1941 - April 9

Meade Lux Lewis – April 9 1941  

Richard Cook - Blue Note Records: The Biography – Secker and Warburg 2001

If one was to characterise the label’s profile on the basis of these early dates, with their emphasis on piano, boogie-woogie and blues, it might seem like an early example of revivalism. Frank Wolff would later reminisce that it was, really, no clearer to him what their style was: 

“Jazz had gathered enough momentum so that an experiment like Blue Note could be tried. We could not round up more than a handful of customers for a while, but we garnered a good deal of favourable publicity through our uncommercial approach. Somehow we set a style, but I would have difficulty to define same. I remember thought that people used to say, ‘Alfred and Frank record only what they like.’ That was true. If I may add three words, we tried to record jazz ‘with a feeling’. 

Max Harrison - The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Sidney Bechet - Mosaic Records MR6-110 

[Meade “Lux”] Lewis’s next date, in April 1941, the main interest centers on his encounter with the harpsichord. As an imaginative musician he was stimulated by unfamiliar tone colors...as recently as February 1941 he had added that bell-like instrument [celeste] to a Blue Note date with Edmond Hall, Charlie Christian and Israel Crosby, which produced jazz of unique character.  

The four harpsichord solos form the second of his “two most ambitious undertakings referred to in connection with The Blues. Their collective title is Variations On a Theme, and the first is called 19 Ways of Playing A Chorus. 

The American Record Guide – August 1941 Volume 7 Issue 12 

Variations On a Theme, played by Meade Lux Lewis on the harpsichord. Blue Note 12-inch records, numbers 19 and 20, price $3.00.  
 
The harpsichord is not exactly new to jazz. John Guarnieri and Sylvia Marlowe have made some interesting records with it, and Teddy Wilson has toyed with the idea of including it in his band. He even took lessons from Yella Pessl. Now Meade Lux Lewis, boogie woogie pianist extraordinary, is trying his hand at it. 

Blue Note's release is spread over four 12-inch sides. Each side has a title, namely: Nineteen Ways of Playing a Chorus, Self-Portrait, School of Rhythm, and Feelin' Tomorrow Like I Feel Today. Actually, this is a series of improvisations hardly differing from some of the things Lewis has done for Blue Note before on piano.  
 
The first Side is fast boogie woogie. With the pace Lewis has set it is surprising that he keeps the voices clear at all. At times he sounds like Teddy Bunn improvising on a big guitar against a vibrating background. Side 2 begins strangely, then settles into medium tempo. His Self-Portrait is a reasonable facsimile. But although the same relentless rhythm is there, the tone gets a bit monotonous at times and it sounds as if the soloist were driving the instrument too hard. The third selection is medium slow and more characteristically Lewis. The relentless boogie beat is there. It is a splendid demonstration in rhythm. Side 4 is best of all. It is a blues, an improvisation on Feelin' Tomorrow Like I Feel Today, and it sounds as if Lewis has at last discovered the Secret of the harpsichord. Here the instrument is not incongruous still a shade on the monotonous side because of its limited means of expression. The recording of all the numbers is good. 
 
My respect for Meade Lux Lewis' artistry has gone up greatly in the last few years. especially after hearing some of his previous Blue Note Records. His desire to try new instruments denotes a progressive, searching mind. But I still prefer to hear him on piano. He was born to that instrument. 

Down Beat 15 June 1941: Volume 8 Issue 12 

19 Choruses – None Good 

Artie Shaw, Sylvia Marlowe and no telling how many others have tried to utilize the harpsichord as a jazz instrument. None has been successful. Neither is Meade Lux Lewis in his Variations on a (Blues) Theme, despite the four 12-inch sides it takes for him to perform them. Lewis' boogie poundings combined with the heavy. unpretty, stiff and uncolorful machine he pounds for an undistinguished Blue Note release. One of the four is titled 19 Ways of Playing a Chorus. None of the 19 is impressive. But the blame is more instrument's than the artist's. Those overtones are too much! 

The Record Changer – November 1945 

Alfred is again pressing the Mead Lux Lewis harpsichord sides which were never reecived in past. Mead Lux, Honky Tonk and boogie woogie are all closely related in the public’s mind. The music is so highly charged in its own way that, like Bach's fugues, no individual side stands out separate from the group. Because there is nothing of a popular vein on Mead's records, one or two of his records are for the average listener representative enough.  

When we add to the "non-popular" aspect of this music the fact that the instrument on which it is played is itself a "non-popular" instrument, and is relegated to the field of novelty in jazz, we have little that attracts the jazz fan. This is unfortunate because the instrument has a richness that the piano has never attained. In ensemble, especially a jazz ensemble, the harpsichord lacks sufficient strength to stand out. There is too much dynamic disparity between it and the other instruments. Over a microphone it can take its place with the other instruments and in the recording studio its variety and richness are unmistakable. 

