SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SUMMER, 2019
VOLUME SEVEN NUMBER TWO
HOLLAND DOZIER HOLLAND
(L-R: Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland, Brian Holland)
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
SHIRLEY SCOTT
(June 15-21)
FREDDIE HUBBARD
(June 22-28)
BILL WITHERS
(June 29- July 5)
OUTKAST
(July 6-12)
J. J. JOHNSON
(July 13-19)
JIMMY SMITH
(July 20-26)
JACKIE WILSON
(July 27-August 2)
LITTLE RICHARD
(August 3-9)
KENNY BARRON
(August 10-16)
BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON
(August 17-23)
MOS DEF
(August 24-30)
BLIND BOY FULLER
J.J. Johnson
(1924-2001)
Artist Biography by Scott Yanow
Considered by many to be the finest jazz trombonist of all time, J.J. Johnson somehow transferred the innovations of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie
to his more awkward instrument, playing with such speed and deceptive
ease that at one time some listeners assumed he was playing valve
(rather than slide) trombone. Johnson toured with the territory bands of Clarence Love and Snookum Russell during 1941-1942, and then spent 1942-1945 with Benny Carter's big band. He made his recording debut with Carter (taking a solo on "Love for Sale" in 1943), and played at the first JATP concert (1944). Johnson also had plenty of solo space during his stay with Count Basie's Orchestra (1945-1946). During 1946-1950, he played with all of the top bop musicians, including Charlie Parker (with whom he recorded in 1947), the Dizzy Gillespie big band, Illinois Jacquet (1947-1949), and the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool Nonet. His own recordings from the era included such sidemen as Bud Powell and a young Sonny Rollins. Johnson, who also recorded with the Metronome All-Stars, played with Oscar Pettiford (1951) and Miles Davis
(1952), but then was outside of music, working as a blueprint inspector
for two years (1952-1954). His fortunes changed when, in August 1954,
he formed a two-trombone quintet with Kai Winding that became known as Jay and Kai and was quite popular during its two years.
After Johnson and Winding went their separate ways (they would later have a few reunions), Johnson led a quintet that often included Bobby Jaspar. He began to compose ambitious works, starting with 1956's "Poem for Brass," and including "El Camino Real" and a feature for Dizzy Gillespie, "Perceptions"; his "Lament" became a standard. Johnson worked with Miles Davis during part of 1961-1962, led some more small groups of his own, and by the late '60s was kept busy writing television and film scores. J.J. Johnson was so famous in the jazz world that he kept on winning Downbeat polls in the 1970s, even though he was not playing at all. However, starting with a Japanese tour in 1977, Johnson gradually returned to a busy performance schedule, leading a quintet in the 1980s that often featured Ralph Moore. In the mid-'90s, he remained at the top of his field, but by the late '90s and early into the 2000s, the legendary musician fell ill with prostate cancer, and sadly took his own life on February 4, 2001.
https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/jjjohnson
Considered by many to be the finest jazz trombonist of all time, J.J. Johnson somehow transferred the innovations of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to his more awkward instrument, playing with such speed and deceptive ease that at one time some listeners assumed he was playing valve (rather than slide) trombone! Johnson toured with the territory bands of Clarence Love and Snookum Russell during 1941-42 and then spent 1942-45 with Benny Carter's big band.
He made his recording debut with Carter (taking a solo on “Love for Sale” in 1943) and played at the first JATP concert (1944). Johnson also had led plenty of solo space during his stay with Count Basie's Orchestra (1945-46). During 1946-50, he played with all of the top bop musicians including Charlie Parker (with whom he recorded in 1947), the Dizzy Gillespie big band, Illinois Jacquet (1947-49) and the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool Nonet. His own recordings from the era included such sidemen as Bud Powell and a young Sonny Rollins. J.J., who also recorded with the Metronome All-Stars, played with Oscar Pettiford (1951) and Miles Davis (1952) but then was outside of music, working as a blueprint inspector for two years (1952-54).
His fortunes changed when in August 1954 he formed a two -trombone quintet with Kai Winding that became known as Jay and Kai and was quite popular during its two years. After J.J. and Kai went their separate ways (they would later have a few reunions), Johnson led a quintet that often included Bobby Jaspar.
He began to compose ambitious works starting with 1956's “Poem for Brass” and including “El Camino Real” and a feature for Dizzy Gillespie, “Perceptions”; his “Lament” became a standard. Johnson worked with Miles Davis, during part of 1961-62, led some small groups of his own, and by the late '60s was kept busy writing television and film scores. J.J. Johnson was so famous in the jazz world that he kept on winning DOWN BEAT polls in the 1970s even though he was not playing at all! However, starting with a Japanese tour in 1977, J.J. gradually returned to a busy performance schedule, leading a quintet in the 1980s that often featured Ralph Moore.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-J-Johnson
J.J. Johnson, original name James Louis Johnson, (born Jan. 22, 1924, Indianapolis, Ind., U.S.—died Feb. 4, 2001, Indianapolis), American jazz composer and one of the genre’s most influential trombonists.
Johnson received early training as a pianist, and at age 14 he began to study the trombone. He became a professional musician in 1941 and during the decade worked in the orchestras of Benny Carter and Count Basie. He became widely recognized as a dexterous soloist (to the extent that many listeners believed he was playing a valve, rather than slide, trombone) who had assimilated the techniques of the bebop movement of the 1940s. He was in great demand among jazz musicians and performed with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis, among others. After a temporary retirement (1952–54), he returned to tour with fellow trombonist Kai Winding; their duets have been recognized as watersheds in the evolution of jazz trombone technique.
In the late 1950s and the 1960s, Johnson composed steadily, including the large-scale works El Camino Real (1959), Sketch for Trombone and Orchestra (1959), and Perceptions (1961). He also worked as a composer and arranger for commercials, films (including Shaft, 1971, with Isaac Hayes; Across 110th Street, 1972; and Cleopatra Jones, 1973), and television (including Barefoot in the Park, 1970–71, The Mod Squad, 1970–73, and Starsky and Hutch, 1975).
In 1977 Johnson undertook a tour of Japan, and he eventually returned to performing full-time, and at full technical capacity, until he retired in 1997.
https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/jj-johnson
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/jj-johnson-an-eminent-life-in-music-jj-johnson-by-victor-l-schermer.php?page=1
AAJ: Josh and Louis, tell us a bit about your musical background.
LB: I teach low brasses, music history, and music technology at Kentucky State University, in Frankfort, KY. It is the smallest institution in the state university system (the largest, the University of Kentucky, is about 40 miles east). For the past ten years, my professional performance is mostly free-lance, primarily with the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra, and bass trombonist with the Lexington Brass Band (a British-style ensemble), the Vince DiMartino Jazz Big Band, and the Kentucky Jazz Repertory Orchestra (led by Miles Osland, Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Kentucky, and sort of a central Kentucky version of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra). Other gigs include occasional pit orchestra work, small brass ensembles, and the like.
Josh is a violinist, but he would have to confess what his playing experience has been recently.
AAJ: Josh and Louis, how did each of you become interested in J.J. Johnson and his music?
LB: In 1973, when I started my undergraduate studies in music education at Murray State University, in Murray, KY, I became very good friends with a couple of guys who roomed together in a dormitory across from the one where I lived. One of them, Dick McCreary, was a fine jazz drummer who actually worked briefly with Sonny Stitt from what I recall. He is now a public school music educator in the St. Louis area. The other guy, Dan Schunks, was a trombonist who could blow some really nice jazz. We were all in the marching band, so we saw a lot of each other. Since my jazz experience prior to college was limited to listening to my dad's record collection (mostly Stan Kenton band recordings from the 40's and early 50's), Dan and Dick helped me along with jazz artists that I needed to know: in Dan's case, particularly J.J. Johnson as well as a few other trombonists influenced by him. So, I started collecting recordings and anything in print about J.J. (which wasn't much, cumulatively, at the time). Early on, my passion for J.J.'s jazz was a hobby. Later, it developed into much more than that.
JB: I became interested in J.J. and his music through my association with Lewis Porter at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers, starting in the late 80s and continuing into the 90's.
My deep fascination with J.J. revolves around the idea of how he has helped make jazz into such an elastic, inclusive musical art, blurring categories of style, drawing upon sources ranging from Bela Bartok, to Benjamin Britten, to blues, to Stravinsky, and much more. In a special way, he represents in my mind a kind of evolution of the work I previously published on Louis Armstrong and opera.
AAJ: Tell us a bit about how the idea for the book came about and how the two of you (Josh and Louis) worked on it together?
LB: I wrote the dissertation that was the "seed" for the whole project. Subsequently, I wrote the NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) grant for the underlying oral history/archival research, and compiled the discography, filmography, and catalog of compositions.
Joshua and I both participated in the process of interviewing musicians and other personages, sometimes together, most of the time separately. Josh did the bulk of the interviews as well as the biographical writing. Elements of the original dissertation dealing with early performance style analysis made their way into the book. Joshua's expertise in musicology and compositional style analysis permeates the book.
Actually, without Joshua's collaboration and vision, a collaboration that was initiated by Lewis Porter at Rutgers University, the only scholarly work out there would be my dissertation. It was, at the time of its writing (1986) a major piece of work, but now 13 years later admittedly a thin one. In fact, the book far surpasses the dissertation, in content and accuracy of information, enough so that I will be contacting University Microfilms International and asking them to place the original dissertation on their restricted list (not for sale to the general public). In fact, not much of the original dissertation remains in the book, thankfully, since there are errors in it (errors that were not discovered until the book research shed light on them).
AAJ: Your book is not what I would call a "biography" in the traditional sense, rather it is a total educational experience and reference work about J.J. and his music. You refer to it in your preface as "the first ever comprehensive biography, filmography, catalogue of compositions, and discography of J.J. Johnson." Therefore, how would you describe your individual and collective goals or mission in writing this book? What are the main things you would like readers to get out of the book?
LB: Our collaborative goal (referring to the National Endowment for the Humanities grant narrative) was to document the life, music, and career of J.J. Johnson through oral history and archival research. This was accomplished with the support of the NEH through extensive interviews with family members, friends, fellow musicians, et al, and exhaustive research in a number of archives across the United States (see pages xxiii and xxiv in the front of the book).
As to your question, What should readers get out of the book? I would say: A much stronger sense of who J.J. is-the man, the composer, and the performing artist.
AAJ: What was J.J.'s role in producing the book? How and under what circumstances were interviews with J.J. conducted?
LB: J.J. didn't help "produce" the book, per se. As the subject of the biography, however, J.J. was a gracious interviewee (Joshua conducted a number of interviews in person and over the telephone) and provided numerous photographs that appear throughout the book.
AAJ: Which other persons were interviewed?
LB: I interviewed Joe Gourdin (who was the first interview of the oral history project, in New Orleans, and former saxophonist with the King Kolax Orchestra), Erma Levin (former Head Music Editor for Sony Motion Pictures/ Television, formerly Columbia Pictures), and Tommy Newsom (former Co-Director with Doc Severinsen of The Tonight Show Band). Several other interviews on my list were brief, including Benny Carter and Peter Matz (former music director of The Carol Burnett Show). There were others, as well.
AAJ: How did you go about compiling such a thorough discography, with the studio dates included? Any "advice learned the hard way" for discography compilers out there?
LB: The main body of the discography was compiled by me over a period of some thirteen years (1973-1986). After I graduated from Murray State University, in 1978, I began my graduate studies in performance at the University of Louisville. By that time, I had a fairly sizable LP collection of J.J. material that I augmented with taped materials from Jamey Aebersold's massive collection before I graduated.
In 1980, I began my doctoral studies at Ohio State University, and during my four years in Columbus, I added to my collection with LPs that I found at a number of record collectors' shows that would be held in town. When I began writing my dissertation (see the Bibliography of the book), my advisor, Dr. Burdette Green, suggested that I corroborate the information for as many recordings as possible. So, Ed Berger, of the the Institute of Jazz Studies, opened up its extensive record collection to me and served as an invaluable source of discographical data pertaining to J.J.'s tenure with the Benny Carter Orchestra. Tina Vinces (CBS Records), Bernadette Moore (RCA Records), and Sonny Carter (MCA Records) opened their respective archives to me. Producer Ed Michel (see pp. 191-192 of the book) forwarded copies of his engineering work notes to me for J.J.'s "Pinnacles" sessions for Fantasy Records.
With these archival data, along with data gleaned from materials given to me by David Baker (Indiana University), Bobby Bryan (formerly Jazz Producer of Murray State University Radio Station WKMS, now deceased), and Jamey Aebersold, I was able to compile the discography for the dissertation.
After Joshua and I began working on our NEH-funded oral history research for the book in 1991, I began to update the discography with new listings to reflect J.J.'s work since 1986, corrections to existing listings, and the addition of listings that were unknown to me at the time I compiled the original one. Fortunately, it remained a work in progress until the final edits were made to the camera-ready copy of the book, and as such, contains (as far as we know) J.J.'s music history on record, from his first with the Benny Carter Orchestra ("Love for Sale") to his last as a performing artist (the CD, "Heroes"). I can't say enough about a fellow discographer, Christopher Smith, who proofread the discography and provided me with quite a few additional listings and internet addresses where I could find more extensive session data. Without Chris's help (at his own expense, I might add), the discography would be incomplete.
