Meade Lux Lewis born 4 September 1905

Meade Lux Lewis (September 4, 1905 – June 7, 1964) was an American pianist and composer, noted for his work in the boogie-woogie style.

Lewis was born Meade Anderson Lewis in Chicago, Illinois in September 1905 (September 3, 4 and 13 have all been cited as his date of birth in various sources). “Lux” was a boyhood nickname arising from his penchant for doing “Alphonse and Gaston” routines. He would stroke an imaginary beard as part of his performance, and so his friends dubbed him the “Duke of 
Luxembourg,” soon shortened to “Lux.”He helped establish boogie-woogie as a major blues piano style in the 1930s and 1940s. Lewis took the rollicking piano form out of the clubs and cat houses and onto the concert stage in 1938 where its fast-flowing rhythms and charging solos delighted audiences and eventually laid the groundwork for rhythm & blues and later rock & roll.

Lewis was a master boogie-woogie craftsman. He was heavily influenced by such boogie-woogie pioneers as Jimmy Yancey and Pine Top Smith. Lewis recorded "Honky Tonk Train Blues," his signature piece and a standard in the boogie-woogie repertoire, in 1927, though it wasn't released by Paramount Records until two years later. The piece ranks with "Yancey Special" and "Pine Top's Boogie-Woogie" as the greatest recorded early examples of boogie-woogie piano. Lewis met Albert Ammons, a fellow piano player, who, like Lewis, drove a taxi for a living. Eventually they shared an apartment together in the same building where Pine Top Smith resided. All three pianists became good friends, often sharing ideas and jamming together. It is not surprising then that Lewis's "Honky Tonk Train Blues" bears a striking resemblance to Smith's "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie."

After the death of Smith in 1929 at age twenty-five and the onset of the Depression, interest in boogie-woogie faded, forcing Lewis to seek other forms of employment to supplement his meagre income from playing the piano. Despite boogie-woogie's decline, Lewis continued to record in the 1930s, occasionally cutting sides as a session man playing behind singers George Hannah and Bob Robinson.

Lewis and Ammons were key figures in the boogie-woogie renaissance of the late 1930s and early 1940s. He was contacted by talent scout John Hammond to play his 1938 Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Lewis, along with Ammons and fellow pianist Pete Johnson excited the concert goers so much with their bristling boogie-woogie piano passages that the music's second craze began then and there. Their success led to a decade long boogie-woogie craze with big band swing treatments by Tommy Dorsey, Will Bradley, and others; and numerous country boogie and early rock and roll songs.

                             

His best known work, "Honky Tonk Train Blues", has been recorded in various contexts, often in a big band arrangement. Lewis remade it for Parlophone in 1935 and for Victor in 1937 and a recording exists of a Camel Caravan broadcast, including 

Albert Ammons and Lewis 1938.

"Honky Tonk Train Blues" from New York City in 1939. Early recordings of the piece by other artists include performances by Adrian Rollini, Frankie Trumbauer, classical harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe, theater organist George Wright (with drummer Cozy Cole, under the title "Organ Boogie"), and Bob Zurke with Bob Crosby's orchestra. Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake & Palmer often included it in his repertoire and recorded it in 1972.

Lewis became the first jazz pianist to double on celeste (starting in 1936) and was featured on that instrument on a Blue Note quartet date with Edmond Hall and Charlie Christian. Lewis also played harpsichord on a few records in 1941.Lewis and his colleagues were booked to play the Café Society, a chic Manhattan club where the best boogie-woogie would be heard. Lewis remained in New 
York until that year, at which time interest in boogie-woogie had

begun to wither a second time. 

Pete Johnson, Meade “Lux “Lewis, 

‘Big Joe” Turner and Albert Ammons, 1939 

He relocated in Los Angeles, where he resumed his club work and recording career. Lewis recorded for the ASCH label in 1944, though he and boogie-woogie were no longer vital parts of the blues scene. He also continued to perform, usually in small clubs and lounges.

L-R Meade Lux Lewis, Art Tatum, Pete Johnson and Erroll Garner

Lewis appeared in the movies New Orleans (1947) and Nightmare (1956). Uncomfortable typecast as a boogie-woogie and blues pianist, Lewis spent his later years playing rags and old-time pop songs. He also appeared, uncredited, in the movie It's a Wonderful Life playing piano in the scene where George Baily gets thrown out of Nick's Bar.

Lewis was fond of the Minneapolis area, where a niece lived, and would visit as often as he could. He appeared annually at the White House Restaurant (no longer extant) in Golden Valley. He began a successful three-week engagement there in May 1964. Around 2 a.m. on Sunday, June 7, Lewis left the parking lot of the White House and headed east on Olson Memorial Highway, when his Chrysler Imperial was rear-ended by a vehicle driven by one Ronald Bates, who was travelling an estimated 80 mph. Lewis's car was pushed 400 feet and crashed into a tree; he was killed instantly. He was 58. Bates survived, but his passenger died the following day.

 (Info edited from Wikipedia & All About Jazz)

Here’s something of a curiosity. It’s a "soundie" from 1944, featuring boogie-woogie piano legend Meade Lux Lewis with Dudley Dickerson who is miming to a Big Joe Turner vocal. The original "Roll 'Em Pete" was recorded in 1938, with Big Joe and boogie pianist Pete Johnson. Meade's piano here is more rollicking, somehow. Presumably "Roll 'em Meade" wasn't considered to have quite the same feel, so it's just "Roll 'em".