Albert Ammons

Albert Ammons
Background information
Birth name Albert Clifton Ammons
Born (1907-03-01)March 1, 1907
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Died December 3, 1949(1949-12-03) (aged 42)
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genres Jazz, blues, boogie-woogie
Occupation(s) Musician
Instruments Piano
Years active 1920s–1949
Labels Blue Note, Delmark, Mercury, Vocalion

Albert Clifton Ammons (March 1, 1907 – December 3, 1949)[1] was an American pianist and player of boogie-woogie, a bluesy jazz style popular from the late 1930s into the mid-1940s.[2]

Life and career

Born in Chicago, Illinois, his parents were pianists, and he had learned to play by the age of ten. His interest in boogie-woogie is attributed to his close friendship with Meade Lux Lewis and also his father's interest in the style. Both Albert and Meade would practice together on the piano in the Ammons household. From the age of ten, Ammons learned about chords by marking the depressed keys on the family pianola (player piano) with a pencil and repeated the process until he had mastered it.[3] He also played percussion in the drum and bugle corps as a teenager and was soon performing with bands on the Chicago club scene. After World War I he became interested in the blues, learning by listening to Chicago pianists Hersal Thomas and the brothers Alonzo and Jimmy Yancey.[4]

In the early to mid-1920s Ammons worked as a cab driver for the Silver Taxicab Company. In 1924 he met back up with boyhood friend and fellow taxi driver Meade Lux Lewis. Soon the two players began working as a team, performing at club parties. Ammons started his own band at the Club DeLisa in 1934 and remained at the club for the next two years.[5] During that time he played with a five piece unit that included Guy Kelly, Dalbert Bright, Jimmy Hoskins, and Israel Crosby. Ammons also recorded as Albert Ammons's Rhythm Kings for Decca Records in 1936. The Rhythm Kings' version of "Swanee River Boogie" sold a million copies, and their 1936 recording of "Boogie Woogie Stomp" has been described as "the first 12-bar piano based boogie-woogie, [which] was imitated by many jazz bands."[1]

Ammons moved from Chicago to New York City, where he teamed up with another pianist, Pete Johnson.[5] The two performed regularly at the Café Society,[5] occasionally joined by Lewis, and performed with other jazz musicians such as Benny Goodman and Harry James.

In 1938 Ammons appeared at Carnegie Hall with Johnson and Lewis at From Spirituals to Swing, an event that helped launch the boogie-woogie craze.[5] Two weeks later, record producer Alfred Lion, who had attended John H. Hammond's From Spirituals to Swing concert on December 23, 1938, which had introduced Ammons and Lewis, started Blue Note Records, recording nine Ammons solos including "The Blues" and "Boogie Woogie Stomp", eight by Lewis and a pair of duets in a one-day session in a rented recording studio.[6]

In 1941, Ammons' boogie music was accompanied by drawn-on-film animation in the short film Boogie-Doodle by Norman McLaren.[7] Ammons played himself in the movie Boogie-Woogie Dream (1944), with Lena Horne and Johnson.[8] As a sideman with Sippie Wallace in the 1940s Ammons recorded a session with his son, the tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons.[5] Although the boogie-woogie fad began to die down in 1945, Ammons had no difficulty securing work. He continued to tour as a solo artist, and between 1946 and 1949 recorded his last sides for Mercury Records, with bassist Israel Crosby, and took on the position of staff pianist with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. In 1949 he played at President Harry S. Truman's inauguration.[9]

During the final years of his life, Ammons played mainly in Chicago's 'Beehive Club' and the 'Tailspin Club', and four days before he died he had been at the Yancey apartment listening to Don Ewell and Jimmy Yancey play. Albert himself could only play one song, having just regained the use of his hands after a temporary paralysis.[10][11]

Albert Ammons died of natural causes on December 3, 1949, in Chicago, three months before his 43rd birthday.[1] He was interred at the Lincoln Cemetery, at Kedzie Avenue in Blue Island, Worth Township, Cook County, Illinois.

Legacy

Ammons has had wide influence on countless pianists, such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Dave Alexander, Dr. John, Hadda Brooks, Johnnie Johnson, Ray Bryant, Erroll Garner, Katie Webster, Axel Zwingenberger, Henri Herbert, and the German pianist, Jörg Hegemann. The latter honoured Ammons, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Ammons' birth, with his album, A Tribute to Albert Ammons.

Discography

Notable songs

Selected albums

Year of release Album title Record label
1941 Boogie Woogie (compilation)[12] Columbia Records C44
1941 8 to the Bar (with Pete Johnson) RCA Victor
1948 King of Boogie Woogie (1939-1949) Blues Classics
1951 Boogie Woogie Classics Blue Note Records
1975 King of Blues and Boogie Woogie 1907-1949 Oldie Blues
1982 King of Blues and Boogie Woogie 1907-1949 Vol. 2[13] Oldie Blues
1992 The First Day Blue Note
2004 The Boogie Woogie Trio, Vols. 1-2 Storyville

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Eagle, Bob; LeBlanc, Eric S. (2013). Blues - A Regional Experience. Santa Barbara: Praeger Publishers. p. 64. ISBN 978-0313344237.
  2. ↑ Cook, Richard (2005). Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia. London: Penguin Books. p. 12. ISBN 0-141-00646-3.
  3. ↑ Silvester, Peter, A Left Hand Like God: A Study of Boogie-Woogie, p. 91-92
  4. ↑ Santelli, Robert. The Big Book of Blues, Penguin Books, page 13, (2001) - ISBN 0-14-100145-3
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Russell, Tony (1997). The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray. Dubai: Carlton Books Limited. p. 88. ISBN 1-85868-255-X.
  6. ↑ Vladimir, Bogdanov. All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide to the Blues, By Bogdanov, Backbeat Books, page 14, (2003) - ISBN 0-87930-736-6
  7. ↑ Bill Kirchner, ed. (May 2005). The Oxford Companion to Jazz. Oxford University Press. p. 771. ISBN 978-0-19-518359-7.
  8. ↑ Michael_Elliott (12 June 2010). "Boogie-Woogie Dream (1944)". IMDb. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  9. ↑ Feather, Leonard G. Encyclopedia of Jazz, Horizon Press, page 101, (1960) - ISBN 0-8180-1203-X
  10. ↑ Silvester, p. 186
  11. ↑ Olderen, Martin van, Albert Ammons - King of Blues and Boogie Woogie 1907-1949, liner notes, Oldie Blues OL 2807, 1975
  12. ↑ "Various – Boogie Woogie". Discogs. Retrieved 2015-12-13.
  13. ↑ "King of Blues and Boogie Woogie 1907-1949 Vol. 2". Discogs. Retrieved May 13, 2013.

External links

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