Commodore Music Shop to sell Blue Note’s records. H. Royer Smith on Walnut Street Philadelphia, trading since 1907 and one of America’s oldest record stores, also agreed to take them, as did David Dean Smith in New Haven, Connecticut.
Martin Craig's initial label design, from Alfred Lion's original brief, "Make me a nice label, something modern". Craig lived on the floor below Blue Note's office on Seventh Avenue.
MC
These first records carried the same label design...that Blue Note would use for the next thirty years, but the colors were black and deep pink instead of blue and chartreuse as originally intended. Apparently the pressing plant was having problems with its inks.
DM
On that first day, Alfred Lion could not have had even an inkling of what his enthusiastic experiment would lead to. He only knew that he wanted to capture for posterity (and immediate dissemination) some music that seemed remarkably beautiful and special. That first day's rich harvest showed that he was able to create a climate for recording - a process fundamentally different from other performance modes - that was stimulating for the artists.
He saw that what he had done was good and continued his labors in the fertile vineyards of jazz, soon abetted by his boyhood friend and fellow fan Francis Wolff. Because they knew what they wanted to hear they eventually made it heard around the world. Here is the start of the romance between Blue Note and the blues.
Max Margulis - Blue Note 8 / 9 Brochure
The blues, a product of Negro life in America, is the essential source and core of expressive hot jazz. Innumerable blues singers have composed or improvised thousands of blues verses about Negro life “across the tracks”. These vivid and poignant expressions of grief, nostalgia, and rebellion, issuing out of the special circumstances of Negro life – Jim Crow, poverty, the jailhouse, the railroad, train, a difficult personal life – underlie the content of hot jazz.
The blues is not only an art of singing and playing (the instruments approximate the inflections and intonations of sung blues), but a general way of feeling. It is a means of communication, and like certain non-European musics, it involves the experience of a whole people.
Blues singers were accompanied by guitarists or pianists, who contributed a characteristic texture and emphasis to the music. The urban pianists, especially, developed a solo blues style independent of words. The style had a prominent percussionistic aspect, but its melodies stemmed from the basic alphabet of blues feeling, the tradition of sung verses.
One kind of piano playing that these pioneers evolved out of a gradual discovery of keyboard resources was the audacious, percussive style known as boogie woogie. The truth is that the boogie woogie style shows more than a casual relation to the ordinary blues. It not only takes the contour of the 12-bar blues and bases itself upon the same primary harmonies, but it reflects, in its motives and phrasing, the same directness and purposiveness. The sung blues, for that matter, is never more effecfively underlined and intensified than by a boogie woogie accompaniment.
The pianist, Meade "Lux" Lewis, of Chicago, has no peer for performance in the boogie woogie style. But his celebrated "Honky Tonk Train Blues," a rapid and vigorous composition on the lonesome railroad Train motive, achieves emotional values common to both boogie woogie and ordinary blues.
It is in the field of the blues, the ultimate source of his musical thinking, that Meade "'Lux" Lewis has lately created music to indicate the scope of his musical gifts. His blues is personal, and dispenses with many of the traditional periods and cadences, in favor of his own, derived conventions. It is sensitive, with suggestions of boogie woogie technique; if is austere, uncompromising, and charged with agony. It is simply The Blues, wherein the Honky Tonk Train appears as one symbol among others in the severely ordered existence of an oppressed people.
The present recording is the longest, most sustained piano recording ever issued. If consists of four 12-inch surfaces, and was improvised in the course of a session as a complete and organic entity. Actually, perhaps. if is a kind of cyclic suite of four blues movements growing vertically one out of the other. It is called: The Blues (Parts 1 to 4)
MAX MARGOLIS
American Music Lover April 1939
A new brand of swing records has appeared in the jazz world. They are called Blue Note and are sponsored by Max Margulis, Alfred Lion. and Emanuel Eisenberg, three jazz connoisseurs well known to
jazz lovers. To quote from the circular issued with the first releases: “Blue Note records are designed to serve the uncompromising expressions of hot jazz or swing. Direct and honest hot jazz is a way of feeling, a musical and social manifestation, and Blue Note records are concerned with identifying its impulse, not its sensational and commercialized adornments. Toward this end a deliberate cultivation will be made of those relaxed and informal moments when the performing artist is freely and meaningfully improvising...”