Advice for discographers? Corroborate, corroborate, corroborate. Oftentimes, information contained in liner notes of older recordings and discographies, e.g., the Bruyninckx or the Jepsen volumes, is incorrect. And, that incorrect information gets repeated over and over each time an article, book, or research study is written, until it is no longer myth. God bless Dr. Burdette Green for insisting on corroboration of data; God bless Christopher Smith for reminding me with his frequent e-mails to corroborate data.
AAJ: For the reader who would like to listen to the many musical excerpts you notate in the book, what sources would you recommend for the less easily obtainable recordings, such as those of Fred Beckett, J.J.'s early solos, compositions such as "Perceptions," etc?
JB: J.J.'s 1944 Jazz at the Philharmonic concert (with Illinois Jacquet, Nat King Cole, and others) has been reissued on Verve. Verve has also re-issued "Perceptions." "The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson" is available on Blue Note.
LB: The Fred Beckett examples transcribed in our book are on a "Harlan Leonard and His Rockets" CD re-issue on the Jazz Chronological classics label (no number available).
J.J. JOHNSON, LIFE AND CAREER
AAJ: One of J.J.'s gifts is for combining full written arrangements for small and large ensembles with improvisation. JJ wrote a composition entitled "Poem for Brass" and a longer work entitled "Perceptions" which you discuss in the book. Can you tell the readers how to find recordings of these seminal works?
LB: They can find "Poem for Brass" on a compact disc, "The Birth of the Third Stream," Columbia/Legacy CK64929. "Perceptions" has been re-issued by Verve on the compact disc 314-537-748-2.
AAJ: J.J., you are quoted in the book acknowledging your manipulation of the slide to execute fast runs in which you "toss" the slide in mid-air between your fingers. Was this a deliberate technical maneuver on your part or a spontaneous occurrence? Do you know any other trombonists who do this?
JJ: I suspect that there is nothing unusual about this "manipulation," and that other trombonists do it. On my part it was definitely not deliberate. It feels natural. It feels comfortable. It just happened, somehow.
AAJ: Did you remain friends and collaborators with Dizzy Gillespie after your association on 52nd Street in the late 'forties? How did the two of you meet originally?
JJ: Dizzy was one of my dearest friends. I loved him and our "chemistry" was very special. I can't recall how or when we actually met.
JB: J.J. and Dizzy of course collaborated on the concert and recording of J.J.'s composition "Perceptions," and their friendship continued almost until Dizzy's death, including JJ's appearance at Dizzy's 70th birthday bash at Wolf Trap in l987.
AAJ: Who was your main trombone teacher per se? Did you take lessons or classes from any of the other "master" trombonists as your career developed?
JJ: I never had a "main trombone teacher" per se. I learned the language of Jazz improv "flying by the seat of my pants" for the most part. That of course means that I went down a few blind alleys along the way. Early on, after graduating from High School I took a few private Sunday afternoon lessons from a trombonist who played 1st chair with the local YMCA band. He got me into the band. We played mostly Sousa marches. I loved it!
A few years before he passed away, I had the extremely good fortune of taking a lesson "one on one" with the legendary teacher, Arnold Jacobs; who in my opinon wore the title GENIUS with dignity, humility, sensitivity and aplomb. Ever since he passed, I have regretted that because of my touring schedule, I never got around to taking lessons #2, 3, 4 and etc.
AAJ: Again, J.J., the book states that you have Bob Brookmeyer's recording "Gloomy Sunday" in your library. Obviously, Bob, in addition to yourself, is the "other" of the two greatest jazz trombonists (albeit "valve" trombone in Bob's case). Have you met and/or worked with Bob? (I suppose that it would be hard to mesh a valve and a slide trombone in the same group-what do you think?)
JJ: Bob is one of my dearest friends for many years. No,we hardly ever worked together. I am one of Bob's biggest fans. I love his playing style. He is a very gifted composer, arranger, producer, and etc. He is also a marvelous Human Being.
AAJ: A question for all three of you: it seems to me that there is an obscurity in the book about how J.J. acquired his basic training in composing and arranging as well as his passion for the modern classicists (Ravel, Stravinsky, Hindemith on through to Schoenberg, Pendercki, etc.) This is important, since the book emphasizes J.J.'s career as composer and arranger. J.J., how did you become interested in this music?
JJ: My best recollection is that two specific incidents in my life "turned me on" to classical music. First, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra performed at my high school. Second, during a "get together" of a few Jazz musicians (late 50's ? early to mid 60's ?) at the NYC apartment of trumpeter John Carisi, John asked us to listen to an LP of some music that really blew his mind. It was Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps." It blew ALL of our minds!
LB: Regarding J.J.'s "basic training" in composing and arranging (See p. 11 of the book), J.J.'s Crispus Attucks High School grade record shows that he completed courses in Harmony I (1939) and Harmony II (1940), as well as Music Appreciation (1941), his first training in music history and theory, from CAHS teachers, Norman Merrifield and LaVerne Newsome. His work for LaVon Kemp, et al, was essentially a practical application (and extension) of what he learned from Merrifield and Newsome.
JB: So far as I know, JJ's modern music passion dates from his years in New York, when he was closely associated with the likes of John Carisi, Gil Evans, and Gunther Schuller. (See also the book's Appendix "On Peeking Into JJ's Studio.") His formal training was confined largely to his years at Crispus Attucks, where he studied under Norman Merrifield and La Verne Newsome (see p. 11, for example) For the rest, it was his phenomenal ear, his immersion after hours in recordings of Lester Young, Fred Beckett, having sessions at the house with Erroll Grandy, Jimmy Coe, and others, playing in LaVon Kemp's band, continuing to pick up ideas during his years with the nurturing Benny Carter (See p. 24 in the book).
By the way, during his Los Angeles years, J.J's lessons in 12-tone serial composition with George Tremblay were of relatively short duration. [from the 1960's through part of the 1980's, J.J. moved to Los Angeles and pursued a career as composer and arranger in the film industry. It was during that time that he studied with Tremblay. -AAJ]
AAJ: J.J., as mentioned in the book and in interviews, you really dug Miles Davis' Ferrari when, a long time ago, the two of you drove home from Philly after a gig and he let you keep it for a while (!) What kinds of cars have you yourself owned over the course of your career? Are you a sports car buff?
JJ: Having had the unforgettable experience of "keeping" Miles' Ferrari for a week to 10 days or so, I became somewhat of a sports car buff. I presently own a '93 Mitsubishi 3000 GT-SL. Please don't tell anyone, but at 100 MPH it is barely "cruising." The biggest problem I have with the Mitsu is that I don't drive it nearly enough.
AAJ: J.J., what suggestions would you have for a gifted young musician who is striving to be a fine jazz artist?
JJ: In my opinion, the best advice that I would give would be three-fold. First, find and stick with a good teacher ( to avoid blind alleys.) Second, Listen, Listen, Listen, to quality, major league jazz music as much as you can. It dosen't hurt to also listen to other genres; especially contemporary genres. Third, make a serious commitment to be the best that you can be; have the dedication and discipline to keep that commitment. In fact, it should ideally become the highest priority.
AAJ: For those who would like to sample the sound of your conical bore, large bell trombone (which the books suggests sounds like a flugelhorn), in which albums and which tunes on those albums, might they find good examples? Did you use the horn often, or only for special effects?
JJ: The unique dark and mellow sound of the Large bell Minnick trombone was effective in inverse proportion to the frequency with which I used it. I learned early on that "‘less is more," so that I did not play it very often. I am a wee bit embarrassed to admit that I can not even tell you which recordings, or which cuts I used it on. Please accept my apologies.
MUSIC AND MUSICAL HISTORY
AAJ: Josh and Louis, you seem to take the position in your book that be-bop evolved from the swing era, that it was more a "cosmetic" rather than a sweeping revolutionary change in music (in fact you include a striking quotation from Metronome magazine, comparing be-bop directly with cosmetics!) Is this a correct assessment of your position? I for one believe that be-pop was a complete revolution in jazz, vastly increasing its range of expression. (This is not to deny an essential continuity with blues and with swing.)
JB: The evidence that bebop's greatest exemplars got their start in swing bands is overwhelming. Charlie Parker with Jay McShann, Dizzy with Billy Eckstine, J.J. with Benny Carter and Count Basie (with whom he made some recordings even after premiering with his own group, Jay Jay Johnson's Beboppers), etc. As for the cosmetic metaphor, that is something that forms part of a discussion on pp. 51-52 about polls and how the critics of the day defined jazz categories. And the top of p. 52 mentions how "the whole face of jazz has been made over."—a hint at a revolution if ever there was one. But, in point of fact, Dizzy speaks of an "evolution" rather than a "revolution," a point which comes up in many of his interviews as well as in his autobiographical book To Be or Not to Bop, and also in the research of many distinguished scholars who have studied bebop in detail, such as Scott Deveaux. Continuity with earlier practice is further proven by the repeated references to the swing era solo performances of Lester Young (who had an enormous influence in J.J. in the early years), Coleman Hawkins, and so on. Finally, most significant of all is the pervasive practice of using "silent-theme tunes" (see, for example, p. 70), whether "I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You," "Cherokee," etc. [According to Berrett and Bourgois, bebop musicians often used the chord progressions from these "standards" for their original bebop tunes, and "knowing" which "standard" was "hidden" in the new tune became somewhat of a cultish thing with the be-boppers-AAJ.]
AAJ: Was JJ's passion for classical composers such as Ravel, Debussy, Hindemith, etc. an integral part of the music-making atmosphere of the be-bop and "cool jazz" eras, or was it the interest of only a few, such as J.J., Gunther Schuller, Miles, Gil Evans? Would you say that Duke Ellington was the inspiring force and historical precedent for melding jazz with classical forms and influences?
JB: Classical music was certainly part of the bebop and Third Stream movements (Stravinsky, Bartok, Hindemith, J.S. Bach, Monteverdi, Joaquin Rodrigo (notably Gil Evans-Miles Davis "Sketches of Spain" album). I would keep Duke Ellington out of much of this scene.
AAJ: What is a "clavinet," an instrument that you mention in the book was orchestrated by J.J. for the film, "Across 110th Street?"
JB: A clavinet (see the book, p. 194, foonote no.12) is a touch-sensitive electric keyboard, somewhat similar to a clavichord, with strings struck by metal plates.
AAJ: The book takes brief but interesting excursions into two interesting historical developments: 1) the tours of black musicians/bands performing primarily for black audiences (servicemen and civilians) in the 1930's and early 1940's); and 2) The infamous "cabaret card" travesty in New York.
What impact do you think these events had on the evolution of jazz itself?
JB: There is good reference material on both these subjects. See the classic study of Benny Carter by Morroe Berger, Edward Berger, and James Patrick; also see my Louis Armstrong Companion for Louis' letters filled with vivid detail describing his performances at military bases. Also, don't forget the evidence provided by V-discs and AFRS (Armed Forces Radio Service; see Discography). As for the cabaret card issue, it is all said in Chapter 5. For the rest, Maxwell Cohen's classic study (see our bibliography) is essential reading.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-06-me-21842-story.html
After Johnson and Winding went their separate ways (they would later have a few reunions), Johnson led a quintet that often included Bobby Jaspar. He began to compose ambitious works, starting with 1956's "Poem for Brass," and including "El Camino Real" and a feature for Dizzy Gillespie, "Perceptions"; his "Lament" became a standard. Johnson worked with Miles Davis during part of 1961-1962, led some more small groups of his own, and by the late '60s was kept busy writing television and film scores. J.J. Johnson was so famous in the jazz world that he kept on winning Downbeat polls in the 1970s, even though he was not playing at all. However, starting with a Japanese tour in 1977, Johnson gradually returned to a busy performance schedule, leading a quintet in the 1980s that often featured Ralph Moore. In the mid-'90s, he remained at the top of his field, but by the late '90s and early into the 2000s, the legendary musician fell ill with prostate cancer, and sadly took his own life on February 4, 2001.
https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/jjjohnson
J.J. Johnson
Considered by many to be the finest jazz trombonist of all time, J.J. Johnson somehow transferred the innovations of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to his more awkward instrument, playing with such speed and deceptive ease that at one time some listeners assumed he was playing valve (rather than slide) trombone! Johnson toured with the territory bands of Clarence Love and Snookum Russell during 1941-42 and then spent 1942-45 with Benny Carter's big band.
He made his recording debut with Carter (taking a solo on “Love for Sale” in 1943) and played at the first JATP concert (1944). Johnson also had led plenty of solo space during his stay with Count Basie's Orchestra (1945-46). During 1946-50, he played with all of the top bop musicians including Charlie Parker (with whom he recorded in 1947), the Dizzy Gillespie big band, Illinois Jacquet (1947-49) and the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool Nonet. His own recordings from the era included such sidemen as Bud Powell and a young Sonny Rollins. J.J., who also recorded with the Metronome All-Stars, played with Oscar Pettiford (1951) and Miles Davis (1952) but then was outside of music, working as a blueprint inspector for two years (1952-54).
