Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, but already developed in African-American communities since the 1870s. It was eventually extended from piano to piano duo and trio, guitar, big band, country and western, and gospel. While standard blues traditionally expresses a variety of emotions, boogie-woogie is mainly dance music (although not usually played for the competitive dance known as boogie-woogie, a term of convenience in that sport). The genre had a significant influence on rhythm and blues and rock and roll.
Boogie-woogie is characterised by a regular left-hand bass figure, which is transposed following the chord changes. Boogie-woogie is not strictly a solo piano style; it can accompany singers and be featured in orchestras and small combos. It is sometimes called “eight to the bar”, as much of it is written in common time (44) time using eighth notes (quavers). The chord progressions are typically based on I–IV–V–I (with many formal variations of it, such as I/i–IV/iv–v/I, as well as chords that lead into these ones). For the most part, boogie-woogie tunes are twelve-bar blues, although the style has been applied to popular songs such as “Swanee River” and hymns such as “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”.
Several African terms have been suggested as having some interesting linguistic precursors to “boogie”: Among them are the:
- Hausa word “Boog”, and
- Mandingo word “Booga” (both of which mean “to beat”, as in beating a drum)
- West African word “Bogi” (which means “to dance”)
- Bantu term “Mbuki Mvuki” (Mbuki: “to take off in flight”; Mvuki: “to dance wildly, as if to shake off one’s clothes”).
The African origin of these terms is consistent with the African-American origin of the music.
In sheet music literature prior to 1900, there are at least three examples of the word “boogie” in music titles in the archives of the Library of Congress. In 1901, “Hoogie Boogie” appeared in the title of published sheet music, the first known instance where a redoubling of the word “Boogie” occurs in the title of published music. (In 1880, “The Boogie Man” had occurred as the title of published music.) The first use of “Boogie” in a recording title appears to be a “blue cylinder” recording made by Edison of the “American Quartet” performing “That Syncopated Boogie Boo” in 1913. The Oxford English Dictionary states that the word is a reduplication of boogie, which was used for “rent parties” as early as 1913.
Boogie-woogie was played in honky-tonks and rent parties on the South Side of Chicago in the 1920s but gained national attention only in the late 1930s. The height of its popularity was marked by a 1938 concert in Carnegie Hall, New York City, featuring its most prominent interpreters. It declined rapidly after World War II.
Boogie-woogie waned in popularity in the 1930s, but enjoyed a resurgence and its greatest acclaim in the 1940s, reaching audiences around the world. Among its most famous acts was the “Boogie Woogie Trio” of Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons, and Meade “Lux” Lewis. Other famous boogie woogie pianists of this peak era were Maurice Rocco and Freddie Slack. There were also many very notable women boogie woogie pianists during this time, including Hadda Brooks, Winifred Atwell, Martha Davis, and Hazel Scott, as well as in later years, such as Katie Webster.