The first two releases have succeeded in upholding their sponsors' avowed intentions.
Melancholy; and Solitude — piano solos by Meade Lux Lewis. Blue Note No. 1. Price $1.50.
To those who have habitually associated Meade Lux Lewis with his Honky Tonk Train Blues this record will be a revelation. Both numbers are original compositions of unusual feeling and merit; both are Ellingtonesque in mood and tempo; both are melodies which would be worthy of Ellington himself; and both reveal a remarkable technique of piano playing which few, if any people, ever suspected Lewis possessed. Melancholy is the slightly better side if only because it catches the real, deep-down blue spirit better. The swing of both pieces is remarkably subtle. There are a succession of passages followed by loud outbursts which at first are startling. But they are no means out of place or mere empty display. When we consider how characteristic this is of the real Negro blues, particularly in its vocal form, we understand how closely Lewis parallels the original form and how successfully he has caught the mood.
Boogie Woogie Stomp; and Boogie Woogie Blues — piano solos by Albert Ammons. Blue Note No.2. Price $1.50.
The blues is the Negro's most important contribution to music; it has undoubtedly influenced American music. But the Negro has also contributed certain characteristic techniques which no doubt will also leave their impression. One of these is the boogie woogie style of piano playing. It is by no means new but it is only now beginning to be understood and appreciated.
Albert Ammons has built his reputation entirely upon his ability to play in the true boogie woogie manner. Both the Stomp and the Blues are excellent original compositions in this vein. Both have the typically heavy bass over which rides a wisp of a melody. They have a tremendous drive, and the swing, even though not of the most subtle nature, is irresistible. In the Blues side the tempo is slower and the melody more pronounced.
The sponsors of Blue Note records are to be congratulated on their first issues. The music is genuine, the interpretations are excellent, the recordings are perfect (they contain some of the finest recorded piano tone we've ever heard), and the surfaces are smooth.
The Nation – June 10 1939
And now a company named Blue Note announces that its records "are designed to serve the uncompromising expressions of hot jazz, or swing, in general. Any particular style of playing which represents an authentic way of musical feeling is genuine expression. By virtue of its significance in place, time, and circumstance, it possesses its own tradition, artistic standards, and audience that keeps it alive. Hot jazz. therefore, is expression and communication. a musical and social manifestation. and Blue Note records are concerned with identifying its impulse....Toward this end a deliberate cultivation is being made of those relaxed and informal movements when the performing artist is freely and meaningfully improvising...first, to the end that "those masters of the 'boogie-woogie' style, Meade 'Lux' Lewis and Albert Ammons," might achieve "such direct honesty, freedom, and relaxation" in recorded performance as ordinary studio conditions had hitherto made impossible, and that Lewis in particular might "indicate for the first time perhaps the unexampled scope of [his] musical genius." Actually, Ammons produces for the same reiteration of boogie-woogie figures as for Vocalion a few weeks earlier; but Lewis is persuaded by the occasion to attempt profundity with nothing more than a pretentious rumble here and straining thrust there which in the end add up to zero.
The American Record Guide – August 1939 Volume 5 Issue 4
Chicago in Mind - Piano solo by Albert Ammons.
Blue Note No. 4; price $1.50.
Chicago in Mind is a surprise. corning from Ammons. One had become so accustomed to associating him with boogie woogie playing said he was never expected to play anything else. Chicago in Mind is certainly something else." It is a slow blues. a free and easy improvisation in a distinctly Chicago style. but not without its echoes of the boogie woogie, In fact, sometimes it sounds very much like boogie woogie slowed down to an extremely slow pace. The bass is very prominent. giving the whole work a slightly top heavy sound. But the ideas are good and therefore we have
good jazz.