His fortunes changed when in August 1954 he formed a two -trombone quintet with Kai Winding that became known as Jay and Kai and was quite popular during its two years. After J.J. and Kai went their separate ways (they would later have a few reunions), Johnson led a quintet that often included Bobby Jaspar.
He began to compose ambitious works starting with 1956's “Poem for Brass” and including “El Camino Real” and a feature for Dizzy Gillespie, “Perceptions”; his “Lament” became a standard. Johnson worked with Miles Davis, during part of 1961-62, led some small groups of his own, and by the late '60s was kept busy writing television and film scores. J.J. Johnson was so famous in the jazz world that he kept on winning DOWN BEAT polls in the 1970s even though he was not playing at all! However, starting with a Japanese tour in 1977, J.J. gradually returned to a busy performance schedule, leading a quintet in the 1980s that often featured Ralph Moore.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-J-Johnson
J.J. Johnson
American musician
Alternative Title:
James Louis Johnson
Johnson received early training as a pianist, and at age 14 he began to study the trombone. He became a professional musician in 1941 and during the decade worked in the orchestras of Benny Carter and Count Basie. He became widely recognized as a dexterous soloist (to the extent that many listeners believed he was playing a valve, rather than slide, trombone) who had assimilated the techniques of the bebop movement of the 1940s. He was in great demand among jazz musicians and performed with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis, among others. After a temporary retirement (1952–54), he returned to tour with fellow trombonist Kai Winding; their duets have been recognized as watersheds in the evolution of jazz trombone technique.
In the late 1950s and the 1960s, Johnson composed steadily, including the large-scale works El Camino Real (1959), Sketch for Trombone and Orchestra (1959), and Perceptions (1961). He also worked as a composer and arranger for commercials, films (including Shaft, 1971, with Isaac Hayes; Across 110th Street, 1972; and Cleopatra Jones, 1973), and television (including Barefoot in the Park, 1970–71, The Mod Squad, 1970–73, and Starsky and Hutch, 1975).
In 1977 Johnson undertook a tour of Japan, and he eventually returned to performing full-time, and at full technical capacity, until he retired in 1997.
https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/jj-johnson
NEA Jazz Masters
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/jj-johnson-an-eminent-life-in-music-jj-johnson-by-victor-l-schermer.php?page=1
J.J. Johnson: An Eminent Life in Music
by
This interview with trombonist J.J. Johnson along with Joshua
Berrett and Louis G. Bourgois III, authors of his biography, The Musical
World of J.J. Johnson (Scarecrow Press) was first published at All
About Jazz in November 1999.
All About Jazz: Congratulations to Josh and Louis on your new book—and to J.J. for now having a scholarly reference devoted to your outstanding contributions to music. Just for the fun of it, which three recordings and/or scores would you take to the proverbial desert island, if they were to be your only sources of music there?
J.J. Johnson: Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe. Any of the Miles Davis Quintet recordings that include John Coltrane, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, and Red Garland. In my opinion, contemporary jazz music does not get any better, or any more quintessential than that Quintet's live appearances or the recorded legacy that they left for us to enjoy.
Louis Bourgois: The scores I'd take would be: Aaron Copland, Third Symphony (CD: St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin conductor: Angel CDM7643042);. Leonard Bernstein, Chichester Psalms (CD: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Robert Shaw, conductor; Telarc Digital). And a Compact Disc: Miles Davis Kind of Blue (Columbia CK40579). I would sneak a few more, including Hindemith, Mathis der Maler, which J.J. mentioned.
Joshua Berrett: My tastes here are very similar to J.J's: a mix of classical music and jazz. I would single out Brahms' Symphony No. 2, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and Miles Davis' sessions with Coltrane and company.
THE BOOK AND ITS AUTHORS
All About Jazz: Congratulations to Josh and Louis on your new book—and to J.J. for now having a scholarly reference devoted to your outstanding contributions to music. Just for the fun of it, which three recordings and/or scores would you take to the proverbial desert island, if they were to be your only sources of music there?
J.J. Johnson: Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe. Any of the Miles Davis Quintet recordings that include John Coltrane, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, and Red Garland. In my opinion, contemporary jazz music does not get any better, or any more quintessential than that Quintet's live appearances or the recorded legacy that they left for us to enjoy.
Louis Bourgois: The scores I'd take would be: Aaron Copland, Third Symphony (CD: St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin conductor: Angel CDM7643042);. Leonard Bernstein, Chichester Psalms (CD: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Robert Shaw, conductor; Telarc Digital). And a Compact Disc: Miles Davis Kind of Blue (Columbia CK40579). I would sneak a few more, including Hindemith, Mathis der Maler, which J.J. mentioned.
Joshua Berrett: My tastes here are very similar to J.J's: a mix of classical music and jazz. I would single out Brahms' Symphony No. 2, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and Miles Davis' sessions with Coltrane and company.
THE BOOK AND ITS AUTHORS
AAJ: Josh and Louis, tell us a bit about your musical background.
LB: I teach low brasses, music history, and music technology at Kentucky State University, in Frankfort, KY. It is the smallest institution in the state university system (the largest, the University of Kentucky, is about 40 miles east). For the past ten years, my professional performance is mostly free-lance, primarily with the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra, and bass trombonist with the Lexington Brass Band (a British-style ensemble), the Vince DiMartino Jazz Big Band, and the Kentucky Jazz Repertory Orchestra (led by Miles Osland, Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Kentucky, and sort of a central Kentucky version of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra). Other gigs include occasional pit orchestra work, small brass ensembles, and the like.
Josh is a violinist, but he would have to confess what his playing experience has been recently.
AAJ: Josh and Louis, how did each of you become interested in J.J. Johnson and his music?
LB: In 1973, when I started my undergraduate studies in music education at Murray State University, in Murray, KY, I became very good friends with a couple of guys who roomed together in a dormitory across from the one where I lived. One of them, Dick McCreary, was a fine jazz drummer who actually worked briefly with Sonny Stitt from what I recall. He is now a public school music educator in the St. Louis area. The other guy, Dan Schunks, was a trombonist who could blow some really nice jazz. We were all in the marching band, so we saw a lot of each other. Since my jazz experience prior to college was limited to listening to my dad's record collection (mostly Stan Kenton band recordings from the 40's and early 50's), Dan and Dick helped me along with jazz artists that I needed to know: in Dan's case, particularly J.J. Johnson as well as a few other trombonists influenced by him. So, I started collecting recordings and anything in print about J.J. (which wasn't much, cumulatively, at the time). Early on, my passion for J.J.'s jazz was a hobby. Later, it developed into much more than that.
JB: I became interested in J.J. and his music through my association with Lewis Porter at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers, starting in the late 80s and continuing into the 90's.
My deep fascination with J.J. revolves around the idea of how he has helped make jazz into such an elastic, inclusive musical art, blurring categories of style, drawing upon sources ranging from Bela Bartok, to Benjamin Britten, to blues, to Stravinsky, and much more. In a special way, he represents in my mind a kind of evolution of the work I previously published on Louis Armstrong and opera.
AAJ: Tell us a bit about how the idea for the book came about and how the two of you (Josh and Louis) worked on it together?
LB: I wrote the dissertation that was the "seed" for the whole project. Subsequently, I wrote the NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) grant for the underlying oral history/archival research, and compiled the discography, filmography, and catalog of compositions.
Joshua and I both participated in the process of interviewing musicians and other personages, sometimes together, most of the time separately. Josh did the bulk of the interviews as well as the biographical writing. Elements of the original dissertation dealing with early performance style analysis made their way into the book. Joshua's expertise in musicology and compositional style analysis permeates the book.
Actually, without Joshua's collaboration and vision, a collaboration that was initiated by Lewis Porter at Rutgers University, the only scholarly work out there would be my dissertation. It was, at the time of its writing (1986) a major piece of work, but now 13 years later admittedly a thin one. In fact, the book far surpasses the dissertation, in content and accuracy of information, enough so that I will be contacting University Microfilms International and asking them to place the original dissertation on their restricted list (not for sale to the general public). In fact, not much of the original dissertation remains in the book, thankfully, since there are errors in it (errors that were not discovered until the book research shed light on them).
AAJ: Your book is not what I would call a "biography" in the traditional sense, rather it is a total educational experience and reference work about J.J. and his music. You refer to it in your preface as "the first ever comprehensive biography, filmography, catalogue of compositions, and discography of J.J. Johnson." Therefore, how would you describe your individual and collective goals or mission in writing this book? What are the main things you would like readers to get out of the book?
LB: Our collaborative goal (referring to the National Endowment for the Humanities grant narrative) was to document the life, music, and career of J.J. Johnson through oral history and archival research. This was accomplished with the support of the NEH through extensive interviews with family members, friends, fellow musicians, et al, and exhaustive research in a number of archives across the United States (see pages xxiii and xxiv in the front of the book).
As to your question, What should readers get out of the book? I would say: A much stronger sense of who J.J. is-the man, the composer, and the performing artist.
AAJ: What was J.J.'s role in producing the book? How and under what circumstances were interviews with J.J. conducted?
LB: J.J. didn't help "produce" the book, per se. As the subject of the biography, however, J.J. was a gracious interviewee (Joshua conducted a number of interviews in person and over the telephone) and provided numerous photographs that appear throughout the book.
AAJ: Which other persons were interviewed?
LB: I interviewed Joe Gourdin (who was the first interview of the oral history project, in New Orleans, and former saxophonist with the King Kolax Orchestra), Erma Levin (former Head Music Editor for Sony Motion Pictures/ Television, formerly Columbia Pictures), and Tommy Newsom (former Co-Director with Doc Severinsen of The Tonight Show Band). Several other interviews on my list were brief, including Benny Carter and Peter Matz (former music director of The Carol Burnett Show). There were others, as well.
AAJ: How did you go about compiling such a thorough discography, with the studio dates included? Any "advice learned the hard way" for discography compilers out there?
LB: The main body of the discography was compiled by me over a period of some thirteen years (1973-1986). After I graduated from Murray State University, in 1978, I began my graduate studies in performance at the University of Louisville. By that time, I had a fairly sizable LP collection of J.J. material that I augmented with taped materials from Jamey Aebersold's massive collection before I graduated.
In 1980, I began my doctoral studies at Ohio State University, and during my four years in Columbus, I added to my collection with LPs that I found at a number of record collectors' shows that would be held in town. When I began writing my dissertation (see the Bibliography of the book), my advisor, Dr. Burdette Green, suggested that I corroborate the information for as many recordings as possible. So, Ed Berger, of the the Institute of Jazz Studies, opened up its extensive record collection to me and served as an invaluable source of discographical data pertaining to J.J.'s tenure with the Benny Carter Orchestra. Tina Vinces (CBS Records), Bernadette Moore (RCA Records), and Sonny Carter (MCA Records) opened their respective archives to me. Producer Ed Michel (see pp. 191-192 of the book) forwarded copies of his engineering work notes to me for J.J.'s "Pinnacles" sessions for Fantasy Records.
With these archival data, along with data gleaned from materials given to me by David Baker (Indiana University), Bobby Bryan (formerly Jazz Producer of Murray State University Radio Station WKMS, now deceased), and Jamey Aebersold, I was able to compile the discography for the dissertation.
After Joshua and I began working on our NEH-funded oral history research for the book in 1991, I began to update the discography with new listings to reflect J.J.'s work since 1986, corrections to existing listings, and the addition of listings that were unknown to me at the time I compiled the original one. Fortunately, it remained a work in progress until the final edits were made to the camera-ready copy of the book, and as such, contains (as far as we know) J.J.'s music history on record, from his first with the Benny Carter Orchestra ("Love for Sale") to his last as a performing artist (the CD, "Heroes"). I can't say enough about a fellow discographer, Christopher Smith, who proofread the discography and provided me with quite a few additional listings and internet addresses where I could find more extensive session data. Without Chris's help (at his own expense, I might add), the discography would be incomplete.
Advice for discographers? Corroborate, corroborate, corroborate. Oftentimes, information contained in liner notes of older recordings and discographies, e.g., the Bruyninckx or the Jepsen volumes, is incorrect. And, that incorrect information gets repeated over and over each time an article, book, or research study is written, until it is no longer myth. God bless Dr. Burdette Green for insisting on corroboration of data; God bless Christopher Smith for reminding me with his frequent e-mails to corroborate data.
AAJ: For the reader who would like to listen to the many musical excerpts you notate in the book, what sources would you recommend for the less easily obtainable recordings, such as those of Fred Beckett, J.J.'s early solos, compositions such as "Perceptions," etc?
JB: J.J.'s 1944 Jazz at the Philharmonic concert (with Illinois Jacquet, Nat King Cole, and others) has been reissued on Verve. Verve has also re-issued "Perceptions." "The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson" is available on Blue Note.
LB: The Fred Beckett examples transcribed in our book are on a "Harlan Leonard and His Rockets" CD re-issue on the Jazz Chronological classics label (no number available).
