Albert Ammons
Encyclopedia
Albert Ammons was an American
pianist
. Ammons was a player of boogie-woogie
, a blues
y jazz
style popular from the late 1930s into the mid 1940s.
, Illinois
, his parents were pianists, and he had learned to play by the age of ten. 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
. In the early to mid 1920s Ammons worked as a cab driver for the Silver Taxicab Company. In 1924 he met a fellow taxi driver who also played piano, 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.
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. Ammons moved from Chicago to New York
, where he teamed up with another pianist, Pete Johnson
. The two performed regularly at the Café Society
, occasionally joined by Meade Lux Lewis, and performed with other noted jazz artists
such as Benny Goodman
and Harry James
.
In 1938 Ammons appeared at Carnegie Hall
with Johnson and Lewis, an event that helped launch the boogie-woogie craze. 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, two weeks later 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 studio
.
In 1941, Ammon's boogie music was accompanied by drawn-on-film animation in the short film Boogie-Doodle
by Norman McLaren
. Ammons played himself in the movie Boogie-Woogie Dream (1944), with Lena Horne
and Pete Johnson. As a sideman
with Sippie Wallace
in the 1940s Ammons recorded a session with his son, the tenor saxophonist
Gene Ammons
. 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.
Ammons's played at President
Harry S. Truman
's inauguration in 1949. He died on December 2, 1949 in Chicago and was interred at the Lincoln Cemetery
, at Kedzie Avenue in Blue Island
, Worth Township
, Cook County
, Illinois.
, Hadda Brooks
, Johnnie Johnson
, Ray Bryant
, Erroll Garner
, Katie Webster
, Axel Zwingenberger
, and the German
pianist Joerg Hegemann. The latter honoured Ammons, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Ammons's birth in 2007, with his album A Tribute To Albert Ammons.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
. Ammons was a player of boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...
, a blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
y jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
style popular from the late 1930s into the mid 1940s.
Life and career
Born Albert C. Ammons in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, his parents were pianists, and he had learned to play by the age of ten. He also played percussion in the drum and bugle corps
Drum and bugle corps (classic)
Classic drum and bugle corps are North American musical ensembles that descended from military bugle and drum units returning from World War I and succeeding wars. Traditionally, drum and bugle corps served as signaling units as early as before the American Civil War, with these signaling units...
as a teenager
Adolescence
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...
and was soon performing with bands
Band (music)
In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...
on the Chicago club
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
scene. After World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
he became interested in the blues, learning by listening to Chicago pianists Hersal Thomas
Hersal Thomas
Hersal Thomas was an American blues pianist and composer. He recorded a number of sides for Okeh Records in 1925 and 1926....
and the brothers Alonzo and Jimmy Yancey
Jimmy Yancey
James Edwards "Jimmy" Yancey was an African American boogie-woogie pianist, composer, and lyricist. One reviewer noted him as "one of the pioneers of this raucous, rapid-fire, eight-to-the-bar piano style"....
. In the early to mid 1920s Ammons worked as a cab driver for the Silver Taxicab Company. In 1924 he met a fellow taxi driver who also played piano, Meade Lux Lewis
Meade Lux Lewis
Meade Lux Lewis was a American pianist and composer, noted for his work in the boogie-woogie style. His best known work, "Honky Tonk Train Blues", has been recorded in various contexts, often in a big band arrangement...
. Soon the two players began working as a team, performing at club parties. Ammons started his own band at the Club DeLisa
Club DeLisa
The Club DeLisa, also written Delisa or De Lisa, at State Street and Garfield Avenue, on the South Side, was an important nightclub and music venue in Chicago....
in 1934 and remained at the club for the next two years.
During that time he played with a five piece unit that included Guy Kelly
Guy Kelly
Guy Kelly was an American jazz trumpeter born in Louisiana, perhaps best-known for his work in Chicago the 1920s and 1930s with jazz musicians such as Albert Ammons and Jimmie Noone. Kelly worked in New Orleans during the 1920s with bandleaders such as Papa Celestin, among others...
, Dalbert Bright, Jimmy Hoskins, and Israel Crosby
Israel Crosby
Israel Crosby was an African-American jazz double-bassist born in Chicago, Illinois, best known as member of the Ahmad Jamal trio from 1957-1962...
. Ammons also recorded
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
as Albert Ammons's Rhythm Kings for Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
in 1936. The Rhythm Kings' version of "Swanee River Boogie" sold a million copies. Ammons moved from Chicago to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he teamed up with another pianist, Pete Johnson
Pete Johnson
Pete Johnson was an American boogie-woogie and jazz pianist.Journalist Tony Russell stated in his book The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray, that "Johnson shared with the other members of the 'Boogie Woogie Trio' the technical virtuosity and melodic fertility that can make this the most...
. The two performed regularly at the Café Society
Café Society
Café society was the collective description for the so-called "Beautiful People" and "Bright Young Things" who gathered in fashionable cafes and restaurants in New York, Paris, and London beginning in the late 19th century...
, occasionally joined by Meade Lux Lewis, and performed with other noted jazz artists
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
such as Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
and Harry James
Harry James
Henry Haag “Harry” James was a trumpeter who led a jazz swing band during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.-Biography:He was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a...
.
