Ramsey Lewis 1935-2022

 

The great jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis, 1935-2022.

My Dad's copy of The Ramsey Lewis Trio at the Bohemian Caverns, 1964. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

My Dad's copy of Barefoot Sunday Blues, 1963. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Ramsey Lewis in concert, 1981.

The jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis passed away on Monday at the age of 87. Lewis was a superb musician, and he took a vast array of influences-blues, gospel, pop, and classical, and combined them into his own unique style of jazz. Lewis had a huge hit in 1965 with his version of the pop song "The 'In' Crowd." The single peaked at number 5 on the pop charts, becoming an even bigger hit than the original. The album The In Crowd also soared into the Top Ten, peaking at number 2 on the LP chart. 

I was lucky enough to see Ramsey Lewis in concert several times: in 2009 at Orchestra Hall, and at the Dakota Jazz Club in 2012, 2015, and 2017. I also wrote short reviews of two of Lewis' 2020 concerts on Stageit. I went to most of these concerts with my Dad, who had been a fan of Ramsey Lewis since the 1960's. He owned several Ramsey Lewis albums: The In Crowd, Barefoot Sunday Blues, and At the Bohemian Caverns. My Dad was a jazz fan, and he helped introduce me to the music of Ramsey Lewis, Ahmad Jamal, Dave Brubeck, and Oscar Peterson. My Dad passed away last December. My Dad's birthday is tomorrow, September 15th, so he's been on my mind a lot lately, and Ramsey Lewis' passing just adds to the emotion of this week. My Dad and I watched Ramsey Lewis' 2020 Beatles concert on Stageit together, and it was fun for us to see this masterful musician playing a solo concert in his own home. 

"The 'In' Crowd" was, like many hit records, a product of chance and happenstance. The song had been a hit for singer Dobie Gray, peaking just outside the Top Ten on the pop and R&B charts in February 1965. A couple of months later, a waitress suggested the song to Lewis, bassist Eldee Young and drummer Redd Holt. They listened to the song on the jukebox a few times and put it in their set. It received a rapturous reaction from the audience at the Bohemian Caverns nightclub, where the trio was recording a live album. The energy of the song was infectious, and suddenly Ramsey Lewis was a household name. "The 'In' Crowd" won a Grammy for the Best Jazz Performance-Small Group. 

Lewis recorded a lot of albums throughout his lengthy career. Some of the Ramsey Lewis albums I really enjoy are Down to Earth, a 1958 collection of folk and traditional songs, Mother Nature's Son, an exploration of tunes from the Beatles' White Album, 1974's funky Sun Goddess, and 2011's Taking Another Look, where Lewis re-recorded most of the songs on Sun Goddess. Of special note for Twin Cities music fans is the excellent 1970 live album Them Changes, recorded in May of 1970 at the Depot, a venue better known today as the legendary club First Avenue. 

Ramsey Lewis leaves behind a rich legacy of superb jazz music in a long and varied career. RIP to a true master of the keyboard.