Customer Reviews

Messin Around Blues

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4 star:		(1)
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I purchased this CD a while back, and the original material was released on LP records (The small "Echoes" label as a 2 volume set) some time ago. The material on this CD is great. Jimmy Blythe was a terrific pianist, who some say was trained by Clarence Jones (who had musical lineage tracing back to Beethoven!) The songs on this CD are terrific and funky blues that is hard to find elsewhere. They are excellent examples of rare South-side Chicago blues songs that were commonly played in the late 20's early 30's in all sorts of establishments; however the tempos on these tracks are a bit slow and draggy for what I feel would be a historical speed for Jimmy Blythe to have played at. "When Grandpa Steps Out" is taken at a far too slow tempo, as is almost every other track on this CD. In contrast with the LP's, which are rather fast, these are rather slow... It's a shame they didn't stay in the middle somewhere on this release. The previous would have been a minor issue for me (as I can simply speed up or slow down these tracks on my computer), BUT..the tracks on this disk come from midi files realized with 'real piano' soundfonts and I did note corruption in the audio in the high trebel on my professional Sennheiser headphones. The MIDI files were taken from original scans off of rare original nickelodeon rolls. I did not know at the time of my purchase that these were not actual recordings of rolls played on a live and restored piano and I guessed I missed the line on the album cover that states, 'Enhanced pianola rolls'. On the positive side, these tracks are realized with wonderful dynamics which sound like someone could have played these songs. They don't sound like rolls, and have humanistic expression. However because of the previous issues, I can honestly only rate this CD at 3 stars. These tracks are not available publicly other than on the earlier Echoes LP's and can only be found currently on this CD. If you don't have these songs already on the LP's, these great examples of rare Chicago blues may be worth a look!

My review as it appeared in the March 2008 Jazz and Blues Report (www.jazz-blues.com)

Born in Lexington, Kentucky, Jimmy Blythe arrived in Chicago as a teenager in 1916. As Bob Koester notes,not much is known about Blythe outside of his recordings and piano rolls. He recorded extensively in small groups featuring such noted instrumentalists as Johnny Dodds, Louis Armstrong, Roy Palmer and Natty Dominque as well as singers like Blind Blake, Lottie Beaman, Lonnie Johnson, Monette Moore and Ma Rainey. Recordings such
as these as well as with Jimmy Bertrand's Washboard Wizards and Blythe's Washboard Ragamuffins give a sense of the type of ragtime-early boogie woogie flavor that marked his music.
This Delmark reissue is derived from 19 of the piano rolls that Blythe recorded which outnumber the actual piano solos he recorded. Modern technology probably makes the reproduction of piano rolls on CD much better than reissues of 1920s recordings mastered from old 78s. At the same time, the technique of cutting piano rolls may limit the grittier aspects of Blythe's playing. Certainly he was comfortable on the blues he performs here like "Sugar Dew Blues," as well as rendering the pop songs
of the day such as "My Baby." His recording, "Chicago Stomp," was perhaps the first boogie woogie recording. It shows how vigorous his playing could be and can be heard at http://www.redhotjazz.com/blythe.html.
The music presented on Messin' Around Blues has a stately quality with ragtime and stride flavor, but little interms of the ragged, boogie style that can be heard on the recordings of contemporaries like Clarence `Pinetop' Smith, Cow Cow Davenport or Meade Lux Lewis as well as Blythe's own recordings. Delmark is to be congratulated for issuing this, however I suspect this may have a limited audience.

Additional comment - The three stars is a compromise. If I could give it an additional star I would have. The marvelously produced but the piano rolls do have specific limitations. You may try to get a copy of the marvelous Blythe-Johnny Dodds CD that some amazon sellers have.