Johnny Otis--he helped form the foundation of a style that would, in time, help provide the basis for the, etc.

The major, major rock and roll pioneer Johnny Otis, who has passed away at the age of 90, wasn't black, but he's gotten the media treatment reserved for those black artists who dared to rock B.E. (Before Elvis). Namely, he's been dutifully shuffled into a Star Trek-style critical realm someplace between space and time, his long and powerhouse musical career condensed into such vacuities as, "Mr. Otis played an important role in creating a new sound for a new audience of young urban blacks. With a few years it would form the foundation of rock 'n' roll." That was the New York Times, whose pop music reviews and obits are a clearinghouse of received wisdom. The received wisdom, in this case, being the Elvis myth, wherein anything that rocked B.E. is an instance of almost-rock, or something-like-R&B, or "not quite there yet." You know the story--rock and roll was for many years on the verge of happening, but its Caucasian Savior had yet to glide into view.

And so we watch Johnny Otis, one of the inventors and promoters of rock and roll, memorialized in the standard "He helped lay the foundation for the structure that would grow, over time, into an influence for those forms which, once Elvis showed up, would play an important supporting role in influencing those artists and recordings and songs that would help play an often major role in the eventual development of...." treatment. You spend a long career fighting to stay popular, striving to keep producing hits, weathering the twists and turns of a cruel industry, but in the end the press gets ya.

Anyway, here are two of Otis' rockingest sides, both from the late 1940s, and both reminding us that, despite massive quantities of nonsense to the contrary, rock and roll/R&B started out as a type of jazz instrumental. More on that after these tracks.

Midnight in the Barrelhouse, 1947: MATB
Head Hunter, 1949: HH

On to others. Did I say jazz? As in, big band jazz? Yes. Though the pop press has the R&B genre maybe, sort of, more or less starting to begin, oh, about 1950-ish, the following, famous 1940 big band track by Erskine Hawkins is one of THE templates for same, and it's an earlier version of Midnight in the Barrelhouse, to boot (which, in turn, is an earlier version of Bill Doggett's Honky Tonk). Take away the jazz feel (and the band backing), and it's mainly classic piano boogie woogie:

After Hours--Erskine Hawkins and His Orch., w. Avery Parrish, 1940.

From the same period (late '30s/early '40s), two more vintage R&B/rock and roll numbers, the second by Lionel Hampton, whose sound was hugely like Otis', only earlier. Both demonstrate that hard-rocking blues sides were part of the popular jazz canon of the day, despite the common claim that such sides were a post-big band phenomenon and/or specifically fashioned for a later audience:

Back Beat Boogie--Harry James and His Orch., 1939. (When I first listened to this on a 45 reissue, I was sure it had to be a much later remake, that nothing could have sounded like this in 1939.)

Hamp's Boogie Woogie No. 1--Lionel Hampton and His Orch., 1944.

Hamp, again, with a smoother version of Johnny Otis. From 1949:

Beulah's Sister's Boogie--Lionel Hampton and His Orch., 1949.

Meanwhile, in the late 1940s, plenty of black popular discs rocked harder and less elegantly (and just as potently):

Fat Girl Boogie--Peppermint Harris, 1949.

Does any of this sound like music in search of an identity or in need of some special jumpstart to make it as chart "crossover" material? But such continues to be the insulting media narrative.

Lee