Twos and Fews is a faster number, not boogie but occasionally suggesting it. The styles of the two pianists blend remarkably well; so well, that it is difficult to tell just who is playing what. The theme is good: the improvisations are interesting. Both sides swing mightily.
But, frankly, I prefer their boogie playing because I feel they are more at home with it. And I suspect that the sponsors of Blue Note also think so because although this was the first recording made by them. they waited until now to issue it. after three other excellent discs had paved the way and set a standard. In fact. that standard has been set very high and they will have to work very hard to
live up to it. No. 4 does not quite make the grade according to their own high standards but it is still a remarkably fine disc because it contains real jazz.
Down Beat May 1939 Volume 6 Issue 5
First rate performances by first rate piano artists.
Twenty-four inches are allotted Albert and Lux here. Ammons exhibits his remarkable boogie-woogie technique admirably, showing to best advantage on Stomp. Lewis however, surprises.. Forsaking his b-w genius to play straight blues, he renders a completely satisfying job throughout his two own compositions. Blue Note, a New York concern, makes its first offerings herewith. I hope more are in the immediate offing, and I hope Pete Johnson’s boogie-woogie is next to be recorded. The two discs are completely devoid of commercialism.
Down Beat – August 1939 – Volume 6 Issue 8
Chicago in Mind, solo by Ammons; Two and Fews, duet, Ammons and Lewis, both on Blue Note 12 inches.
Rare examples of the blues.
Ammons' seven piano choruses reflect the free atmosphere in which these sides were made. His ingenious improvisations, aided by a sincerity which has always been peculiar to his playing since his early days on Chicago’s South side, have never been shown to better advantage. The duet is
interesting also, although Meade Lux and Albert both are at their best when playing solo. The atmosphere is not heavy; instead it is. at intervals, hardly discernible. Performances like these cannot found on the lists of the big record companies. But for the minor coterie of jazz lovers who recognize the best, Blue Note's Ammons-Lewis Sides provide what's needed.
Down Beat 15 December 1939 Volume 6 Issue 15
Presenting the longest piano solo ever recorded—48 inches of blues played by a man who really knows how. Simple and straightforward, without flowery embellishments and artificial sentiments, Meade Lux’ blues sides are among the most sensitive and sincere ever recorded.
Lewis hasn’t the imagination, or the rhythmic drive, of his colleagues Ammons and Pete Johnson. But here, in slow tempo, it’s in his favor. Seldom does one hear more earthy, emotional music. Nor does he does he revert to boogie-woogie style; Lewis here displays an entirely different style heretofore unassociated with his name.
In album form, the two big discs sell at $3.
The American Record Guide – September 1939 Volume 5 Issue 5
An apology is in order for an omission in last review of Blue Note No. 4. The title of the reverse side, Twos and Fews – a four hand improvisation, was omitted and its discussion may have been somewhat puzzling. Actually one side was a solo by Albert Ammons and the other a four-hand. two-piano improvisation by Albert Ammons and Meade “Lux” Lewis.
The American Record Guide – December 1939 – Volume 5 Issue 8
The Blues — a piano improvisation in four parts by Meade “Lux” Lewis.
Blue Note 8 and 9, in a folder; 12-inch: price $3.00
One who was present at the recording of these discs writes me: "They were made on a quiet afternoon as a complete entity and Meade "Lux" Lewis. who really felt like playing the blues. recorded these records with the utmost ease. It is safe to say that Meade while playing was barely conscious of being recorded. The only other time I ever heard him play in such an intimate way was at an early morning hour at the Café Society when all noisy guests had left. chairs had been turned up on the tables and all lights but one had been extinguished. That night Meade was playing the blues entirely for himself... I sincerely believe that these records have captured Meade in the same intimate mood.'"
And after hearing the records we but agree. The Blues begins leisurely, quietly, reminiscently. It speaks. It is like a song without words. Private thoughts expressed in sound. The theme is slow and melancholic. It brightens a bit on the second side; it rises a little in pitch and fervor but the third side returns to the sadness of the first. The fourth is quiet and meditative. It ends quietly, almost a whisper.
