Jump Blues

Jump Blues evolved out of the up-tempo blues or “stomp blues”, influenced by the big band sounds of Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder and Count Basie (just to name a few). In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the sounds were tied to the big band versions of styles in Jazz, the Boogie Woogie revival and Urban Blues (updated and related to the country acoustic blues from the south). Jump Blues is now considered part of the 40s/50s R&B label, as is the Boogie Woogie revival, Urban Blues, Gospel and folk Blues (which was previously labeled “Race Records”.

The Jump Blues style relies upon the brass and rhythm sections, that were experimenting with a newer shuffle or “8 to the bar” style rhythms which goes hand in hand with Boogie Woogie. In Jump Blues, the drums and rhythm sections were changing the beat up drastically, as opposed to the older (1920s & 1930s) swing rhythms or the contemporary swinging rhythms of the Big Bands and Sweet Bands of the and 1940s. The brass phrases were becoming more rhythmic and acted more as an accompaniment to the beat (which had hints of the back-beat, so defining of the 1950s R&B and Rock & Roll genres to come later).

This new style was very danceable and caught on quickly after its incubation period during World War II. New bands started having success with the genre headed by Louis Jordan, Jack McVea, Earl Bostic and Arnett Cob and their respective bands, especially in the late 1940s. The music was hot, fast, and humorous and made you “jump”, hence the name – Jump Blues.

The Pioneers of Jump Blues and R&B

It is generally accepted (with varying opinions), that the first Jump Blues, and for that matter, the first R&B record was recorded by Lionel Hampton’s big band song “Flying Home (No. 1)”, featuring tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet’s hot raunchy solo. The music was popular amongst the “Hep Cats” or “Hepsters”, who were young and energetic dancers. Lionel Hampton had further success in the new genre with tunes like “Hey Bop a Re-Bop” and “Hamp’s Boogie”.

Cab Calloway (the Hi-De-Ho Man) was a big influence on Jump Blues and the Hepsters, as far back as the early 1930s, with songs like, the famous “Minnie the Moocher”, “St. James Infirmary” and “The Reefer Man”. He was influential in the Hepster culture as being the jive talking Hep-Cat who showed off his gliding back step Hepster dance moves (which predated Michael Jackson’s “moon walking” by 40 years).

Count Basie was another major influence to Jump Blues with “One O’clock Jump”, “Jumpin’ at the Woodside”, “Going To Chicago”, “Sent For You Yesterday” (the last two songs, featuring Jimmy Rushing’s “blues shouting” vocals), and you can hear humorous Jump Blues elements the Count’s version of “Open the Door Richard!”

Other Jump Blues influencers were Jack McVea’s All Stars featuring T-Bone Walker on “Bobby Sox Blues” and McVea’s version of “Open the Door Richard!”; Earl Bostic had an R&B #6 hit with “Sleep” and also an R&B #1 hit with “Flamingo”; and the wild man of the tenor sax, himself, Arnett Cobb blasted a scorching solo on Lionel Hamptons “Flying Home (No. 2)”.

Please see the next post for the Jump Blues as popular music.

Jump Blues as Popular Music in the Late 1940s-Early 1950s

Louis Jordan

By far, the “king” of Jump Blues, was Louis Jordan who had so many hits in the 1940s that he was dubbed “the King of the Jukebox”. Jordan started out in swing but soon went to Jump Blues and R&B with his Tympani Five groups. They sold millions of records and made him one of the top R&B artists of all time, as well as crossing over to mainstream popularity, alongside such greats as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie.

Some of Jordan’s biggest #1 hits were “Caldonia”, “Buzz Me Blues”, the comic classic “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens”, “Ain’t That Just Like a Woman (They’ll Do It Every Time)”, the multi-million seller “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”, “Beans & Cornbread”, “Saturday Night Fish Fry” (a contender for one of the first Rock & Roll records) and “Blue Light Boogie” just to name a very few. All in all, Jordan scored 18 number one R&B hits and 11 mainstream crossovers, top 40 hits. This was a great feat by an African American performer/writer in his day.