J.J. JOHNSON, LIFE AND CAREER
AAJ: One of J.J.'s gifts is for combining full written arrangements for small and large ensembles with improvisation. JJ wrote a composition entitled "Poem for Brass" and a longer work entitled "Perceptions" which you discuss in the book. Can you tell the readers how to find recordings of these seminal works?
LB: They can find "Poem for Brass" on a compact disc, "The Birth of the Third Stream," Columbia/Legacy CK64929. "Perceptions" has been re-issued by Verve on the compact disc 314-537-748-2.
AAJ: J.J., you are quoted in the book acknowledging your manipulation of the slide to execute fast runs in which you "toss" the slide in mid-air between your fingers. Was this a deliberate technical maneuver on your part or a spontaneous occurrence? Do you know any other trombonists who do this?
JJ: I suspect that there is nothing unusual about this "manipulation," and that other trombonists do it. On my part it was definitely not deliberate. It feels natural. It feels comfortable. It just happened, somehow.
AAJ: Did you remain friends and collaborators with Dizzy Gillespie after your association on 52nd Street in the late 'forties? How did the two of you meet originally?
JJ: Dizzy was one of my dearest friends. I loved him and our "chemistry" was very special. I can't recall how or when we actually met.
JB: J.J. and Dizzy of course collaborated on the concert and recording of J.J.'s composition "Perceptions," and their friendship continued almost until Dizzy's death, including JJ's appearance at Dizzy's 70th birthday bash at Wolf Trap in l987.
AAJ: Who was your main trombone teacher per se? Did you take lessons or classes from any of the other "master" trombonists as your career developed?
JJ: I never had a "main trombone teacher" per se. I learned the language of Jazz improv "flying by the seat of my pants" for the most part. That of course means that I went down a few blind alleys along the way. Early on, after graduating from High School I took a few private Sunday afternoon lessons from a trombonist who played 1st chair with the local YMCA band. He got me into the band. We played mostly Sousa marches. I loved it!
A few years before he passed away, I had the extremely good fortune of taking a lesson "one on one" with the legendary teacher, Arnold Jacobs; who in my opinon wore the title GENIUS with dignity, humility, sensitivity and aplomb. Ever since he passed, I have regretted that because of my touring schedule, I never got around to taking lessons #2, 3, 4 and etc.
AAJ: Again, J.J., the book states that you have Bob Brookmeyer's recording "Gloomy Sunday" in your library. Obviously, Bob, in addition to yourself, is the "other" of the two greatest jazz trombonists (albeit "valve" trombone in Bob's case). Have you met and/or worked with Bob? (I suppose that it would be hard to mesh a valve and a slide trombone in the same group-what do you think?)
JJ: Bob is one of my dearest friends for many years. No,we hardly ever worked together. I am one of Bob's biggest fans. I love his playing style. He is a very gifted composer, arranger, producer, and etc. He is also a marvelous Human Being.
AAJ: A question for all three of you: it seems to me that there is an obscurity in the book about how J.J. acquired his basic training in composing and arranging as well as his passion for the modern classicists (Ravel, Stravinsky, Hindemith on through to Schoenberg, Pendercki, etc.) This is important, since the book emphasizes J.J.'s career as composer and arranger. J.J., how did you become interested in this music?
JJ: My best recollection is that two specific incidents in my life "turned me on" to classical music. First, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra performed at my high school. Second, during a "get together" of a few Jazz musicians (late 50's ? early to mid 60's ?) at the NYC apartment of trumpeter John Carisi, John asked us to listen to an LP of some music that really blew his mind. It was Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps." It blew ALL of our minds!
LB: Regarding J.J.'s "basic training" in composing and arranging (See p. 11 of the book), J.J.'s Crispus Attucks High School grade record shows that he completed courses in Harmony I (1939) and Harmony II (1940), as well as Music Appreciation (1941), his first training in music history and theory, from CAHS teachers, Norman Merrifield and LaVerne Newsome. His work for LaVon Kemp, et al, was essentially a practical application (and extension) of what he learned from Merrifield and Newsome.
JB: So far as I know, JJ's modern music passion dates from his years in New York, when he was closely associated with the likes of John Carisi, Gil Evans, and Gunther Schuller. (See also the book's Appendix "On Peeking Into JJ's Studio.") His formal training was confined largely to his years at Crispus Attucks, where he studied under Norman Merrifield and La Verne Newsome (see p. 11, for example) For the rest, it was his phenomenal ear, his immersion after hours in recordings of Lester Young, Fred Beckett, having sessions at the house with Erroll Grandy, Jimmy Coe, and others, playing in LaVon Kemp's band, continuing to pick up ideas during his years with the nurturing Benny Carter (See p. 24 in the book).
By the way, during his Los Angeles years, J.J's lessons in 12-tone serial composition with George Tremblay were of relatively short duration. [from the 1960's through part of the 1980's, J.J. moved to Los Angeles and pursued a career as composer and arranger in the film industry. It was during that time that he studied with Tremblay. -AAJ]
AAJ: J.J., as mentioned in the book and in interviews, you really dug Miles Davis' Ferrari when, a long time ago, the two of you drove home from Philly after a gig and he let you keep it for a while (!) What kinds of cars have you yourself owned over the course of your career? Are you a sports car buff?
JJ: Having had the unforgettable experience of "keeping" Miles' Ferrari for a week to 10 days or so, I became somewhat of a sports car buff. I presently own a '93 Mitsubishi 3000 GT-SL. Please don't tell anyone, but at 100 MPH it is barely "cruising." The biggest problem I have with the Mitsu is that I don't drive it nearly enough.
AAJ: J.J., what suggestions would you have for a gifted young musician who is striving to be a fine jazz artist?
JJ: In my opinion, the best advice that I would give would be three-fold. First, find and stick with a good teacher ( to avoid blind alleys.) Second, Listen, Listen, Listen, to quality, major league jazz music as much as you can. It dosen't hurt to also listen to other genres; especially contemporary genres. Third, make a serious commitment to be the best that you can be; have the dedication and discipline to keep that commitment. In fact, it should ideally become the highest priority.
AAJ: For those who would like to sample the sound of your conical bore, large bell trombone (which the books suggests sounds like a flugelhorn), in which albums and which tunes on those albums, might they find good examples? Did you use the horn often, or only for special effects?
JJ: The unique dark and mellow sound of the Large bell Minnick trombone was effective in inverse proportion to the frequency with which I used it. I learned early on that "‘less is more," so that I did not play it very often. I am a wee bit embarrassed to admit that I can not even tell you which recordings, or which cuts I used it on. Please accept my apologies.
MUSIC AND MUSICAL HISTORY
AAJ: Josh and Louis, you seem to take the position in your book that be-bop evolved from the swing era, that it was more a "cosmetic" rather than a sweeping revolutionary change in music (in fact you include a striking quotation from Metronome magazine, comparing be-bop directly with cosmetics!) Is this a correct assessment of your position? I for one believe that be-pop was a complete revolution in jazz, vastly increasing its range of expression. (This is not to deny an essential continuity with blues and with swing.)
JB: The evidence that bebop's greatest exemplars got their start in swing bands is overwhelming. Charlie Parker with Jay McShann, Dizzy with Billy Eckstine, J.J. with Benny Carter and Count Basie (with whom he made some recordings even after premiering with his own group, Jay Jay Johnson's Beboppers), etc. As for the cosmetic metaphor, that is something that forms part of a discussion on pp. 51-52 about polls and how the critics of the day defined jazz categories. And the top of p. 52 mentions how "the whole face of jazz has been made over."—a hint at a revolution if ever there was one. But, in point of fact, Dizzy speaks of an "evolution" rather than a "revolution," a point which comes up in many of his interviews as well as in his autobiographical book To Be or Not to Bop, and also in the research of many distinguished scholars who have studied bebop in detail, such as Scott Deveaux. Continuity with earlier practice is further proven by the repeated references to the swing era solo performances of Lester Young (who had an enormous influence in J.J. in the early years), Coleman Hawkins, and so on. Finally, most significant of all is the pervasive practice of using "silent-theme tunes" (see, for example, p. 70), whether "I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You," "Cherokee," etc. [According to Berrett and Bourgois, bebop musicians often used the chord progressions from these "standards" for their original bebop tunes, and "knowing" which "standard" was "hidden" in the new tune became somewhat of a cultish thing with the be-boppers-AAJ.]
AAJ: Was JJ's passion for classical composers such as Ravel, Debussy, Hindemith, etc. an integral part of the music-making atmosphere of the be-bop and "cool jazz" eras, or was it the interest of only a few, such as J.J., Gunther Schuller, Miles, Gil Evans? Would you say that Duke Ellington was the inspiring force and historical precedent for melding jazz with classical forms and influences?
JB: Classical music was certainly part of the bebop and Third Stream movements (Stravinsky, Bartok, Hindemith, J.S. Bach, Monteverdi, Joaquin Rodrigo (notably Gil Evans-Miles Davis "Sketches of Spain" album). I would keep Duke Ellington out of much of this scene.
AAJ: What is a "clavinet," an instrument that you mention in the book was orchestrated by J.J. for the film, "Across 110th Street?"
JB: A clavinet (see the book, p. 194, foonote no.12) is a touch-sensitive electric keyboard, somewhat similar to a clavichord, with strings struck by metal plates.
AAJ: The book takes brief but interesting excursions into two interesting historical developments: 1) the tours of black musicians/bands performing primarily for black audiences (servicemen and civilians) in the 1930's and early 1940's); and 2) The infamous "cabaret card" travesty in New York.
What impact do you think these events had on the evolution of jazz itself?
JB: There is good reference material on both these subjects. See the classic study of Benny Carter by Morroe Berger, Edward Berger, and James Patrick; also see my Louis Armstrong Companion for Louis' letters filled with vivid detail describing his performances at military bases. Also, don't forget the evidence provided by V-discs and AFRS (Armed Forces Radio Service; see Discography). As for the cabaret card issue, it is all said in Chapter 5. For the rest, Maxwell Cohen's classic study (see our bibliography) is essential reading.
AAJ:
Well, J.J., Josh, and Louis, All About Jazz thanks you for taking time
from your busy schedules to answer these questions for our readers. We
wish Josh and Louis all the best with your new book, and J.J., no one
can ever thank you enough for all you have given to music and to your
fellow musicians, except to say that "we love you."
What would
have happened to jazz had J.J. taken up the baritone sax? [The book
discloses that, in high school, J.J. initially wanted to play the
baritone sax, but the instrument there was in poor condition, so J.J.
found a trombone that he liked, and the rest is history!]
Thanks are due Matt Calvert, webmaster of the J.J. Johnson Homepage, and Tom Lawton, jazz pianist extraordinaire and instructor at Esther Boyer School of Music at Temple University and the Music Department of Bucks County Community College, for their invaluable assistance in making this interview possible.
Thanks are due Matt Calvert, webmaster of the J.J. Johnson Homepage, and Tom Lawton, jazz pianist extraordinaire and instructor at Esther Boyer School of Music at Temple University and the Music Department of Bucks County Community College, for their invaluable assistance in making this interview possible.
J.J. Johnson: Innovative Bebop-Era Jazz Trombonist and Composer
by Jon Thurber
February 6, 2001
Los Angeles Times
J.J. Johnson, a singular figure in jazz
whose innovative trombone play in the bebop era expanded the boundaries
of his instrument, died Sunday in Indianapolis. He was 77.
In ill health for several months, Johnson committed suicide, according to a report from the local sheriff.
An excellent composer and arranger as well as an extraordinary musician, Johnson's career spanned six decades. He played with some of the finest musicians in jazz--Benny Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. But it was with the bebop sound pioneered by Gillespie and Parker, with its rapid-fire phrasing, complex harmonies and offbeat rhythms, that Johnson made his name.
Adapting the trombone to the demanding genre was a remarkable accomplishment, given its traditional use as a rather light, melodic instrument in the swing-oriented bands of the early 1940s. Johnson managed the technically virtuosic demands of the new style with ease, however, playing with astonishing facility from the time of his very first recordings.
In fact, many jazz fans listening to Johnson on record at the time assumed that he must be playing a valve trombone because they didn't believe that anyone could possibly move a slide trombone that fast.
"Making that adaptation to the trombone was very demanding," said Don Heckman, The Times' jazz writer. "It took a decade before other trombonists on the whole began to master what Johnson was doing."
Born James Louis Johnson in Indianapolis, Johnson began studying piano with a church organist at age 9. He first learned baritone saxophone in high school because it was the only instrument available to him at the time. When he gained access to a trombone, he learned that too, playing in marching bands sponsored by the high school and the YMCA.
At 18, he left home to begin his professional career as a trombonist. He got his first big break with Benny Carter's orchestra in 1942. Over the next decade, he played with groups led by Count Basie and Illinois Jacquet. His first recorded performance was with Carter's orchestra in 1943.
In 1944, Johnson played in the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at Philharmonic Hall in Los Angeles. Sponsored by the now legendary impresario Norman Grantz, Jazz at the Philharmonic was billed at the time as "the city's first full-scale jazz concert." Its success fostered nationwide tours and a series of well-received albums.