In reality, it is a cyclic suite of four blues movements. each movement growing from the previous one. But the effect is not cumulative nor are any climaxes built for effect. It is one long blues. pure and simple: blues born of introspection — a meditation.
This is the most ambitious recording attempted by Blue Note thus far and they have succeeded admirably. As a recording. it is nearly perfect: the piano tone is realistic and the surfaces are excellent. But in the first two sides and the beginning of the third there is a peculiar throbbing sound which sounds like a mechanical fault. It does not interfere with the music and it may exist only on the review copies.
Down Beat 7 March 1952 Volume 19 Issue 5
Here is a memorial set honoring the late boogie king who pushed the keyboard with an unrelenting rhythmic drive. These sides were originally on 12-inch wax and were among the first jazz classics released on the 12-year-old Blue Note label.
The Ammons individuality drive and building exciting climaxes is especially vivid on Stomp. On Twos and Fews is an example of the co-ordination of two jazz pianists playing in the same idiom, or here Albert is joined by Meade Lux Lewis.
The Blues and Chicago both contrast nicely with the boogie stomp numbers and show Albert as a fine slow blues player. This set is a must for boogie enthusiasts while it is a fine sample set for a jazz collector not particularly on a boogie kick yet wanting an illustration of the style in his collection. (Blue Note 7017.)
Max Margulis - Blue Note 8 / 9 Brochure
The blues, a product of Negro life in America, is the essential source and core of expressive hot jazz. Innumerable blues singers have composed or improvised thousands of blues verses about Negro life “across the tracks”. These vivid and poignant expressions of grief, nostalgia, and rebellion, issuing out of the special circumstances of Negro life – Jim Crow, poverty, the jailhouse, the railroad, train, a difficult personal life – underlie the content of hot jazz.
The blues is not only an art of singing and playing (the instruments approximate the inflections and intonations of sung blues), but a general way of feeling. It is a means of communication, and like certain non-European musics, it involves the experience of a whole people.
Blues singers were accompanied by guitarists or pianists, who contributed a characteristic texture and emphasis to the music. The urban pianists, especially, developed a solo blues style independent of words. The style had a prominent percussionistic aspect, but its melodies stemmed from the basic alphabet of blues feeling, the tradition of sung verses.
One kind of piano playing that these pioneers evolved out of a gradual discovery of keyboard resources was the audacious, percussive style known as boogie woogie. The truth is that the boogie woogie style shows more than a casual relation to the ordinary blues. It not only takes the contour of the 12-bar blues and bases itself upon the same primary harmonies, but it reflects, in its motives and phrasing, the same directness and purposiveness. The sung blues, for that matter, is never more effecfively underlined and intensified than by a boogie woogie accompaniment.
The pianist, Meade "Lux" Lewis, of Chicago, has no peer for performance in the boogie woogie style. But his celebrated "Honky Tonk Train Blues," a rapid and vigorous composition on the lonesome railroad Train motive, achieves emotional values common to both boogie woogie and ordinary blues.
It is in the field of the blues, the ultimate source of his musical thinking, that Meade "'Lux" Lewis has lately created music to indicate the scope of his musical gifts. His blues is personal, and dispenses with many of the traditional periods and cadences, in favor of his own, derived conventions. It is sensitive, with suggestions of boogie woogie technique; if is austere, uncompromising, and charged with agony. It is simply The Blues, wherein the Honky Tonk Train appears as one symbol among others in the severely ordered existence of an oppressed people.
The present recording is the longest, most sustained piano recording ever issued. If consists of four 12-inch surfaces, and was improvised in the course of a session as a complete and organic entity. Actually, perhaps. if is a kind of cyclic suite of four blues movements growing vertically one out of the other. It is called: The Blues (Parts 1 to 4)
MAX MARGOLIS
American Music Lover April 1939
A new brand of swing records has appeared in the jazz world. They are called Blue Note and are sponsored by Max Margulis, Alfred Lion. and Emanuel Eisenberg, three jazz connoisseurs well known to
jazz lovers. To quote from the circular issued with the first releases: “Blue Note records are designed to serve the uncompromising expressions of hot jazz or swing. Direct and honest hot jazz is a way of feeling, a musical and social manifestation, and Blue Note records are concerned with identifying its impulse, not its sensational and commercialized adornments. Toward this end a deliberate cultivation will be made of those relaxed and informal moments when the performing artist is freely and meaningfully improvising...”
