Jimmy Blythe

Despite the abundance of high-quality Chicago recording dates from the 1920s, especially those alongside Johnny Dodds, remarkably little biographical detail survives about the enigmatic pianist Jimmy Blythe. Born and raised in Kentucky, he relocated to Chicago in 1918 and received instruction from Clarence Jones. In the early years of the decade he committed dozens of piano rolls to disc. His first sides appeared in 1924, among them “Chicago Stomp,” which some historians regard as the earliest complete boogie-woogie performance captured on record. Over the ensuing seven years he issued a handful of solo piano pieces, accompanied vocalists Viola Bartlette and Alexander Robinson, collaborated with Dodds in multiple contexts, fronted Blythe’s Sinful Five, and participated in sessions with the Midnight Rounders, Jimmy Bertrand’s Washboard Wizards, Lonnie Johnson, and the State Street Ramblers; he also recorded piano duets alongside Buddy Burton and Charlie Clark. Blythe succumbed to meningitis at age thirty. Though only a capable soloist, he proved an exceptional accompanist, and nearly his entire recorded output can be found on a single RST compact disc.