From 1946 on, Johnson turned his attention to bebop playing and recording with Parker, Gillespie and Jacquet.
"J.J. Johnson was to the trombone what [Dizzy] Gillespie was to the trumpet--the definitive trendsetter who established beyond doubt that bebop was not beyond the technical possibilities of the instrument," the late jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote some years ago.
In 1949, Johnson played with Davis on his influential "Birth of the Cool" recording.
But after a problematic USO tour of Asia in 1951 with another band, Johnson gave up music and found work as a blueprint inspector for a manufacturing firm. He played only occasionally for a couple of years, then returned to active performance when he formed a two-trombone quintet with Kai Winding. The Jay and Kai pairing was commercially successful for a couple of years before both men moved on to new projects.
Over the years, Johnson led a succession of popular groups, but by the 1960s, he had disbanded his touring and recording sextet and was increasingly turning his attention to composition.
His most challenging piece, called "Perceptions," was commissioned by Gillespie. The six-part work was recorded in 1961 under the direction of Gunther Schuller, a noted composer, educator and jazz historian.
By the 1970s, Johnson had moved to Los Angeles to try his hand at writing for movies and television. And although he had virtually given up playing in favor of his compositional work, Johnson continued to win readers' polls in popular jazz magazines as the finest player on the trombone.
In Hollywood, Johnson wrote music for such popular television shows as "Mayberry R.F.D.," "The Danny Thomas Show," "That Girl" and "Mod Squad." He also found movie work, either orchestrating or writing the music for films such as "Shaft" and "Cleopatra Jones."
But Johnson never believed he got the opportunities his distinguished career as a musician and composer merited. And race, he believed, was the reason.
"Film scoring is still a white world," Johnson told Heckman in 1996. "That's the way it is, that's the way it always has been. . . . The four or five major films I did were all about black people.
"A black film composer will never do a big budget picture like 'Jurassic Park' or 'The Fugitive'--the biggies," he said. "We won't get there."
In the early 1990s, he returned to Indianapolis. His first wife, Vivian, died after suffering a stroke when a Johnson-led band was on the road in Tokyo. After a period of depression, he remarried and began playing again, recording his last album, "Heroes," in 1998.
He is survived by his wife, Carolyn Johnson. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
http://trombone.org/articles/library/jjjohnson-int.asp
James Louis “J.J.” Johnson was born on January 22, 1924 in Indianapolis, Indiana and passed away on February 4, 2001 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana on January 22, 1924 to Reverend James Horace Johnson and Nina Johnson, the boy grew up in a strict religious household. J.J. and his siblings were expected to attend his father’s Baptist church, as well as his mother’s Methodist church, every Sunday. His father was also a disciplinarian who believed in the virtues of corporal punishment.
Nina sent J.J. to piano lessons at age 11, and he briefly played the baritone saxophone at school. At age 14, when classmates wanted to form an amateur band and needed a trombone player, J.J. took up the ‘bone and never looked back.
Johnson and his friends at Crispus Attucks High School developed an early love for the conceptual melodic solos of tenor saxophonist Lester Young, and the boy was also drawn to the trombone work of Dickie Wells, Trummy Young and J.C. Higginbotham.
Still in high school, Johnson gained early professional experience around town, then joined Clarence Love’s regional touring band in September of 1941. In March of 1942, he joined Snookum Russell’s band, which led to touring opportunities with bandmate trumpeter Fats Navarro.
Johnson then received an offer to join the band of saxophonist Benny Carter for an extended tour. Johnson worked in Carter’s band as trombonist and staff arranger through the spring of 1945. During these years, the Benny Carter Orchestra participated in the Hollywood film Thousands Cheer with Gene Kelly and Lena Horne. Johnson also recorded with Carter for the first time, and was a featured soloist on Love for Sale in 1943.
On July 2, 1944, he participated in producer Norman Granz’s first Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concerts in Los Angeles, and can be heard on Etaoin Shrdlu’s “Blues”. His association with Granz and the JATP endured throughout his career.
Not all of his experiences on the road were happy, however, and Johnson once suffered a concussion after a racially motivated incident at a nightclub where he was playing with Carter. He chose to leave the band in 1945, but allowed Carter to keep his arrangements in their book.
He moved on to work with bandleader and pianist William “Count” Basie, whom he joined in May of 1945. He can be heard as a featured soloist on “Rambo” and “The King”, both recorded on February 4, 1946.
Johnson’s trombone work around this time became increasingly skillful, and he became known for his ability to execute lines as fast as physically possible. By the time Johnson left Basie’s band in early 1946, his quickness on the trombone had reached a point that trumpeter and bebop evangelist Dizzy Gillespie, when he heard Johnson play, encouraged him to join the bebop movement, which was then flourishing on New York’s Fifty-Second Street.
Johnson spent the balance of the 1940s working in small groups in New York, where he recorded with, among others, Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Lewis, Illinois Jacquet, Babs Gonzalez, and as part of the Metronome All-Stars.
In 1949, he was invited by Miles Davis and Gil Evans to participate in the nonet sessions which spawned the Birth of The Cool album, which included “Israel,” “Deception,” and “Rocker.” In 1951, he toured Japan and Korea with the United Service Organizations (USO).
By this time, Johnson had established his reputation as the preeminent trombonist in modern jazz, but he also faced setbacks. In 1946, he lost his cabaret card – the New York musician’s indispensable passport to employment – after a misdemeanor conviction. The revocation of his card meant the loss of his ability to work in the city’s nightclubs, and Johnson struggled to find steady work over the next twelve years.
Like many other jazz musicians of his generation, Johnson had developed a taste for heroin. While never a full-blown addict, he became absorbed into the chaotic lifestyle of the drug culture, so much so that in August of 1952, he decided to leave music and take a job as a blueprint inspector for Sperry Gyroscope, a military contractor.
Johnson stayed at this day job and only intermittently recorded with small groups over the next two years. However, the records he made under his own name at this time became career hallmarks. He recorded a two-LP set for Blue Note, The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson, which includes his composition “Turnpike.” The album has since become a kind of audio textbook for jazz trombonists.
In the wake of the Eminent releases, and an award in the spring of 1954 for his work with French pianist Henri Renaud, Johnson reentered the music scene. He formed a collaboration with fellow trombonist Kai Winding, first in Philadelphia, then at Birdland in New York in 1956. Their string of nine successful recordings cemented their partnership as one of Johnson’s most vital career chapters.
First organized to record for Savoy by Ozzie Cadena, Johnson and Winding made a hit out of Cole Porter’s It’s Alright With Me for Bethlehem Records. Producer George Avakian, the head of jazz and pop at Columbia Records, then brought them over in a fourteen-month relationship with that label.
By 1955, Johnson had received a raft of accolades, including a Down Beat magazine award for best trombonist, and his two-year partnership with Winding wound down. Lament, heard on the Savoy album Jay and Kai, became Johnson’s most well-known original composition.
Johnson turned his attention towards composition, and he became a prime force in the nascent “Third Stream” movement, which sought to meld jazz with European concert traditions. Johnson brought his own experiences as an arranger, and his love works such as Paul Hindemith’s Kleine Kammermusik and Mathis der Maler, to the movement. His first big Third-Stream work was a piece for twenty-one piece ensemble, “Poem for Brass,” 1956.
Despite this growing interest in composition, Johnson continued to record small-group jazz as a leader and sideman, and he favored the blowing-session format of quickly-conceived arrangements and familiar chord structures, which enabled him and others to release dozens of records. One example of this quick-and-dirty approach was Johnson’s album First Place, recorded in April of 1957.
In his liner notes to the album, Nat Hentoff said, “There were sketches on each number -J.J. is so precise a spirit by temperament that he is not apt to leave all to luck, even on a blowing date. And in some cases there were even fuller arrangements. But basically, the four sessions that made up this and a succeeding album were conceived and executed as relatively free, almost entirely improvised conversations.”
Still banned from live performance in New York, in June of 1957 Johnson made his first European tour, and played for twenty thousand people in Stockholm, Sweden. After this tour, he rejoined Granz’s JATP, and recorded live concerts with Stan Getz at the Civic Opera House in Chicago in late September, which included his sensitive treatments of standards like “My Funny Valentine.”
Further work with Ella Fitzgerald and other JATP associates helped sustain Johnson’s reputation as a leading jazz performer, even though he remained absent from the New York scene. This changed in 1959, when he prevailed in a legal battle with the New York Police Department to reinstate his cabaret card.
As one of three plaintiffs in the case, Johnson showed the court he had no convictions since 1946, but had never been allowed a cabaret card after his misdemeanor offense that year. In 1956, a temporary card had been issued to him, which lasted only six months before requiring renewal. Television host Steve Allen testified on Johnson’s behalf.
On May 14, 1959, the court granted Johnson the right to perform once again in New York City nightclubs, and the case prompted an overhaul of the system of issuing performance permits for musicians. Twelve days later, Johnson performed at the Village Vanguard, after a set by beat poet Jack Kerouac. In March of the same year, Johnson released the album Really Livin’, and at that year’s Monterey Jazz Festival he premiered two orchestral works: his Sketch for Trombone and Orchestra, and “El Camino Real,” a piece for a fifteen-piece jazz ensemble, which has been consistently performed since its debut.
Johnson led a working quintet and recorded the album J.J. Inc. with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, saxophonist Clifford Jordan, pianist Cedar Walton, bassist Arthur Harper, and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath. After a brief stint teaching at the Lenox School of Jazz summer program in 1960, he disbanded his group. Johnson said, “It suddenly occurred to me that I needed a change, and I even began to wonder was it possible that a musician or artist could be much too dedicated – so much so that he lived in a very narrow world.”
In 1961, Johnson premiered his second extended Third-Stream work, a s thirty-five minute solo feature for Dizzy Gillespie entitled Perceptions. The titles of the six movements offer a look at how his mind was adapting to his growing knowledge of classical music: (1) The Sword of Orion (2) Jubelo (3) Blue Mist (4) Fantasia (5) Horn of Plenty (6) Ballade.
As the 1960s progressed, the audience for small-group jazz began to dwindle. Johnson worked many studio sessions, and collaborated with pianist and conductor Andre Previn on an album of Kurt Weill songs, Mack the Knife. In 1964, he recorded a big-band album entitled simply J.J.!, which includes El Camino Real as well as Gary McFarland’s Winter’s Waif.
In the second half of the 1960s, Johnson traveled increasingly to Europe, where he worked with Austrian pianist Friedrich Gulda and His Eurojazz Orchestra in a performance of Johnson’s Eurosuite for seventeen-piece band in 1966. He also wrote a work titled Diversions for Robert A. Boudreau, music director for the American Wind Symphony Orchestra in Pittsburgh in 1968.
Seeking to gain a foothold as a film composer, Johnson became a commercial jingle writer in New York for Marc Brown Associates (MBA Music, Inc.). During his work for the company, he experimented with the latest technology, and even took instruction in subtractive synthesis firsthand from inventor Robert Moog.
As the audience for jazz further cratered in the 1970s, Johnson set his sights on Hollywood. His first soundtrack was for the television series Barefoot in the Park, and with the guidance of Hollywood veterans Quincy Jones and Earle Hagen, he was able to secure work composing soundtracks for seven blaxploitation films between 1971 and 1973.
Beginning with some cueing on the soundtrack to Gordon Parks’ 1971 film Shaft, with music largely composed by Isaac Hayes, Johnson moved on to work with singer Bobby Womack on the film Across 110th Street. he went on to compose soundtracks for Man and Boy, Trouble Man (with Marvin Gaye), Top of the Heap, Willie Dynamite and Cleopatra Jones, which drew on elements borrowed from Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes.
After these movies, Johnson wrote primarily for television shows, such as Mike Hammer, That Girl, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Big Easy, Future Cop, and Travels with Flip. He “rotated in” as composer on various other shows like Harry O., The Bold Ones, and The Mod Squad.
Since commissioned work in film was sporadic, and Johnson gigged only occasionally in Europe and Japan, he struggled financially during his last years in Hollywood, even as continued to win trombone awards in Down Beat polls, even though he had not put out new albums or appeared live regularly to American audiences in years.
In 1979, he recorded an album called Pinnacles, using electronic instruments, coupled with a heavyweight line up of pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Billy Higgins, saxophonist Joe Henderson, Oscar Brashear on trumpet, and Kenneth Nash on percussion. Johnson also participated in the seventieth birthday celebration for Dizzy Gillespie at the Wolf Trap National Park near Washington, D.C.. It was there that he met with another Indianapolis native, trombonist Slide Hampton, and the pair discussed Johnson’s career direction.
Johnson and his wife Vivian moved back to Indianapolis from Hollywood in 1987. By November of that year, he was appearing in New York once again at the Village Vanguard. His new quintet, which consisted of saxophonist Ralph Moore, pianist Stanley Cowell, bassist Rufus Reid, and drummer Victor Lewis, performed at the famous club, and their performances were subsequently released on two albums in 1991, Quintergy and Standards on the Antilles label.