He had a great voice and rhythm for using many verbal techniques like heavy syncopation, jive styled, story-telling, verbal asides, with narrative humorous lyrics. He was also very notable for using a prominent, amplified (sometimes distorted), electric guitar on most of his hits. The band was versatile, switching between hot “8 to the bar” jumpers to occasional slow blues songs and for incorporating the “back-beat” in his later songs. He wrote in a very humorous manner that would often make one laugh, with funny imagery and comedic rhythm. His bands emphasized rhythm and would use smaller brass combos (as opposed to the “Big Bands” of the day that were still in vogue). His music would be very influential to the upcoming genres of Rock & Roll and 50s R&B.

Big Joe Turner

Another great Jump Blues artist was “blues shouter” Big Joe Turner, who started out in both Boogie Woogie and Jump Blues but went on to be one of Rock & Roll’s greatest pioneers who scored hits well into the late 1950s. Dubbed “The Boss of The Blues”, Kansas City’s Joe Turner first became famous by teaming up with Boogie Woogie pianist Pete Johnson and their hit song “Roll ‘Em Pete”. The song was featured in the John Hammond produced Carnegie Hall presentation “From Spirituals to Swing” in 1938. This song catapulted Pete Johnson’s career in Boogie Woogie and Jump Blues in the late 1940s.

His Jump Blues contribution started out with songs from the late 1940s like “S.K. Blues” with Pete Johnson and the humorous “My Gal’s A Jockey”. In the early 1950s he had the million selling R&B #2 hit “Chains of Love” and his first R&B #1 hit “Honey Rush” just to name a few.

Then he helped turn R&B into popular music with the Rock & Roll hit and original version of “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, (later covered by Bill Haley & the Comets). The popular hits just kept coming with “Flip, Flop & Fly”, “Hide & Seek” and “Corinne Corrina” which was also a mainstream crossover hit. Big Joe Turner would be named as one of Rock & Roll’s architects by many of the great Rock & Roll artists during the late 1950s. He then returned to the blues after the fifties to perform and record with many of the pioneering blues artists. He continued up until his death in 1985. Big Joe Turner truly had a long, enduring and remarkable career.

Other Great Jump Blues Artists

Other great notable Jump Blues artists and their respective songs, are New Orleans own Roy Brown with his first R&B #1 hit “‘Long About Midnight”, the popular “Rockin’ At Midnight” and his other R&B #1 hit “Hard Luck Blues”; Charles Brown had 2 R&B #1 hits with “Trouble Blues” and the 1951 hit “Black Night”; Wynonie Harris had many Jump Blues hits including his 2 R&B #1 hits, “Good Rocking Tonight” and “All She Wants To Do Is Rock”; the great electric blues guitarist T -Bone Walker brought us many ground breaking top ten R&B hits like “Bobby Sox Blues”, “Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just As Bad)” and the “T-Bone Shuffle”.

Then there was Roy Milton and His Solid Senders who had a string of 19 top ten R&B hits including “RM Blues” which was a R&B #2 hit and a crossover hit reaching #20 in the mainstream chart in 1946; the popular hits “Hop, Skip & Jump”, ” Information Blues” as well as the Helen Humes recording and R&B #6 hit “Million Dollar Secret”; and also Billy Wright with “Blues For My Baby” who was very influential on a young Little Richard, who would become one of Rock & Rolls biggest stars.

Another notable song was the extremely popular Paul Williams 1949 R&B #1 hit “The Huckle-Buck”. The song was credited to Andy Gibson, who originally wrote the song for Lucky Millinder’s band as “D Natural Blues”. Millinder would later take Gibson to court over the songs title, but it was later dropped. Also, the song was originally inspired by Charlie Parker’s BeBop Jazz hit “Now’s The Time” (notice Parkers sax phrasing and “The Huckle-Bucks” chorus melody). The lyrics were later added by Roy Alfred and the song became a favorite of many vocal artists. The song was not only a big crossover hit for both Frank Sinatra & Tommy Dorsey (and other covers by Roy Milton, Lionel Hampton and Louis Armstrong among others), but also a nationwide dance craze. The song was also hilariously featured by Art Carney (as Ed Norton) in the Jackie Gleason hit comedy TV show of the early 50s, “The Honeymooners”.