In 1938 Ammons appeared at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
with Johnson and Lewis, an event that helped launch the boogie-woogie craze. Record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
Alfred Lion
Alfred Lion
Alfred Lion was a Jewish German-born American record executive who co-founded Blue Note Records in 1939 Blue Note recorded many of the biggest names in jazz throughout the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.-Biography:...
who had attended John H. Hammond
John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
's From Spirituals to Swing
From Spirituals to Swing
From Spirituals to Swing was the title of two concerts presented by John Hammond in Carnegie Hall on 23 December 1938 and 24 December 1939. The concerts included performances by Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson, Helen Humes, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Mitchell's...
concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
on December 23, 1938, which had introduced Ammons and Lewis, two weeks later started Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
, recording nine Ammons solos
Solo (music)
In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...
including "The Blues" and "Boogie Woogie Stomp"), eight by Lewis and a pair of duets
Duet (music)
A duet is a musical composition for two performers. In classical music, the term is most often used for a composition for two singers or pianists; with other instruments, the word duo is also often used. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is referred to as...
in a one-day session in a rented studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
.
In 1941, Ammon's boogie music was accompanied by drawn-on-film animation in the short film Boogie-Doodle
Boogie-Doodle
Boogie-Doodle is a 1940 drawn-on-film visual music short by Norman McLaren, set to the boogie-woogie music of African-American jazz pianist Albert Ammons....
by Norman McLaren
Norman McLaren
Norman McLaren, CC, CQ was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada...
. Ammons played himself in the movie Boogie-Woogie Dream (1944), with Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
and Pete Johnson. As a sideman
Sideman
A sideman is a professional musician who is hired to perform or record with a group of which he or she is not a regular member. They often tour with solo acts as well as bands and jazz ensembles. Sidemen are generally required to be adaptable to many different styles of music, and so able to fit...
with Sippie Wallace
Sippie Wallace
Sippie Wallace was an American singer-songwriter. Her early career in local tent shows gained her the billing "The Texas Nightingale". Between 1923 and 1927, she recorded over 40 songs for Okeh Records, many written by herself or her brothers, George and Hersal Thomas...
in the 1940s Ammons recorded a session with his son, the tenor saxophonist
Tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
Gene Ammons
Gene Ammons
Eugene "Jug" Ammons also known as "The Boss," was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, and the son of boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons.-Biography:...
. 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
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal...
with bassist Israel Crosby.
Ammons's played at President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
's inauguration in 1949. He died on December 2, 1949 in Chicago and was interred at the Lincoln Cemetery
Lincoln Cemetery (Blue Island)
Lincoln Cemetery is a cemetery on Kedzie Avenue in Blue Island, Worth Township, Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is noteworthy for the number of famous African-American Chicagoans buried there, among them several blues and jazz musicians of note....
, at Kedzie Avenue in Blue Island
Blue Island, Illinois
Blue Island is a city in Cook County, Illinois. The population was 22,556 at the 2010 census. Blue Island was established in the 1830s as a way station for settlers traveling on the Vincennes Trace, and the settlement prospered because it was conveniently situated a day's journey outside of Chicago...
, Worth Township
Worth Township, Cook County, Illinois
Worth Township is one of thirty townships in Cook County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2000 census, its population was 152,239. It was founded in 1849, when the county voted to subdivide itself into townships.-Geography:...
, Cook County
Cook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
, Illinois.
Legacy
Ammons has had wide influence on countless pianists such as Dave Alexander, Dr. JohnDr. John
Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr. , better known by the stage name Dr. John , is an American singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist, whose music combines blues, pop, jazz as well as Zydeco, boogie woogie and rock and roll.Active as a session musician since the late 1950s, he came to wider...
, Hadda Brooks
Hadda Brooks
Hadda Brooks , was an American pianist, vocalist and composer. Her first single, "Swingin' the Boogie", which she composed, was issued in 1945...
, Johnnie Johnson
Johnnie Johnson (musician)
Johnnie Johnson was an American pianist and blues musician. His work with Chuck Berry led to his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.-Career:...
, Ray Bryant
Ray Bryant
Raphael Homer "Ray" Bryant was an American Jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ray Bryant began playing the piano at the age of six, also performing on bass in junior High School...
, Erroll Garner
Erroll Garner
Erroll Louis Garner was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad "Misty", has become a jazz standard...
, Katie Webster
Katie Webster
Katie Webster , born Kathryn Jewel Thorne, was an American boogie-woogie pianist.-Career:Webster was initially best known as a session musician behind Louisiana musicians on the Excello and Goldband record labels, such as Lightnin' Slim and Lonesome Sundown...
, Axel Zwingenberger
Axel Zwingenberger
Axel Zwingenberger is a blues and boogie-woogie pianist, and songwriter. He is considered one of the finest boogie-woogie music masters in the world.-Biography:...
, and the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
pianist Joerg Hegemann. The latter honoured Ammons, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Ammons's birth in 2007, with his album A Tribute To Albert Ammons.
Album discography
| Year of release | Album title | Record label |
|---|---|---|
| 1948 | King of Boogie Woogie (1939-1949) | Blues Classics |
| 1951 | Boogie Woogie Classics | Blue Note Records Blue Note Records Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters... |
| 1992 | The First Day | Blue Note |
| 2004 | The Boogie Woogie Trio, Vols. 1-2 | Storyville |
See also
- List of blues musicians
- List of boogie woogie musicians
- List of jazz pianists
- List of Mercury Records artists