In May of 1988, Indiana University awarded Johnson an honorary doctorate. This award celebration was unfortunately followed by the death of his father on June 3. Not allowing this loss to set him back, Johnson appeared on August 21 in Chicago’s Grant Park in a reunion with Stan Getz for an audience of fifty thousand people. At the end of the year, however, tragedy struck again, when his wife Vivian suffered a stroke. She lived for three more years under care. Around this same period, Johnson’s mother died as well.
All of these tragedies led him to the decision that a retirement would best suit his circumstances, and he closed his file with Mary Ann Topper, his manager during his brief but spectacular return to active performing. Thankfully, Johnson later decided this premature retirement had been a mistake, and he underwent yet another vibrant return to performing with appearances at festivals, and teaching residencies at Kentucky State University and Oberlin.
In 1991, he recorded the album Vivian for Concord Records, and Renee Rosnes followed Stanley Cowell as the quintet’s pianist after 1992. Returning to work for Verve, Johnson’s quintet recorded the album Let’s Hang Out in 1992, and Heroes in 1996, which included “Carolyn (In the Morning), a tribute to his new wife, Carolyn Reid. He and Reid were married on September 11, 1992, after Johnson’s reported confession to her that he had contemplated suicide after losing so many family members in a close span.
In the final decade of Johnson’s life, he enjoyed his status as an elder statesman of jazz. On April 6, 1994, he played at a concert to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Verve Records at Carnegie Hall. He also recorded the album Tangence with Wynton Marsalis and the Robert Farnon Orchestra in England.
A few months later, Johnson’s quintet performed at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. Here, Johnson needed to find substitutes for Renee Rosnes and her husband drummer Billy Drummond. Pianist Geoff Keezer and drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith filled in, but soon more personnel changes followed. In February of 1995, saxophonist Ralph Moore joined The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and was replaced by Dan Faulk.
On January 12, 1996, Johnson was honored along with Tommy Flanagan and Benny Golson as Jazz Masters by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the United States’ highest honor for jazz musician. Later in the spring, he also held a residency position at Harvard, at the invitation of Thomas Everett.
In 1997, after a final quintet date, some high-profile concerts, and a final recording, Johnson finally said goodbye to his life on stage. His album The Brass Orchestra, which featured Jimmy Heath, Slide Hampton, Jon Faddis, Wayne Shorter, Don Sickler, and Thomas Everett, was a late highlight of his long performing career.
Johnson devoted his time to writing a book of trombone exercises, but he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. His controlling personality being what it was, Johnson chose not to “leave anything to luck” and ended his life on February 4, 2001 with a gunshot.
Countless artists have subsequently given Johnson deserved credit as the father of jazz trombone, and exceptional practitioners of that instrument like Wycliffe Gordon, Robin Eubanks, Andre Hayward, and Conrad Herwig all continue to play music inspired by and in debt to Johnson’s prodigious talent.
https://www.npr.org/2011/06/20/4541365/j-j-johnson-the-eminent-jay-jay-johnson-vol-1-the-eminent-j-j-johnson-vol-2
In ill health for several months, Johnson committed suicide, according to a report from the local sheriff.
An excellent composer and arranger as well as an extraordinary musician, Johnson's career spanned six decades. He played with some of the finest musicians in jazz--Benny Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. But it was with the bebop sound pioneered by Gillespie and Parker, with its rapid-fire phrasing, complex harmonies and offbeat rhythms, that Johnson made his name.
Adapting the trombone to the demanding genre was a remarkable accomplishment, given its traditional use as a rather light, melodic instrument in the swing-oriented bands of the early 1940s. Johnson managed the technically virtuosic demands of the new style with ease, however, playing with astonishing facility from the time of his very first recordings.
In fact, many jazz fans listening to Johnson on record at the time assumed that he must be playing a valve trombone because they didn't believe that anyone could possibly move a slide trombone that fast.
"Making that adaptation to the trombone was very demanding," said Don Heckman, The Times' jazz writer. "It took a decade before other trombonists on the whole began to master what Johnson was doing."
Born James Louis Johnson in Indianapolis, Johnson began studying piano with a church organist at age 9. He first learned baritone saxophone in high school because it was the only instrument available to him at the time. When he gained access to a trombone, he learned that too, playing in marching bands sponsored by the high school and the YMCA.
At 18, he left home to begin his professional career as a trombonist. He got his first big break with Benny Carter's orchestra in 1942. Over the next decade, he played with groups led by Count Basie and Illinois Jacquet. His first recorded performance was with Carter's orchestra in 1943.
In 1944, Johnson played in the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at Philharmonic Hall in Los Angeles. Sponsored by the now legendary impresario Norman Grantz, Jazz at the Philharmonic was billed at the time as "the city's first full-scale jazz concert." Its success fostered nationwide tours and a series of well-received albums.
From 1946 on, Johnson turned his attention to bebop playing and recording with Parker, Gillespie and Jacquet.
"J.J. Johnson was to the trombone what [Dizzy] Gillespie was to the trumpet--the definitive trendsetter who established beyond doubt that bebop was not beyond the technical possibilities of the instrument," the late jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote some years ago.
In 1949, Johnson played with Davis on his influential "Birth of the Cool" recording.
But after a problematic USO tour of Asia in 1951 with another band, Johnson gave up music and found work as a blueprint inspector for a manufacturing firm. He played only occasionally for a couple of years, then returned to active performance when he formed a two-trombone quintet with Kai Winding. The Jay and Kai pairing was commercially successful for a couple of years before both men moved on to new projects.
Over the years, Johnson led a succession of popular groups, but by the 1960s, he had disbanded his touring and recording sextet and was increasingly turning his attention to composition.
His most challenging piece, called "Perceptions," was commissioned by Gillespie. The six-part work was recorded in 1961 under the direction of Gunther Schuller, a noted composer, educator and jazz historian.
By the 1970s, Johnson had moved to Los Angeles to try his hand at writing for movies and television. And although he had virtually given up playing in favor of his compositional work, Johnson continued to win readers' polls in popular jazz magazines as the finest player on the trombone.
In Hollywood, Johnson wrote music for such popular television shows as "Mayberry R.F.D.," "The Danny Thomas Show," "That Girl" and "Mod Squad." He also found movie work, either orchestrating or writing the music for films such as "Shaft" and "Cleopatra Jones."
But Johnson never believed he got the opportunities his distinguished career as a musician and composer merited. And race, he believed, was the reason.
"Film scoring is still a white world," Johnson told Heckman in 1996. "That's the way it is, that's the way it always has been. . . . The four or five major films I did were all about black people.
"A black film composer will never do a big budget picture like 'Jurassic Park' or 'The Fugitive'--the biggies," he said. "We won't get there."
In the early 1990s, he returned to Indianapolis. His first wife, Vivian, died after suffering a stroke when a Johnson-led band was on the road in Tokyo. After a period of depression, he remarried and began playing again, recording his last album, "Heroes," in 1998.
He is survived by his wife, Carolyn Johnson. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
http://trombone.org/articles/library/jjjohnson-int.asp
INTERVIEW WITH J.J. JOHNSON
by Bob Bernotas
In the 1920s, Louis Armstrong raised the art of trumpet playing to previously unknown heights. A decade later, Art Tatum did the same thing for the piano. Then Jimmy Blanton did it for the bass and Charlie Parker for the saxophone. For the trombone, it was James Louis (J.J.) Johnson.
Born in Indianapolis on January 22, 1924, Johnson, during the first half of the 1940s, worked his way through territory bands, followed by a series of big-time gigs (Benny Carter, Count Basie, Illinois Jacquet). By the end of the decade he had successfully translated the intricacies of bebop onto his demanding instrument. Suddenly jazz trombone playing underwent a quantum leap. Johnson's rich, dark tone and virtually flawless command of the horn became the barometers by which all subsequent trombonists have been measured, the standards which they have labored to attain. But for all his virtuosity, Johnson never abandoned the elusive quality that, call it what you will, is essential to all great jazz: feeling, passion, soul.
During the 1950s, Johnson began building his reputation as a gifted composer, crafting hip, challenging originals like "Kelo," "Enigma," and the haunting "Lament." He also created such ambitious works as the four-part suite, Poem for Brass (1956), and Perceptions (1961), an album-length, six-movement showcase commissioned by (and featuring) Dizzy Gillespie and a large brass and rhythm ensemble. In 1970, he took his talents to Hollywood and spent the next 17 years there scoring films and television series. Johnson returned to the jazz world full-time in 1987 and since then he has released a progression of standout CDs, with more on the way.
On one of your recent recordings you have a tune titled "Why Indianapolis--Why Not Indianapolis?" and that's where I'd like to begin. Why have you chosen to live in Indianapolis instead of New York or Los Angeles?
Many people have asked me that same question. I can best answer by saying that in 1987, Vivian, my late wife, and I decided that the reason for moving to Los Angeles had run its course. I had done the film composing situation for 17 years. I had gotten it out of my system, finally, so it was a question, "Well, what do want to do, Jay? Do you want to get out of film composing but remain in California, or do you want to move elsewhere?" And I said, "Vivian, that's a good question." And I thought about it.
Previously, we lived in New York for all those wonderful years. I loved every minute of it, but I knew I did not want to move back to New York. We lived in New Jersey for a number of years, in Teaneck. Fond memories. Didn't want to move back to New Jersey. To make a long story short, Vivian and I were both born in Indianapolis, Indiana. So the logical choice was to move back to our roots, back to Indianapolis, where we both had families, friends, everything. That's why.
Let's look back for a moment. Why did you chose to play the trombone?
On the one hand, because it was somewhat of a challenge. On the other hand, I ran around with a bunch of school buddies who all played various miscellaneous and sundry instruments. None of them played trombone. One of them said, "J.J., we need a trombone player in this amateur"--if you will--"garage band." And so, I took them up on it and took up the trombone.
I'm wondering what you played like before you heard Charlie Parker and absorbed bebop. Who were your musical influences at that time?
In those days before hearing Charlie Parker and Dizzy, and before learning of the so-called bebop era--by the way, I have some thoughts about that word, "bebop"--my first jazz hero ever, jazz improvisor hero, was Lester Young. I was a big "Lester Young-oholic," and all of my buddies were Lester Young-oholics. We'd get together and dissect, analyze, discuss, and listen to Lester Young's solos for hours and hours and hours. He was our god.
When I began to learn how to improvise on the trombone, I didn't try to emulate or play Lester Young licks or any of that. That wasn't what it was all about. What struck me about Lester Young then, and still does after all these years, was his maverick approach to tenor sax improvisation. He marched to the beat of his own drum. After two or three notes, you'd know, "That's Lester Young!" It could be no one else, 'cause his playing had a persona that was uniquely Lester Young.
Same thing with Trummy Young. Trummy had a persona about him. Dickie Wells, there was a persona. Dickie Wells was uniquely Dickie Wells when he played. He didn't play many notes on the trombone when he improvised. It was like, "Less is more, simple is good." I loved Dickie Wells' trombone conceptualizing because it was based on a minimum of articulation, not all over the horn, just a few bluesy, well chosen notes that made chills run up and down your spine. So these were my influences. And J.C. Higginbotham, of course.
How about Fred Beckett?
Fred Beckett was a great influence on me because he was the first trombonist I ever heard play in what we call a linear approach to improvisation, nice lines that started here and went there, as opposed to the other trombonists who for the most part were playing, shall we say, licks. Fred Beckett came closer to the Lester Young lyrical approach to improvising than any other trombone player that I heard up to that point.
He did not make many recordings. Unfortunately he died at a relatively young age because of alcoholism and other personal problems. It's too bad that the jazz world at-large did not get to hear more of Fred Beckett, because I think he had great promise that was never realized.
Translating bebop onto the trombone must have posed some technical challenges because, well, the trombone is--
Don't mince words, Bob!
--or it can be a somewhat awkward or cumbersome instrument.
Don't mince words, Bob!
I think you know what I mean. I'm wondering if you needed to change your approach to the instrument.
Obviously, there was a challenge involved there. The way I met the challenge head on was to try to think in terms of jazz improvisation. Not to try to keep up with the crowd and to play fast, fast, fast, or high, high, high, or anything like that, but to approach jazz improvisation in such a manner that I could articulate with logic and with clarity, minus ambiguity.
Contrary to popular opinion, I was never, never ever, preoccupied and consumed with speed and a virtuoso-type technique. Never! I have been, always was, and still am consumed and preoccupied with the business of playing the instrument with clarity and with logic and with some kind of expressiveness, if you will. So that if my trombone playing has a persona--I hope that it does--it is based on that desire to project on the instrument an improvisation with logic and with clarity, leaving no question in your mind as to, "What was he trying to do?"
Was it your objective to sound like a valve instrument, a valve trombone, instead of a slide instrument?
Never. Never was. No.
In the early 1950s, you dropped out of the jazz scene for a couple of years and took a nine-to-five job. Why did you do that?
Not only during this cycle that you just spoke about. There have been other cycles in my career where I have dropped out of the jazz arena for various and miscellaneous and sundry reasons. I found out that I'm not unique in having done that. Many musicians have, on occasion, dropped out of the picture, dropped out of the jazz arena.
