I was able to find the two other volumes in this Document Records series on Jimmy Yancey but this one eluded me until I found it on eBay. While the other pioneers of boogie-woogie piano – Clarence "Pine Top" Smith, Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons – made fast, relentless music, Yancey was slower, softer, more lyrical, more poetic. Though his magnum opus was the amazing album he did for Atlantic Records in 1951, just months before he died, everything Yancey recorded is worth having. I suspect the fact that Yancey, unlike most other boogie pianists, actually had a steady job (as groundskeeper for the Chicago White Sox) meant he could be less flashy than his colleagues because he wasn't relying on tips to survive. Yancey's music is unique and irresistible; even when he played fast pieces like "The Fives" and "Yancey's Getaway" his essential lyricism remained intact.