I heard someone on the radio last week saying that the invention of the electric guitar was one of the most epochal events in human history. I’ll leave that for others to debate, but the conceit comes to mind as I contemplate how dominant the guitar is in blues mythology, and how it’s increasing use since the fifties has tended to obscure the richly expressive sounds of piano, organ, saxes, brass, harmonica and other string instruments associated with blues.
The piano’s lineage in blues dates back to a time when it was even more prevalent than guitar. The keyboard was prominent in most styles and settings of the music, from accompaniment for Bessie Smith and other classic blues singers working the minstrel and vaudeville circuits, to pianists of varying skill who played “barrelhouse,” a mix of blues, boogie woogie, ragtime, stride, and gospel. Charles “Cow Cow” Davenport, Clarence “Pinetop” Smith, Roosevelt Sykes, Charlie Spand, Leroy Carr and countless other wizards of the ivories recorded prolifically in the twenties and thirties and established prototypes that helped shape distinct regional styles associated with New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago, Kansas City, and Detroit.
The hard-swinging piano blues of Kansas City captured Jeannie (Evans) Cheatham’s fancy when she was a teen growing up in Akron, Ohio. Born in 1927, she played piano and sang at her mother’s Baptist church before going on to play with an impressive range of blues and jazz greats—T-Bone Walker, Wynonie Harris, Dinah Washington, Joe Williams, Al Hibbler, Odetta, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Big Mama Thornton. She spent ten years touring with Big Mama. Jeannie met Jimmy Cheatham while frequenting jam sessions in Buffalo in the mid-fifties. The Birmingham, Alabama-born trombonist was raised in Buffalo and had toured with Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington, experiences that fostered his skill as an arranger. He and Jeannie were married in 1959. They spent a decade playing around Madison while Jimmy taught music at the University of Wisconsin, then relocated to Southern California in 1978 when he became director of Jazz Studies at UC San Diego. There they formed the eight-member Sweet Baby Blues Band, a group that attracted such Los Angeles-based jazz greats as Snooky Young, Charles McPherson, and Red Callender, all of whom appeared on the Cheatham’s critically acclaimed debut album for Concord Jazz in 1984.
Here’s a clip of Jeannie & Jimmy playing the group’s good-time signature song, “Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On.” Saxophonists Hank Crawford and Ricky Woodard are the guest soloists.
Click here for a dynamite version of “Roll ‘Em Pete,” which Jeannie introduces with credits to three keyboard legends, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and the song’s co-composer, Pete Johnson.