In my case, yes, of course, there were times of disillusionment with where jazz was going, or what seemed to appear where jazz was going. In some cases, it was disillusionment with where J.J. was going with jazz and how he was progressing with his manner of trombone playing. In other instances, it was just to step outside of the jazz arena so that I could have a view of jazz from the outside looking in.
That makes more sense to me than any other answer I can give you. Most of the time that was the priority in stepping outside the jazz arena, to have a good look at jazz from outside looking in. Sometimes you need to get out, to get a good look at what's happening on the inside. Sometimes you need to stand with your nose to the window and have a good look at jazz. And I've done that on many occasions.
The longest time was in 1970, when I got out of jazz to get into film composing. I was out of the jazz domain for 17 years. That's a long time to be out of jazz. It took me 17 years to get my passion for film composing out of my system. Obviously, I lost a lot of time as far as my career, etc., for staying out that long, but I had to get it out of my system and I did get it out of my system, after which I came back to jazz.
Let's talk about that for a while. How did you break into film composing?
Quincy Jones and Lalo Schifrin were very instrumental in prodding me into having a crack at something that I was eating my heart out to try. They reassured me, "J.J., have a go at it. What's the worst that can happen if it doesn't work out for you? It's a tough business, J.J. It's competitive. We don't know what kind of luck you'll have. All we know is, as far as we're concerned, you have what it takes to become a successful film composer and we would strongly urge you to have a crack at it. And we will do what we can to see that you get on the inside by way of having a good agent."
You must have an agent, a film composing agent, not a jazz agent. The film community is a whole 'nother world. And I can say without reservation that early on I also found out that, man, you're in a very racist element here. There are no black film composers doing the likes of Star Wars, doing the likes of E.T., doing the likes of Jurassic Park. There are none, nor will there ever be one. That ain't about to happen!
I was planning to ask you about that. Most of your film credits are for the so-called "blaxploitation" films of that time.
All of them were blaxploitation films.
So you feel that you were pigeon-holed or typecast into these sorts of films.
No question about it. I've had my film composing agent tell me, "J.J., I tried my best to talk this guy into hiring you for the film and the guy says, `Of course I know the name J.J. Johnson, but he's a jazz musician. We don't want jazz in this picture.' And I tried my best to tell him, `But he's not gonna write jazz for your movie. He's gonna write movie music.'"
They have tunnelvision. All they know is, "J.J. Johnson is a jazz musician, so therefore he will write jazz for my movie, and this movie ain't about jazz." So not only are they racist, they have severe cases of tunnelvision. The film production community is a horror show as far as being flexible enough to give a guy a chance at something. I thank God for the one or two cases where I was fortunate enough to work with people who were not of that mindset. That's how I got aboard Buck Rogers in the Twenty-first Century, for TV.
Was television any better?
In the main, no. Maybe a little less in some situations, where you run into guys who are a bit more open-minded, one or two who had heard Poem for Brass or Perceptions or something like that and said, "Hey, this guy can write more than just jazz and I think I like what I heard, so let's get J.J. Johnson on this series." So I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.
We should make it clear that you were not writing jazz in Hollywood.
No, not at all.
Did you find that work artistically satisfying?
Very much so. Very rewarding. Why? It started with the very first time I ever heard Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Then I became hooked on classical music. The person who introduced me to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring was [trumpeter-composer] Johnny Carisi. I don't know how it happened that we, meaning a bunch of musicians, were at his place at one time, just talking about things, and he said, "Hey, I want you to hear something," and he played Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. And this had nothing to do with jazz, but it blew my mind, it blew everyone's mind who was there.
I became a big "Stravinsky-oholic" and became involved in listening to classical music. Mozart and Beethoven, no. Schumann, no. Stravinsky, yes. Ravel, yes. Benjamin Britten, yes. Paul Hindemith, yes. These are my idols, even today, in classical music.
Why did you stop working in Hollywood?
The scene began to dry up with the onset of synthesizers and the genre changed so that the order of the day began to head in the direction of sit-coms. Sit-coms became more and more prevalent in television programming, but sit-coms have very little scoring in the grand tradition of film composing. Hardly any. Just little sound bites, shall we say, to get from point A to point B in a half-hour show.
So I saw the handwriting on the wall and I got out just in time, because now they're telling me, "J.J., it's a good thing you left when you did because it's really Death Valley in Hollywood as far as the musicians whose livings depend on film music." It's tough, now, out there. It's very tough.
Did you stop playing the trombone during that time?
Live performing, yes. High-profile performing, yes, I stopped. But I did not stop playing completely. So that my chops wouldn't go completely down the tubes, I took many little odd jobs playing studio situations. For example, for a little better than two years I played third trombone under Peter Matz's conducting for The Carol Burnett Show. Not much money, but it was a good way to keep my chops in shape with a predictable activity. We rehearsed every Thursday, we did the show every Friday, so it kept my chops in pretty good shape while I was doing film scoring in the main.
When you rejoined the jazz world in the late 1980s, did you experience a sort of "culture shock" at how the scene had changed since you left? Did you see anything that you needed to adapt to?
Not really, on the one hand, and maybe yes, on the other hand. On the one hand, I'm called a "mainstream jazz player." That being the case, mainstream jazz, if you want to call it that, hasn't really changed that much through the years. It is still straight-ahead, acoustic jazz.
But obviously by the time I came back on the scene, fusion and/or electronic jazz had made its presence felt and became the order of the day in some quarters. It co-existed with mainstream jazz, and still does, thank heaven. There's something refreshing and worthwhile, in my opinion, that they can co-exist. Whereas some musicians feel threatened by fusion and/or electronic jazz and/or Midi, I don't feel threatened. As a matter of fact, I am a Midi freak.
If you walked into my home and saw my Midi studio, you wouldn't believe it: the computer, the laser writer, the keyboard controller, the interface, plus all of the devices--we call them "devices," we don't call them "synthesizers," in today's technology. It's incredible. Midi is my hobby. When I'm not working, when I'm in Indianapolis, I dabble in Midi. For my own enjoyment, and to get my mind off of jazz-related things, I write music just for Midi that will never be heard by anyone. It'll never be recorded, it'll never be played publicly. It's a very private thing with me that I do very selfishly, for my own amusement only.
Earlier you said that you had some thoughts about the term, "bebop."
As we all know, Dizzy Gillespie coined that term, "bebop." It was his creation. But in my opinion, the towering Dizzy Gillespie and his immense genius and his immense talents far transcended that little box that's labelled "bebop." Dizzy Gillespie was much more than bebop. And so the problem I have with bebop is that it tends to categorize you and place you in a small box that is very confining and very uncomfortable.
I can only hope that I, too, am bigger than that box that's labelled "bebop." I try to be bigger than bebop, even though I am labelled, always have been, and probably will always be labelled "the pioneer of bebop trombone." So be it. I inherited that and I lived with that and that's OK.
But you can pioneer something and then go beyond it.
I hope. I hope.
I understand that you just completed a recording project. Could you say a bit about that?
I went to my producer, Jean-Philippe Allard, with some off-the-wall ideas about what to record. I knew that I wanted to used steel drums. Why steel drums? Many years ago, Bill Withers came out with a recording that was a big hit for him called "Just the Two of Us." It had a steel drum solo in it. It did something for me and I never lost track of the fact that, hey, steel drums is a wonderful, unique, oddball sound that I love. There's something exotic about it, something about it that's so different, that all through the years I knew some day I was going to do something that had a steel drum soloist on it.
I also told Jean-Philippe that on this album I'd like to incorporate Steve Turre's sea shells. I also wanted to use harp on some of the ballad-type things. So there's steel drums, there's the sea shells, and there's harp on some of the cuts. And I have one original on it that's called "Mom, Are You Listening?" I'd like to tell this story and I hope it doesn't bring you down. I'd prefer that it'd just enlighten and inform you as to how it came about. I do hope that you will publish it unaltered, unedited, uncut.
Certainly.
On Christmas Day, 1989, in Indianapolis, with a house full of guests and family, I said to my wife, "Vivian, I don't want to be with these people, who are in my home to enjoy the Christmas Day. Vivian, I want to drive to Chicago and spend Christmas Day with my mother," who was in a nursing home there.
The weather was horrible. Vivian said, "Jay, I want to go with you to see your mother." I said, "No, Viv, you stay behind and entertain this house full of family and guests. I will drive to Chicago. I will take my trombone and play Christmas carols for my mother in the nursing home. Then I'm gonna come back and rejoin these wonderful guests." She was reluctant, but she said, "OK."
I put my trombone in the car. I drove through these terrible weather conditions to Chicago to visit my mother in this nursing home and to play Christmas carols for her on the trombone. When I got to the floor where my mother was in this nursing home, there was an aura that made me very uncomfortable. To make a long story short, my mother had passed away.
The attendants had not removed my mother's remains from the room as yet. They were very sympathetic. They said, "Mr. Johnson, your mother must have passed away while you were on the highway driving here, because she passed away about 20, 25, 30 minutes ago at the most."
Obviously it was a devastating, traumatic situation. They said, "Mr. Johnson, would you like to see your mother before we remove her from this room?' I thought about it. I said, "Yes, I would like that." They zipped down this large bag that my mother was in and I looked in at my mother's face and I had never, ever, seen such a serene, tranquil look on my mother's face. It was as if she was taking a nap. Not dead, taking a nap. She was so at peace with the world in that look that was on her face. I said, "Thank you." They zipped the bag back up. I got my trombone, got back in the car for the long drive back to Indianapolis with those horrible weather conditions.
And the combination of grief and tears and the horrible driving conditions caused a strange thing to happen. I pulled off the highway about midway between Chicago and Indianapolis, looked all around the car for scraps of paper on which to make ledger lines, and I composed a piece of music for my mother. The whole thing came to me at one time, the whole little composition and the title, which is "Mom, Are You Listening?"
It's a very simple little melody. It almost has no harmonic content, only a melodic line. That's what I wrote down--no harmony, no chord changes, just a melodic line. I played this piece of music, unaccompanied, at my mother's funeral, with my trombone slide pointing down at my mother's closed casket.
And I never thought anymore about "Mom, Are You Listening?" until this recording project. When this disc is released, you will hear "Mom, Are You Listening?," the piece of music that I composed on the highway, midway between Chicago and Indianapolis. I use on the recording celeste, piano, and harp--nothing else. It's beautiful, it's gorgeous.
And ethereal.
Very ethereal, 'cause by now I've added harmony to it. Renee Rosnes played celeste and piano on the cut, and we use Emily Mitchell on harp. I told them the story and they both immediately grasped the spirit of "Mom, Are You Listening?" that I wanted to project in the recorded version, which made it all happen. And I'm very proud of that cut.
That's quite a story. I don't know where we should go from here.
I don't think we ought to go anywhere from here, because the recording will speak for itself. The only thing I want to add is the other meaningful recording project that I've been engaged in was the CD called Vivian, because it was dedicated to my wonderful wife of 43 years who passed away in 1991. I want your readers to know that, yes, that was a trying time for me, when Vivian passed away, and that recording was a tribute to Vivian.
I have since remarried. The man upstairs saw fit for me to have had not just one wonderful wife, but to have married two wonderful women. And my current wife, whose name is Carolyn, is good for me, good to me, and I depend on Carolyn. She is my business manager and it works out just fine.
So at the moment, everything is wonderful in my life. I'd like to end on that note, that J.J. is doing just fine, alive and kicking, getting on in years, but I am enjoying life to the hilt at the moment, with everything going wonderfully. And what do I plan to do? I plan to continue recording and I plan to keep touring. You've heard the phrase, "Shop 'til you drop?" I'm gonna tour 'til I drop! And on that note, I'd like to say, "Thank you, Bob."
In 1996, a year after this interview first was published, J.J. Johnson announced his retirement from live performing and settled down, back home again in Indiana, to enjoy the company of Carolyn and his Midi. Johnson was diagnosed with prostate cancer in early 1999, but his attitude has been, typically, marvelous, and he has responded very well to hormone treatments. "The goal is still remission," he told his army of e-mail correspondents in late September, "and my team is optimistic that we will get there. ... I feel just great, as I have all along." Although another wonderful new J.J. Johnson CD, Heroes (Verve), surfaced in 1999, but "Mom, Are You Listening?"--which he has retitled "Nina Mae" (his mother's name)--still is awaiting release.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Bob Bernotas is the author of Top Brass: Interviews and Master Classes with Jazz's Leading Brass Players and Reed All About It: Interviews and Master Classes with Jazz's Leading Reed Players, available through Boptism Music Publishing. He has contributed to numerous print and Internet publications, and has written liner notes for over four dozen jazz CDs. He also is the host of the weekly radio program, Just Jazz, heard every Sunday night over the Internet at www.wnti.org.