There is no reason why the harpsichord should not be accepted as an instrument for the playing of jazz. The reason that it has not been accepted is that the jazz public has been conditioned to certain other  instruments. Naturally the jazz musicians choose their instruments from among those at hand and popularized these instruments. Any lesser known instruments seem exotic and are therefore shunned as bizarre by the average listener. There is no valid reason why we cannot use other instruments, if by so doing we improve the music. The unorthodox use of instruments such as the kazoo, washboard, jug and the like, found themselves supplanted by instruments of greater possibilities, so why not further experiment?  

Mead. Lux's Self-Portrait is an excellent example of a very melodic blues transcribed to a keyboard. I hardly know of another piece which is such a perfect balance of singing blues and keyboard rhythmic design. Amongst the many different treatments of music on the keyboard the richest lies somewhere between the straight playing of a song and inventive design with no apparent song continuity. Most pianists fall into playing either one way or the other; they rarely hit the rich mixture of the two. 

After Mead. Lux’s bold introduction consisting of two groups of vigorous triplets and a termination of the blues structure, we are given two choruses of keyboard blues exposition. Following these melodically rich choruses Mead introduces a poly-rhythmic chorus and from here keeps to the lower section of the keyboard. The fifth is a light airy polyrhythmic chorus that he has used more than once. There is no other boogie woogie player that has anything like it. After this airy chorus Mead plays more of this melodically-rich material further down on the bass, making this side a sober but rich piece. One of the many devices of the harpsichord is the jeu de luth pedal. The use of this pedal gives a fine effect to one of Mead’s choruses. It makes the notes sound extremely muffled while the plucking mechanism of the instrument is quite audible. The last chorus is divided up in phrases of five or more chords each. Against the boogie woogie left hand it makes a stirring final. At the encl of this horns the blues is also evident.  

A fast boogie, 19 Ways To Play A Chorus and a little slower side School of Rhythm are both extraordinary pieces. Each chorus on these sides is packed with ideas and the silhouettes of each are clearly outlined in the composition. There is a sweep to both these pieces that comes up to the best of Mead Lux's creations. 

Feeling Tomorrow Like I Feel Today has about as many surprises as Self-Portrait. There are two outstanding choruses on this side. One is the sixth where he has an extraordinary passage in dotted quarters. Nowhere else will we find anything like this. The other is the ninth where he has a series of bold utterances every four bars. The chorus ends with a rhapsodic flight of the right hand.  

On these four sides Mead Lux has shown his richest imagination. Except for such set pieces as Honky Tonk and Yancey Special the material here shows him to have the greatest imagination of any keyboard artist. Add to this the timbre and earthy quality of the harpsichord with all its accompanying devices for variety, and we have a keyboard music which can at last compare with the complete musical statement of the wind instruments.

Photo by Francis Wolff

Michael Cuscuna Blue Note Photos – Francis Wolff  

After the second Lewis solo session in April 1941, Blue Note did not plan any more sessions. When Lion was drafted into military service in August 1942, he and Wolff decided to suspend operations for the duration of the war, closed their little office at 10 West 47th Street and gave notice on their accounts. Although they did stop all recording until Alfred's return, a lucky twist of fate kept Blue Note  
alive.  

DownBeat April 1942

Milt Gabler operated his own label from his Commodore Music Shop at 46 West 52nd Street. More than a record shop, the store was the daily meeting hall and forum for jazz cognoscenti, which included such future record men as Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegün, Jerry Wexler and Bob Thiele, and musicians. Milt started a wholesale division to distribute his label. Francis went to work for Commodore, which would also distribute Blue Note. The label had by then released twenty-three 12" 78s and four 10" 78s from the eleven sessions that they had recorded. Wolff once told Ira Gitler: "With the war, the record business immediately picked up. The soldiers wanted them, the Army wanted them. Records became hot, and Commodore sold a lot of them, mail and wholesale. Shellac was scarce, and only people who had been in business before the war could get a priority."

Session Information: 

Meade "Lux" Lewis, harpsichord. 

Reeves Sound Studios, NYC, April 9, 1941 

 

Variations on a theme: 

RS934B Pt 1: 19 Ways Of Playing A Chorus, Blue Note 19 

RS935B Pt. 3: School Of Rhythm, Blue Note 20 

RS937A, Pt. 2: Self-Portrait, Blue Note 19 

RS938A, Pt. 4 "Feeling Tomorrow Like I Feel Today..", Blue Note 20 

 

Meade "Lux" Lewis, piano. 

BN639, Rising Tide Blues, Blue Note 22