Ramsey Lewis, a tribute

RAMSEY LEWIS 1935-2022

By Ayana Contreras

Ramsey Lewis, courtesy of Ravinia Festival

By the time you read this, Ramsey Lewis will have (rightly) been eulogized in myriad ways. He will have been labeled Hitmaker, certainly, Radio Host, naturally. But I would like to humbly submit the label of Quintessential Chicagoan: an irreplaceable part of the community who by remaining in his birthplace, helped launch the careers of generations of fellow musicians.

The Chicago born pianist formed the Ramsey Lewis Trio, which consisted bassist Eldee Young and drummer Isaac “Redd” Holt from about 1956 until 1966, and accounted for a string of hits for the Chess subsidiaries Argo and Cadet (including a tail-shaking rendition of “Wade In The Water”). When Young and respectively Holt left the group to form their own combo, Ramsey added Cleveland Eaton on Bass and Maurice White (then a Chess session drummer who moonlighted playing jingle gigs) on drums.

In White’s memoir, he described Lewis’s style in the 1960s thusly: “…a collection of swanky cuff links, linen shirts and mohair suits. His tapered pants were immaculately pressed with perfect creases. He had several different tuxedos, including white dinner jackets. To me he was a fashion icon.” Beyond leaving an impression on the young drummer’s style, Lewis (who White called “Rams”) also encouraged White to step out from behind the drum kit and into the spotlight to play White’s then-newly-acquired kalimba as a part of their act. White further noted, “Ramsey didn’t only help me with my shyness; he also made a cultural statement by showcasing the kalimba.”

It was this trio that began together on 1966’s Wade in the Water, and ultimately worked with genius arranger Charles Stepney on an inventive run of albums, beginning with the celestial Maiden Voyage. That luscious album, which sports early background vocals by Minnie Riperton on a hip cover of Aretha Franklin’s “Since You’ve Been Gone”, was released in April of 1968, and stood in stark relief to the turmoil that brewed in the wake of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1969 White extended his collaboration with Stepney beyond his own albums to contribute to Minnie Riperton’s cult classic 1970 debut, Come To My Garden (in fact, two Garden compositions were first recorded for Lewis’s Maiden Voyage). The sole in-studio photo included in the original gatefold edition of the album included a black and white shot of Lewis standing in the foreground beside a seated Stepney and Riperton, all engaged in making magic.

Cleveland Eaton went on to play with Lewis through 1974, before his own illustrious solo career, while Maurice White went off to lead Earth, Wind and Fire. He also co-produced Ramsey Lewis’ hit 1974 album Sun Goddess (among other albums with his former bandmate).

Ramsey Lewis was the rare jazz artist who had sold a million copies of a side (the Top 5 single “The In Crowd”). And yet, he continued to work to help cultivate fresh talent. His short-lived record label, Ramsel, released a now-sought-after single by Wade Flemons (another soon-to-be member of Earth, Wind & Fire), as well as a release written and produced by Oscar Brown, Jr. that featured the Opportunity Please Knock Chorus: a collective of South Side youth affiliated with the notorious Blackstone Rangers street gang.

Of that unusual collaboration, Oscar Brown Jr. told Ebony magazine in August of 1967 that “These kids are angry because they’re being shot through the same grease their parents were shot through, and they understand that it’s impossible for a bootless man to pull himself up by his bootstraps. But they’re not too disillusioned to work hard-if they ever had and illusions at all. It is up to us to give them a better picture of reality.”

Lewis also believed in the potential of youth. Besides serving as artistic director of Jazz at Ravinia for 25 years, in 1995 he helped organize Ravinia's Jazz Mentor Program. He also served on the board of trustees for the Chicago High School for the Arts and the Merit School of Music. In 2005, he founded the Ramsey Lewis Foundation, which focused on making musical instrument education accessible to youth. Trumpeter Marquis Hill, who led this summer’s tribute to Lewis at Ravinia, told Ravinia.org that “His influence on jazz and music in general is already etched in the history books. Especially with piano players, but also with all musicians. Ramsey helped move jazz and music forward”.

Naturally, many of Ramsey Lewis’s obits will mention his breakthrough hits, such as his Trio’s rendition of Dobie Gray’s composition “The In Crowd”, which purportedly fell into their setlist at the Bohemian Caverns based on the recommendation of a Washington, D.C. waitress who, according to Lewis’s telling at The Midwest Clinic Jazz Interview in 2009, played it for the trio on the café’s jukebox. Lewis shared that for albums, as well as live sets of that era, he made sure to include “what we called a fun song, something easy” for the crowd.

That little detail at the end says everything about the proletariat streak of Ramsey Lewis’s personality. Though for many years he billed his trio as the Gentleman of Jazz, it was also important for him to make music that was accessible to the masses and spoke to the value he placed in all us.