Meade Lux Lewis
Meade Anderson "Lux" Lewis (born September 3, 1905 in Chicago , Illinois , † June 7, 1964 in Minneapolis , Minnesota ) was an American jazz pianist and composer, a pioneer of boogie woogie .
Live and act
Lewis' date of birth is September 3, 4, or 13, 1905, depending on the source. In his youth, he was a friend of the pianist Jimmy Yancey . He probably also received lessons from his friend Pinetop Smith . Lewis played in pubs and clubs in Chicago but retired after his success with Honky Tonk Train Blues in 1929.
Lewis made his first recordings in 1927, but success did not set in until 1936 when promoter John Hammond brought him to New York and from 1938 presented him in his concerts “From Spiritual to Swing” with Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson . Hammond found him in 1935 while working as a car washer in a garage in Chicago. His performances at Carnegie Hall (and Club Café Society ) sparked a boogie-woogie boom. Together with his teammates Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, Lewis became one of the leading boogie-woogie pianists of his time. He made recordings with both of them in the late 1930s, as well as z. B. with Sidney Bechet and Edmond Hall . He later worked mainly in Los Angeles . He has also appeared in several feature and music films such as Isn't Life Beautiful? (1946), New Orleans (1947) or In the Dark of the Night (1956).
Meade “Lux” Lewis died in 1964 in a car accident in Minneapolis.
Together with Ammons, he deserves the credit of being the musician of the first records of the young jazz label Blue Note Records , which were made in 1939 .
Legacy: Honky Tonk Train Blues
Lewis' title Honky Tonk Train Blues is Leo von Knobelsdorff (the "father of the German Boogie Woogie") according to the "starting point for the great Boogie-Woogie Revival 1938/39 in Carnegie Hall "; so the boogie-woogie wave started. The title, in which train noises are imitated and taken as the starting point for musical development, has become a boogie standard. It has been interpreted and recorded by numerous pianists. These include Keith Emerson , Jay McShann , Lloyd Glenn , Jörg Hegemann , Michael Pewny and Axel Zwingenberger ; Jazz versions exist u. a. by Benny Goodman and the SWR Big Band . In 1987 the composition was included by Lewis in the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz .
Collections
- The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis ( Mosaic , 1983) - solo piano
literature
- Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
- Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 2: M – Z (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16513). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16513-9 .
Web links
- Meade Lux Lewis Biography in the African American Registry
- Meade Lux Lewis at Allmusic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Meade Lux Lewis in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Video on YouTube (January 15, 2012)
- ↑ Melissa K. Avedeef The Representation of Trains in Meade Lux Lewis's Honky Tonk Train McMaster Music Analysis Colloquium Vol. 4 (2005): pp. 12-23
- ^ John Tennison Boogie Woogie: Its Origin, Subsequent History, and Continuing Development
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lewis, Meade Lux |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lewis, Meade Anderson (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American jazz musician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 3, 1905 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chicago , Illinois |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 7, 1964 |
| Place of death | Minneapolis , Minnesota |