Setting a Tone Preview #3 – Rhythm equals Meaning

Lessons with Sammy Price, the King of Boogie-Woogie

Boogie-Woogie, an uptempo form of the blues, is one of the most joyful styles of music ever created. That is, under the right hands, and played with the right feeling, and, as Sammy Price said, with the rhythm exactly right. Here are his words, from our first lesson.

His remark could lead one to think that in the boogie-woogie form, rhythm denotes, or is equivalent to meaning. What a cool idea. Rhythm = Meaning. Or better yet, Meaning = Rhythm x (Feeling).

The following video is an example of this “rightness,” in “The Fontainebleau Boogie,” an utterly joyous, highly rhythmic, spontaneous piece from a live concert recording made in Paris in 1955. It’s an encore piece that begins with solo piano and drums before Sammy calls in the band, as he keeps pushing the beat on the piano. By 1955 Sammy had been playing boogie-woogie and its precursors (Stomp, and Fast Western, a Texas style you’ll hear in the first four bars of “Fontainebleau Boogie”) for thirty years. He had perfected the form of boogie-woogie.

Thirty-four years later, here is Sammy Price at the age of 80, playing the “Amherst Boogie” at the University of Massachusetts. He plays in his “Two-Tenor” band format, again leading with solo piano and drums. Though some of the moves of his Paris days are no longer within reach, he’s still making it happen, still giving it meaning. Calvin Lynch and Babe Clark, tenor saxophones, Wesley Landers, drums.

Here’s one other item, relating to Sammy Price’s development as a boogie-woogie pianist. It’s from a 1948 edition of Harlem’s Amsterdam News, reporting on his return from a tour with the Mezz Mezzrow band and noting Sammy’s popularity in Paris, where he became a huge star.

Next week I will publish Chapter One of Setting a Tone.

“Amherst Boogie” video produced by Kenneth Warner.