COMPACT DISC REVIEW

By

Jack Rummel

Messin’ Around Blues

The Enhanced Pianola Rolls of Jimmy Blythe

Delmark Records DE 792

Farm House Blues / Black Gal Make It Thunder / Mama’s Got ‘Em / The Folks Downstairs / That’s My Business / Steppin’ On The Gas / Function Blues / When Grandpa Steps Out / Forty Blues / Sugar Dew Blues / Carolina Stomp / Messin’ Around / My Baby / Nicaragua Blues / A Good Man Is Hard To Find / Ain’t Gonna Run You Down / Comin’ Home Blues / I Won’t Give You None / Underworld Blues.

            Jimmy Blythe (1901-1931) hailed from Kentucky but moved to Chicago when he was 15.  He was already making music there when the Original Dixieland Jazz Band invaded the Windy City a year later, paving the way for it to become THE place to be for jazz and blues during the Twentieth Century’s third decade.  Records were coming on strong at that time but had not yet replaced piano rolls and Blythe cut over 200 of those paper scrolls in his brief career.

            Modern technology has been kind to those old rolls.  We can now listen to them in digital fidelity, played on machines that make them sound even more lifelike than before.  In other words, playing this CD is like inviting Blythe into your living room.  The sound quality is remarkably good and the performances are not the least bit mechanical.

            The names of the men behind this project, even though it features blues, will all be familiar to ragtime lovers, for piano rolls were an integral part of ragtime’s history, too.  Mike Montgomery, legendary roll collector and historian, provided many of the rolls along with the essential knowledge of how to proceed.  Ed Sprankle originally produced LPs on his Echoes label; Paul Affeldt subsequently released material on his Euphonic label (the Euphonic catalog is now owned by Delmark).  And Frank Himpsl was the tech genius who gave us the clarity and sense of realism that this disc contains.

            While this material will prove irresistible to lovers of piano blues and jazz from the Roaring Twenties, the casual listener is apt to feel a sense of “sameness” as the recordings progress.  The tempos are almost all the same (medium), the dynamics are one-dimensional (medium) and Blythe’s richly-chorded interpretations seem not to vary too much from one track to the next.

            Yet, there is also a sense of excitement to this disc, a feeling that we’ve entered a time machine, that we’re in Chicago in 1925 and this is REALLY what it was like.  There’s lots of blues, some early boogie (think Jimmy Yancey) and some pop tunes – all brimming with syncopation.  The best way to enjoy this CD might be to load your machine with several discs, set it on “Shuffle,” and watch your friends turn their heads and quiet down when a Jimmy Blythe cut starts to play.

            (Note: The liner notes state that “The tempos have been reorganized, generally by recording the rolls at a slower tempo…”  From a historian’s perspective it would be interesting to know whether, for example,  the tracks in the keys of G-flat, B and E were originally in G, C and F [or not].)

            Available for $14.99 plus shipping from www.delmark.com .