Jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis, who revived the genre, passes away at 87.

Depending on the music critic you talk to, jazz “died” when its heyday in the 1920s came to an end. Others think that when the 1960s and rock music arrived, jazz music lost its appeal.

 

Ramsey Lewis, a talented jazz pianist and one of the genre’s most well-known performers in the country, continued to come up with fresh ideas to keep jazz alive and expanding while, more importantly, attracting new audiences for the music.

Lewis spent nearly 60 years creating original jazz recordings and live performances; he achieved success in 1965 with the crossover hit “The ‘In’ Crowd,” won three Grammy Awards, amassed seven gold records, and in 2007 was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment of the Arts, the highest accolade given to jazz musicians in the United States.
Lewis passed away on Monday at his residence in Chicago, according to his manager Brett Steele. He was 87.

Some crossover hits were produced by Lewis.
Lewis, a native of Chicago, spent his formative years in the Cabrini-Green housing development on the city’s Near North Side. Despite playing piano all through his childhood, Lewis only ever heard jazz at home when his father played albums by Art Tatum and Duke Ellington, two of Lewis’ all-time favourite musicians. According to Lewis’ biography from the National Endowment for the Arts, he didn’t try to learn jazz himself until a fellow musician at his church asked him to join a band when he was 15 years old.

According to his website, Ramsey Lewis created the Ramsey Lewis Trio with bassist Eddie Young and drummer Redd Holt after polishing his jazz piano abilities with that group, the Clefs. While the trio’s instrumental cover of “The ‘In’ Crowd” became popular upon its 1965 release and earned Lewis his first of three Grammys, their debut album wasn’t released until almost ten years after that, in 1956.

 

Crossover hits like “Hang on Sloopy” and “Wade in the Water,” two songs that appealed to listeners from all walks of life, not just jazz enthusiasts, were also released in the middle of the 1960s.

Over the years, the lineup of the trio changed; additional members included drummer Maurice White (who eventually left to form Earth, Wind & Fire but later joined again to record Lewis’ 1974 album “Sun Goddess”). Lewis also worked with other musicians in his field, including as the late jazz vocalist Nancy Wilson, on a number of albums, notably “The Two of Us” from 1984.

Lewis combined the blues and gospel music he had grown up playing with the jazz his father loved and the current mainstream music to produce what is now known as modern jazz. He could play classical pieces with ease and flair, but his jazz compositions had funk and soul (a style he honed on “Sun Goddess” and showed on shows like “Soul Train”) (he once counted Bach as one of his favourite sources of “brain food”).

Lewis left a legacy that extended beyond Chicago.
After the success of “The ‘In’ Crowd,” Lewis released two to three albums a year for several years, totaling more than 80 CDs, including last year’s “Maha de Carnaval.”
In fits and starts, he retired. He admitted to the Chicago station WGN in 2018 that he rapidly got bored when he took a few days break from playing and practising the piano. He said to the Chicago Tribune that he was “90-some percent retired” in 2019, adding that he will still perform locally but would no longer be touring the country. That year, he opened the Chicago-based Ravinia Festival.

Lewis hosted a number of jazz programmes on public radio and television stations in Chicago throughout his life, introducing fans to new musicians and playing old favourites when he wasn’t performing.

He was a strong supporter of arts education and encouraging young people who have musical talent. In 2005, he established the Ramsey Lewis Foundation, which offered music lessons to young people in need. He recalled receiving a solid foundation in the arts at his public school in Chicago, which he claimed offered a variety of bands and musical electives. He bemoaned the cuts to arts education in public schools.

“We lost a lot of youngsters who could have certainly contributed to the scene as we know it when they knocked that out of the public school system,” he told WGN.
Lewis said in the 2018 interview with WGN that he was still tinkering with a song he started writing 15 years earlier and that he couldn’t stop writing original music even after he “retired.” He claimed to have purchased his favourite Steinway piano in 1962, which he frequently played at home. He listened to everything, across genres, that would fit on his iPod since he was a lifelong learner anxious to hone his talents.

There is no such animal, he said in response to the question of what he thought was the greatest record of all time in 2009.
In 2009, he said to Pop Matters, “What seems satisfactory to me today might not tomorrow or next week.” Unless I’m spending time exploring other cultures or listening to new music/artists, then you never know, but the finest record I’ve ever heard is the one I just listened to.

Lewis was noted for his originality and inquisitiveness by his friends and admirers. The Rev. Jesse Jackson remembered spending more than 40 years close to Lewis and seeing their kids grow up together.

Jackson tweeted that Ramsey had “exquisite taste and was formally taught and disciplined.” “As a friend and a neighbour, I shall miss him.”
Based on his lifetime of playing in his home Chicago, Lewis felt the same pride serving his city, as stated by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who called Lewis a “native son” of the city. In a 2011 interview, he stated bluntly, “Chicago is home.”
Lewis leaves behind his wife and their five children.