The first two releases have succeeded in upholding their sponsors' avowed intentions.
Melancholy; and Solitude — piano solos by Meade Lux Lewis. Blue Note No. 1. Price $1.50.
To those who have habitually associated Meade Lux Lewis with his Honky Tonk Train Blues this record will be a revelation. Both numbers are original compositions of unusual feeling and merit; both are Ellingtonesque in mood and tempo; both are melodies which would be worthy of Ellington himself; and both reveal a remarkable technique of piano playing which few, if any people, ever suspected Lewis possessed. Melancholy is the slightly better side if only because it catches the real, deep-down blue spirit better. The swing of both pieces is remarkably subtle. There are a succession of passages followed by loud outbursts which at first are startling. But they are no means out of place or mere empty display. When we consider how characteristic this is of the real Negro blues, particularly in its vocal form, we understand how closely Lewis parallels the original form and how successfully he has caught the mood.
Boogie Woogie Stomp; and Boogie Woogie Blues — piano solos by Albert Ammons. Blue Note No.2. Price $1.50.
The blues is the Negro's most important contribution to music; it has undoubtedly influenced American music. But the Negro has also contributed certain characteristic techniques which no doubt will also leave their impression. One of these is the boogie woogie style of piano playing. It is by no means new but it is only now beginning to be understood and appreciated.
Albert Ammons has built his reputation entirely upon his ability to play in the true boogie woogie manner. Both the Stomp and the Blues are excellent original compositions in this vein. Both have the typically heavy bass over which rides a wisp of a melody. They have a tremendous drive, and the swing, even though not of the most subtle nature, is irresistible. In the Blues side the tempo is slower and the melody more pronounced.
The sponsors of Blue Note records are to be congratulated on their first issues. The music is genuine, the interpretations are excellent, the recordings are perfect (they contain some of the finest recorded piano tone we've ever heard), and the surfaces are smooth.
The Nation – June 10 1939
And now a company named Blue Note announces that its records "are designed to serve the uncompromising expressions of hot jazz, or swing, in general. Any particular style of playing which represents an authentic way of musical feeling is genuine expression. By virtue of its significance in place, time, and circumstance, it possesses its own tradition, artistic standards, and audience that keeps it alive. Hot jazz. therefore, is expression and communication. a musical and social manifestation. and Blue Note records are concerned with identifying its impulse....Toward this end a deliberate cultivation is being made of those relaxed and informal movements when the performing artist is freely and meaningfully improvising...first, to the end that "those masters of the 'boogie-woogie' style, Meade 'Lux' Lewis and Albert Ammons," might achieve "such direct honesty, freedom, and relaxation" in recorded performance as ordinary studio conditions had hitherto made impossible, and that Lewis in particular might "indicate for the first time perhaps the unexampled scope of [his] musical genius." Actually, Ammons produces for the same reiteration of boogie-woogie figures as for Vocalion a few weeks earlier; but Lewis is persuaded by the occasion to attempt profundity with nothing more than a pretentious rumble here and straining thrust there which in the end add up to zero.
The American Record Guide – August 1939 Volume 5 Issue 4
Chicago in Mind - Piano solo by Albert Ammons.
Blue Note No. 4; price $1.50.
Chicago in Mind is a surprise. corning from Ammons. One had become so accustomed to associating him with boogie woogie playing said he was never expected to play anything else. Chicago in Mind is certainly something else." It is a slow blues. a free and easy improvisation in a distinctly Chicago style. but not without its echoes of the boogie woogie, In fact, sometimes it sounds very much like boogie woogie slowed down to an extremely slow pace. The bass is very prominent. giving the whole work a slightly top heavy sound. But the ideas are good and therefore we have
good jazz.
