Stride, barrel house, & boogie woogie piano

[Peter]

Can someone define each of these piano styles and provide some examples (i.e., musicians and recordings)? Feel free to list you favorites in each category. Thanks.

[jazzbo]

Ah hell, just buy all the Art Hodes, Albert Ammons, James P. Johnson, and Pete Johnson you can find. B)

[BruceH]

Word.

[Chuck Nessa]

You should read some jazz history books. There are some good ones.

[jazzman4133]

The best modern day example of "stride" is Judy Carmichael.

Judy Carmichael is a real rarity, a pianist who came up after 1950 who specialized in the pre-World War II piano style called stride. Carmichael, who was not even born in 1950, started on piano when her grandfather offered 50 dollars to the first grandchild who could play "Maple Leaf Rag." She played music for the first time professionally when she was 19, and was a ragtime pianist at Disneyland when she discovered stride piano. In 1980, she made her recording debut on Progressive, utilizing four veteran players (including Marshall Royal and Freddie Greene). The following year, Carmichael moved to New York, and worked steadily ever since. She recorded more sets for Progressive/Statiras, and then for her own C&D label. Judy Carmichael plays at the same level as the classic masters.

Going back a number of years there was a local (NJ) pianist by the name of Donald Lambert who even Fats Waller acknowledged as one of the best.

Donald Lambert ranks in jazz history as one of the great unknown stride pianists. In the late '20s, he was a top pianist appearing regularly at rent parties and clubs in Harlem. However, by the 1930s he preferred to stay in New Jersey, playing in out-of-the-way clubs. He recorded four brilliant solos for Bluebird in 1941 in which he strided various classical themes. Other than privately recorded sets from 1960-1962 that were released decades later by Solo Art, IAJRC, and two on Pumpkin, that is all the documentation that exists of Donald Lambert. But even with the low quantity, his brilliant technique and appealing ideas come through and one can understand why he was held in such high esteem by his contemporaries (if not why he avoided New York).

If you go to All Music Guide you will find links to Lambert's albums and also those for Carmichael. This one just came out recently for Lambert on CD:

Although it does not say it anywhere in the reprinted liner notes by the late Dick Wellstood or the outside of the CD, all of the music on Recorded 1959-1961 was previously released by the now-defunct Pumpkin label. The 14 selections from Pumpkin's LP Classics in Stride are here plus ten of the 15 from Harlem Stride Classics. Donald Lambert was one of the all-time great stride pianists, but living in New Jersey and reluctant to visit New York, he only made one record date, just four titles in 1940. Fortunately some of his live performances from the 1959-1961 period were recorded by fans, including the music on the two Pumpkin LPs and a collection put out by IAJRC. The piano may not be flawless and the recording is not of studio quality (though it has been greatly improved in this reissue), but Lambert's musical mastery definitely comes through well. One is grateful for the existence of his fans, who were wise enough to document the pianist. Lambert swings some classical pieces (including "Anitra's Dance" and Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata"), digs into swing standards, and revives numbers by James P. Johnson, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Fats Waller, stomping away. Waller and to a lesser extent Art Tatum are influences, but Lambert mostly plays in his own dazzling fashion. It seems criminal that he was not extensively recorded, but at least there are these priceless performances and a few others to remind jazz listeners what a great talent there once was in Lambert. — Scott Yanow

From AMG:

Boogie Woogie, or "barrelhouse" is a blues-based piano style in which the right hand plays an accompaniment figure that resembles a strummed rhythm, such as is typically played on the guitar or banjo in rural blues dances. This could be expressed as a walking octave, an open-fifth pounded out with a blue third thrown in, or even a simple figure such as falling triad (as in the work of Jimmy Yancey); the approach varies to the pianist. The style probably evolved in the American Midwest alongside that of ragtime, to which it is closely related. The earliest description of the style occurs in print circa 1880. Elements of boogie-woogie can be found prior to 1910 in piano works by such disparate figures such as Blind Boone, Luckey Roberts and the classical composer Charles Ives. The earliest recorded examples of boogie woogie are found on piano rolls made in 1922 by Cow Cow Davenport, and by the end of the 1920s dozens of boogie woogie pianists had recorded ranging geographically from Texas to Chicago. Boogie-woogie practically disappeared from records during the depression. However, it returned with a vengeance in the late '30s, popularized by a smart Deane Kincaide arrangement for Tommy Dorsey’s band of the 1929 composition "Boogie Woogie" written by Clarence "Pine Top" Smith, a Chicago pianist who is also credited with coining the term. Boogie-woogie enjoyed its heyday in the early '40s, and as a result, one-time Chicago barrelhouse pianists such as Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis and Pete Johnson found themselves feted as celebrities in New York’s exclusive café society circles. After the Second World War interest in the style subsided, but elements of the sound were absorbed into the playing of early rock & roll artists such as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. It also remains an important component to New Orleans pop music, as in the work of Professor Longhair and Dr. John. Among living pianists working in nightclubs and cocktail bars, it can be said that boogie-woogie has never truly lost its popularity even today.

My suggestion is Meade Lux and Albert Ammons & Pete Johnson.

For all of these styles you can try early Dick Hyman albums, especially "Stridemonster" and "Some Rags, Some Stomps & A Little Blues". (These are only on LP.) You might want to also listen to his "Kitten On The Keys" LP.

Edited February 9, 2004 by jazzman4133

[EKE BBB]

You can find information about Stride Piano on this thread:

HARLEM STRIDE PIANISTS

[Peter]

Cool! Thanks!

[MomsMobley]

Can someone define each of these piano styles and provide some examples (i.e., musicians and recordings)? Feel free to list you favorites in each category. Thanks.

Edited February 15, 2014 by MomsMobley

[JSngry]

Joanne Castle's head movements (and the grimacing smile on that head) to look at the audience/camera always distressed me.