Customer Reviews

Chicago Piano 1

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While Meade Lux Lewis, Gene Ammons and Pine Top Smith have achieved a notoriety for their raunchy boogie-woogie, it is Jimmy Yancey who should be regarded as the real master of the genre. Coupling a fine approach to syncopation with a variety of pace, motifs, and a purity of melody, it is in Yancey's work that Boogie-Woogie is at its most original and memorable. If you want to have a recording of boogie-woogie that is something more subtle and classy than a series of similar sounding numbers bashed out on a honky-tonk piano, then this is it. Yancey rates alongside Scott Joplin and Armstrong's Hot Five/Seven for quality, these recordings only marred by Yancey's occasional lack of technical skill.

No jazz collection can be called such without this recording.

This CD is, more or less, the old Atlantic vinyl "Pure Blues w/Mama", which I listened to, and loved, in the sixties. It has, though, the great "Shave 'em Dry" in addition.

Yancey's playing seems simple, but I've never heard anyone duplicate the feel of it -- it won't let you sit still. None of these songs, even "Yancey's Bugle Call", is played all that fast. He doesn't hurry, but does he swing.

I'm not that crazy about his wife's singing -- it's just not in the same class as his playing -- but enjoy the five cuts where they work together, too.

This was recorded in 1951, when Yancey was fairly old. They are great to listen to, but other albums catch him at an earlier time, and show what the younger man could do. But this one does it for me.

I rate this CD 5 stars, because though the latter referee is right about technical flaws in late Mr. Yancey's performance. But for me, dear Sir, what really matters is the BLUES FEELING and in this sense the CD displays enchanting piece of musical revelation. Jimmy tells the story - in "How Long Blues" and "Mournful Blues" - story without words, something deep, blue and sorrowful, still enlightened with self-sustaining humour: "smile through tears"... This is wonderful. Not a polished studio effort, not a brilliant "live" recording, but the aged, ill, tired man playing piano. And he does the magic, conveying the blues feeling, probably his last message to all of us. This CD is a remarkable document, an image of the artists' soul. Second half, where Mamma Yancey sings is also charming: sincere and soulful, and Jimmy's playing deserves careful listening even in these tunes, for he manages to give simple yet touching nuances here and there... The sleevenotes are well-written completing the overall pleasant image of this CD.

I agree with everything that the previous reviewer says about Jimmy Yancey, but I don't agree that it applies to THIS album. It was recorded only a few weeks before his death and finds him clearly very ill and only a shadow of his former self.

They are interesting recordings, and Mama Yancey is in fine form, but anyone wanting to hear performances by Yancey that justify the rave review given below should listen to one of the Document CDs, preferably Vols 2 or 3.