Twos and Fews is a faster number, not boogie but occasionally suggesting it. The styles of the two pianists blend remarkably well; so well, that it is difficult to tell just who is playing what. The theme is good: the improvisations are interesting. Both sides swing mightily.
But, frankly, I prefer their boogie playing because I feel they are more at home with it. And I suspect that the sponsors of Blue Note also think so because although this was the first recording made by them. they waited until now to issue it. after three other excellent discs had paved the way and set a standard. In fact. that standard has been set very high and they will have to work very hard to
live up to it. No. 4 does not quite make the grade according to their own high standards but it is still a remarkably fine disc because it contains real jazz.
Down Beat May 1939 Volume 6 Issue 5 First rate performances by first rate piano artists. Twenty-four inches are allotted Albert and Lux here. Ammons exhibits his remarkable boogie-woogie technique admirably, showing to best advantage on Stomp. Lewis however, surprises.. Forsaking his b-w genius to play straight blues, he renders a completely satisfying job throughout his two own compositions. Blue Note, a New York concern, makes its first offerings herewith. I hope more are in the immediate offing, and I hope Pete Johnson’s boogie-woogie is next to be recorded. The two discs are completely devoid of commercialism.
Down Beat – August 1939 – Volume 6 Issue 8
Chicago in Mind, solo by Ammons; Two and Fews, duet, Ammons and Lewis, both on Blue Note 12 inches.
Rare examples of the blues.
Ammons' seven piano choruses reflect the free atmosphere in which these sides were made. His ingenious improvisations, aided by a sincerity which has always been peculiar to his playing since his early days on Chicago’s South side, have never been shown to better advantage. The duet is
interesting also, although Meade Lux and Albert both are at their best when playing solo. The atmosphere is not heavy; instead it is. at intervals, hardly discernible. Performances like these cannot found on the lists of the big record companies. But for the minor coterie of jazz lovers who recognize the best, Blue Note's Ammons-Lewis Sides provide what's needed.
Down Beat 15 December 1939 Volume 6 Issue 15 Presenting the longest piano solo ever recorded—48 inches of blues played by a man who really knows how. Simple and straightforward, without flowery embellishments and artificial sentiments, Meade Lux’ blues sides are among the most sensitive and sincere ever recorded. Lewis hasn’t the imagination, or the rhythmic drive, of his colleagues Ammons and Pete Johnson. But here, in slow tempo, it’s in his favor. Seldom does one hear more earthy, emotional music. Nor does he does he revert to boogie-woogie style; Lewis here displays an entirely different style heretofore unassociated with his name. In album form, the two big discs sell at $3.
The American Record Guide – September 1939 Volume 5 Issue 5
An apology is in order for an omission in last review of Blue Note No. 4. The title of the reverse side, Twos and Fews – a four hand improvisation, was omitted and its discussion may have been somewhat puzzling. Actually one side was a solo by Albert Ammons and the other a four-hand. two-piano improvisation by Albert Ammons and Meade “Lux” Lewis.
The American Record Guide – December 1939 – Volume 5 Issue 8
The Blues — a piano improvisation in four parts by Meade “Lux” Lewis.
Blue Note 8 and 9, in a folder; 12-inch: price $3.00
One who was present at the recording of these discs writes me: "They were made on a quiet afternoon as a complete entity and Meade "Lux" Lewis. who really felt like playing the blues. recorded these records with the utmost ease. It is safe to say that Meade while playing was barely conscious of being recorded. The only other time I ever heard him play in such an intimate way was at an early morning hour at the Café Society when all noisy guests had left. chairs had been turned up on the tables and all lights but one had been extinguished. That night Meade was playing the blues entirely for himself... I sincerely believe that these records have captured Meade in the same intimate mood.'"
