Jimmy Blythe

All Music Guide:

A shadowy figure in jazz and blues history, Clifford Hayes was a violinist, but was more significant as a leader of recording sessions. He recorded with Sara Martin (1924), and often teamed up with banjoist Cal Smith in early jug bands including the Old Southern Jug Band, Clifford's Louisville Jug Band, the well-known Dixieland Jug Blowers (1926-1927), and Hayes' Louisville Stompers (1927-1929). One of the Dixieland Jug Blowers' sessions featured the great clarinetist Johnny Dodds, while pianist Earl Hines was a surprise star with the otherwise primitive Louisville Stompers (a jug-less group with a front line of Hayes' violin and Hense Grundy's trombone). Clifford Hayes' last recordings were in 1931, and all of his sessions (plus those of some other jug bands) are available on four RST CDs.

Wikipedia:

Jimmy Blythe (May 20, 1901 – June 14, 1931) was an influential American jazz and boogie-woogie pianist.

Life [edit]

He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, and moved to Chicago, Illinois around 1916, studying with pianist Clarence Jones. He was an all-round pianist, who generally incorporated boogie-woogie styles into more varied pieces such as "Chicago Stomps" (1924) which drew on ragtime and other popular styles of the time.

He made hundreds of piano rolls in the early 1920s, for the Columbia (later renamed Capitol) Music Roll Company in Chicago, before accompanying many singers on Paramount Records and appearing with small 'spasm bands' like the Midnight Rounders and the State Street Ramblers. He also duetted with Johnny Dodds, and led his own group, Blythe's Sinful Five. His 1925 recording, "Jimmy's Blues", provided the theme used by Pinetop Smith on "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie", and he was also acknowledged as an influence by Albert Ammons.

Blythe died of meningitis in Chicago in 1931, aged 30.