Jesse Crump is difficult to categorize as his two piano solos of 1923 are quite different in nature. Mr. Crump Rag is in a novelty ragtime style while Golden West Blues is like Chicago South Side but with a rougher, almost barrelhouse, edge. Golden West Blues is certainly one of the most barrelhouse-like recordings of its time, bested perhaps only by Lemuel Fowler’s Blues Mixture and Satisfied Blues. A significant technical detail is that Golden West Blues is the first sound recording to feature an octave plus fifth walking bass, referred to as a ‘three-fingered walking bass’ by Speckled Red, due to the number of fingers required to play it. This technique was later a staple of many pianists, including ‘Cow Cow’ Davenport, Bob Call, and ‘Cripple’ Clarence Lofton.
Jesse Crump’s two solos can be found on Male Blues Of The Twenties Vol. 2 from Document Records.