And after hearing the records we but agree. The Blues begins leisurely, quietly, reminiscently. It speaks. It is like a song without words. Private thoughts expressed in sound. The theme is slow and melancholic. It brightens a bit on the second side; it rises a little in pitch and fervor but the third side returns to the sadness of the first. The fourth is quiet and meditative. It ends quietly, almost a whisper.
In reality, it is a cyclic suite of four blues movements. each movement growing from the previous one. But the effect is not cumulative nor are any climaxes built for effect. It is one long blues. pure and simple: blues born of introspection — a meditation.
This is the most ambitious recording attempted by Blue Note thus far and they have succeeded admirably. As a recording. it is nearly perfect: the piano tone is realistic and the surfaces are excellent. But in the first two sides and the beginning of the third there is a peculiar throbbing sound which sounds like a mechanical fault. It does not interfere with the music and it may exist only on the review copies.
Down Beat 7 March 1952 Volume 19 Issue 5 Here is a memorial set honoring the late boogie king who pushed the keyboard with an unrelenting rhythmic drive. These sides were originally on 12-inch wax and were among the first jazz classics released on the 12-year-old Blue Note label. The Ammons individuality drive and building exciting climaxes is especially vivid on Stomp. On Twos and Fews is an example of the co-ordination of two jazz pianists playing in the same idiom, or here Albert is joined by Meade Lux Lewis. The Blues and Chicago both contrast nicely with the boogie stomp numbers and show Albert as a fine slow blues player. This set is a must for boogie enthusiasts while it is a fine sample set for a jazz collector not particularly on a boogie kick yet wanting an illustration of the style in his collection. (Blue Note 7017.)
Album links also available on Blue Note discography blog, BLP1553
Session Information
probably WMGM Radio Station, NYC, January 6, 1939 Meade "Lux" Lewis, piano.
486A-1 06/01/1939 The Blues, Pt. 1 Meade "Lux" Lewis BN8
486A-2 06/01/1939 The Blues, Pt. 2 Meade "Lux" Lewis BN8
486A-3 06/01/1939 The Blues, Pt. 3 Meade "Lux" Lewis BN9
486A-4 06/01/1939 The Blues, Pt. 4 Meade "Lux" Lewis BN9
Albert Ammons, piano.
441-5 06/01/1939 Boogie Woogie Stomp Albert Ammons BN2, BLP7017, BLP1209, BN-LA-158-G2
GM535-6 06/01/1939 Chicago In Mind Albert Ammons BN4, BLP7017, BLP1209
1007 06/01/1939 Suitcase Blues Albert Ammons BN21 BLP7017, BLP1209
442-8 06/01/1939 Boogie Woogie Blues Albert Ammons BN2 BLP7017, BLP1209
Meade "Lux" Lewis, piano.
06/01/1939 The Blues, Pt. 5 Meade "Lux" Lewis
06/01/1939 Untitled Lewis Original Meade "Lux" Lewis
444-11 06/01/1939 Melancholy Meade "Lux" Lewis BN1
443-12 06/01/1939 Solitude Meade "Lux" Lewis BN1
Albert Ammons, piano.
486A-2 06/01/1939 Untitled Ammons Original Albert Ammons
GM537-17 06/01/1939 Bass Goin' Crazy Albert Ammons BN21, BLP7017, BLP1209
06/01/1939 Backwater Blues Albert Ammons
06/01/1939 Changes In Boogie Woogie Albert Ammons
Albert Ammons, Meade "Lux" Lewis, piano.
GM535-6 06/01/1939 Twos And Fews Albert Ammons and Meade "Lux" Lewis BLP1209
06/01/1939 Nagasaki Albert Ammons and Meade "Lux" Lewis
Albert Ammons, piano.
06/01/1939 Easy Rider Blues Albert Ammons
Sources and attribution:
Dan Morgenstern - The First Day - Blue Note CD 7-98450-2
Michael Cuscuna - The Blue Note Label - Greenwood Press
Richard Cook - Blue Note Records - Secker and Warburg
Richard Havers - Uncompromising Expression - Thames and Hudson
Leonard Feather - The Blue Note Story - pamphlet 1955
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