© Bob Bernotas, 1995; revised 1999. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
© 1996-2017 Contact
Biography
James Louis “J.J.” Johnson was born on January 22, 1924 in Indianapolis, Indiana and passed away on February 4, 2001 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana on January 22, 1924 to Reverend James Horace Johnson and Nina Johnson, the boy grew up in a strict religious household. J.J. and his siblings were expected to attend his father’s Baptist church, as well as his mother’s Methodist church, every Sunday. His father was also a disciplinarian who believed in the virtues of corporal punishment.
Nina sent J.J. to piano lessons at age 11, and he briefly played the baritone saxophone at school. At age 14, when classmates wanted to form an amateur band and needed a trombone player, J.J. took up the ‘bone and never looked back.
Johnson and his friends at Crispus Attucks High School developed an early love for the conceptual melodic solos of tenor saxophonist Lester Young, and the boy was also drawn to the trombone work of Dickie Wells, Trummy Young and J.C. Higginbotham.
Still in high school, Johnson gained early professional experience around town, then joined Clarence Love’s regional touring band in September of 1941. In March of 1942, he joined Snookum Russell’s band, which led to touring opportunities with bandmate trumpeter Fats Navarro.
Johnson then received an offer to join the band of saxophonist Benny Carter for an extended tour. Johnson worked in Carter’s band as trombonist and staff arranger through the spring of 1945. During these years, the Benny Carter Orchestra participated in the Hollywood film Thousands Cheer with Gene Kelly and Lena Horne. Johnson also recorded with Carter for the first time, and was a featured soloist on Love for Sale in 1943.
On July 2, 1944, he participated in producer Norman Granz’s first Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concerts in Los Angeles, and can be heard on Etaoin Shrdlu’s “Blues”. His association with Granz and the JATP endured throughout his career.
Not all of his experiences on the road were happy, however, and Johnson once suffered a concussion after a racially motivated incident at a nightclub where he was playing with Carter. He chose to leave the band in 1945, but allowed Carter to keep his arrangements in their book.
He moved on to work with bandleader and pianist William “Count” Basie, whom he joined in May of 1945. He can be heard as a featured soloist on “Rambo” and “The King”, both recorded on February 4, 1946.
Johnson’s trombone work around this time became increasingly skillful, and he became known for his ability to execute lines as fast as physically possible. By the time Johnson left Basie’s band in early 1946, his quickness on the trombone had reached a point that trumpeter and bebop evangelist Dizzy Gillespie, when he heard Johnson play, encouraged him to join the bebop movement, which was then flourishing on New York’s Fifty-Second Street.
Johnson spent the balance of the 1940s working in small groups in New York, where he recorded with, among others, Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Lewis, Illinois Jacquet, Babs Gonzalez, and as part of the Metronome All-Stars.
In 1949, he was invited by Miles Davis and Gil Evans to participate in the nonet sessions which spawned the Birth of The Cool album, which included “Israel,” “Deception,” and “Rocker.” In 1951, he toured Japan and Korea with the United Service Organizations (USO).
By this time, Johnson had established his reputation as the preeminent trombonist in modern jazz, but he also faced setbacks. In 1946, he lost his cabaret card – the New York musician’s indispensable passport to employment – after a misdemeanor conviction. The revocation of his card meant the loss of his ability to work in the city’s nightclubs, and Johnson struggled to find steady work over the next twelve years.
Like many other jazz musicians of his generation, Johnson had developed a taste for heroin. While never a full-blown addict, he became absorbed into the chaotic lifestyle of the drug culture, so much so that in August of 1952, he decided to leave music and take a job as a blueprint inspector for Sperry Gyroscope, a military contractor.
Johnson stayed at this day job and only intermittently recorded with small groups over the next two years. However, the records he made under his own name at this time became career hallmarks. He recorded a two-LP set for Blue Note, The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson, which includes his composition “Turnpike.” The album has since become a kind of audio textbook for jazz trombonists.
In the wake of the Eminent releases, and an award in the spring of 1954 for his work with French pianist Henri Renaud, Johnson reentered the music scene. He formed a collaboration with fellow trombonist Kai Winding, first in Philadelphia, then at Birdland in New York in 1956. Their string of nine successful recordings cemented their partnership as one of Johnson’s most vital career chapters.
First organized to record for Savoy by Ozzie Cadena, Johnson and Winding made a hit out of Cole Porter’s It’s Alright With Me for Bethlehem Records. Producer George Avakian, the head of jazz and pop at Columbia Records, then brought them over in a fourteen-month relationship with that label.
By 1955, Johnson had received a raft of accolades, including a Down Beat magazine award for best trombonist, and his two-year partnership with Winding wound down. Lament, heard on the Savoy album Jay and Kai, became Johnson’s most well-known original composition.
Johnson turned his attention towards composition, and he became a prime force in the nascent “Third Stream” movement, which sought to meld jazz with European concert traditions. Johnson brought his own experiences as an arranger, and his love works such as Paul Hindemith’s Kleine Kammermusik and Mathis der Maler, to the movement. His first big Third-Stream work was a piece for twenty-one piece ensemble, “Poem for Brass,” 1956.
Despite this growing interest in composition, Johnson continued to record small-group jazz as a leader and sideman, and he favored the blowing-session format of quickly-conceived arrangements and familiar chord structures, which enabled him and others to release dozens of records. One example of this quick-and-dirty approach was Johnson’s album First Place, recorded in April of 1957.
In his liner notes to the album, Nat Hentoff said, “There were sketches on each number -J.J. is so precise a spirit by temperament that he is not apt to leave all to luck, even on a blowing date. And in some cases there were even fuller arrangements. But basically, the four sessions that made up this and a succeeding album were conceived and executed as relatively free, almost entirely improvised conversations.”
Still banned from live performance in New York, in June of 1957 Johnson made his first European tour, and played for twenty thousand people in Stockholm, Sweden. After this tour, he rejoined Granz’s JATP, and recorded live concerts with Stan Getz at the Civic Opera House in Chicago in late September, which included his sensitive treatments of standards like “My Funny Valentine.”
Further work with Ella Fitzgerald and other JATP associates helped sustain Johnson’s reputation as a leading jazz performer, even though he remained absent from the New York scene. This changed in 1959, when he prevailed in a legal battle with the New York Police Department to reinstate his cabaret card.
As one of three plaintiffs in the case, Johnson showed the court he had no convictions since 1946, but had never been allowed a cabaret card after his misdemeanor offense that year. In 1956, a temporary card had been issued to him, which lasted only six months before requiring renewal. Television host Steve Allen testified on Johnson’s behalf.
On May 14, 1959, the court granted Johnson the right to perform once again in New York City nightclubs, and the case prompted an overhaul of the system of issuing performance permits for musicians. Twelve days later, Johnson performed at the Village Vanguard, after a set by beat poet Jack Kerouac. In March of the same year, Johnson released the album Really Livin’, and at that year’s Monterey Jazz Festival he premiered two orchestral works: his Sketch for Trombone and Orchestra, and “El Camino Real,” a piece for a fifteen-piece jazz ensemble, which has been consistently performed since its debut.
Johnson led a working quintet and recorded the album J.J. Inc. with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, saxophonist Clifford Jordan, pianist Cedar Walton, bassist Arthur Harper, and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath. After a brief stint teaching at the Lenox School of Jazz summer program in 1960, he disbanded his group. Johnson said, “It suddenly occurred to me that I needed a change, and I even began to wonder was it possible that a musician or artist could be much too dedicated – so much so that he lived in a very narrow world.”
In 1961, Johnson premiered his second extended Third-Stream work, a s thirty-five minute solo feature for Dizzy Gillespie entitled Perceptions. The titles of the six movements offer a look at how his mind was adapting to his growing knowledge of classical music: (1) The Sword of Orion (2) Jubelo (3) Blue Mist (4) Fantasia (5) Horn of Plenty (6) Ballade.
As the 1960s progressed, the audience for small-group jazz began to dwindle. Johnson worked many studio sessions, and collaborated with pianist and conductor Andre Previn on an album of Kurt Weill songs, Mack the Knife. In 1964, he recorded a big-band album entitled simply J.J.!, which includes El Camino Real as well as Gary McFarland’s Winter’s Waif.
In the second half of the 1960s, Johnson traveled increasingly to Europe, where he worked with Austrian pianist Friedrich Gulda and His Eurojazz Orchestra in a performance of Johnson’s Eurosuite for seventeen-piece band in 1966. He also wrote a work titled Diversions for Robert A. Boudreau, music director for the American Wind Symphony Orchestra in Pittsburgh in 1968.
Seeking to gain a foothold as a film composer, Johnson became a commercial jingle writer in New York for Marc Brown Associates (MBA Music, Inc.). During his work for the company, he experimented with the latest technology, and even took instruction in subtractive synthesis firsthand from inventor Robert Moog.
As the audience for jazz further cratered in the 1970s, Johnson set his sights on Hollywood. His first soundtrack was for the television series Barefoot in the Park, and with the guidance of Hollywood veterans Quincy Jones and Earle Hagen, he was able to secure work composing soundtracks for seven blaxploitation films between 1971 and 1973.
Beginning with some cueing on the soundtrack to Gordon Parks’ 1971 film Shaft, with music largely composed by Isaac Hayes, Johnson moved on to work with singer Bobby Womack on the film Across 110th Street. he went on to compose soundtracks for Man and Boy, Trouble Man (with Marvin Gaye), Top of the Heap, Willie Dynamite and Cleopatra Jones, which drew on elements borrowed from Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes.
After these movies, Johnson wrote primarily for television shows, such as Mike Hammer, That Girl, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Big Easy, Future Cop, and Travels with Flip. He “rotated in” as composer on various other shows like Harry O., The Bold Ones, and The Mod Squad.
Since commissioned work in film was sporadic, and Johnson gigged only occasionally in Europe and Japan, he struggled financially during his last years in Hollywood, even as continued to win trombone awards in Down Beat polls, even though he had not put out new albums or appeared live regularly to American audiences in years.
In 1979, he recorded an album called Pinnacles, using electronic instruments, coupled with a heavyweight line up of pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Billy Higgins, saxophonist Joe Henderson, Oscar Brashear on trumpet, and Kenneth Nash on percussion. Johnson also participated in the seventieth birthday celebration for Dizzy Gillespie at the Wolf Trap National Park near Washington, D.C.. It was there that he met with another Indianapolis native, trombonist Slide Hampton, and the pair discussed Johnson’s career direction.
Johnson and his wife Vivian moved back to Indianapolis from Hollywood in 1987. By November of that year, he was appearing in New York once again at the Village Vanguard. His new quintet, which consisted of saxophonist Ralph Moore, pianist Stanley Cowell, bassist Rufus Reid, and drummer Victor Lewis, performed at the famous club, and their performances were subsequently released on two albums in 1991, Quintergy and Standards on the Antilles label.
In May of 1988, Indiana University awarded Johnson an honorary doctorate. This award celebration was unfortunately followed by the death of his father on June 3. Not allowing this loss to set him back, Johnson appeared on August 21 in Chicago’s Grant Park in a reunion with Stan Getz for an audience of fifty thousand people. At the end of the year, however, tragedy struck again, when his wife Vivian suffered a stroke. She lived for three more years under care. Around this same period, Johnson’s mother died as well.
All of these tragedies led him to the decision that a retirement would best suit his circumstances, and he closed his file with Mary Ann Topper, his manager during his brief but spectacular return to active performing. Thankfully, Johnson later decided this premature retirement had been a mistake, and he underwent yet another vibrant return to performing with appearances at festivals, and teaching residencies at Kentucky State University and Oberlin.
In 1991, he recorded the album Vivian for Concord Records, and Renee Rosnes followed Stanley Cowell as the quintet’s pianist after 1992. Returning to work for Verve, Johnson’s quintet recorded the album Let’s Hang Out in 1992, and Heroes in 1996, which included “Carolyn (In the Morning), a tribute to his new wife, Carolyn Reid. He and Reid were married on September 11, 1992, after Johnson’s reported confession to her that he had contemplated suicide after losing so many family members in a close span.
In the final decade of Johnson’s life, he enjoyed his status as an elder statesman of jazz. On April 6, 1994, he played at a concert to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Verve Records at Carnegie Hall. He also recorded the album Tangence with Wynton Marsalis and the Robert Farnon Orchestra in England.
A few months later, Johnson’s quintet performed at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. Here, Johnson needed to find substitutes for Renee Rosnes and her husband drummer Billy Drummond. Pianist Geoff Keezer and drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith filled in, but soon more personnel changes followed. In February of 1995, saxophonist Ralph Moore joined The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and was replaced by Dan Faulk.
On January 12, 1996, Johnson was honored along with Tommy Flanagan and Benny Golson as Jazz Masters by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the United States’ highest honor for jazz musician. Later in the spring, he also held a residency position at Harvard, at the invitation of Thomas Everett.
In 1997, after a final quintet date, some high-profile concerts, and a final recording, Johnson finally said goodbye to his life on stage. His album The Brass Orchestra, which featured Jimmy Heath, Slide Hampton, Jon Faddis, Wayne Shorter, Don Sickler, and Thomas Everett, was a late highlight of his long performing career.
Johnson devoted his time to writing a book of trombone exercises, but he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. His controlling personality being what it was, Johnson chose not to “leave anything to luck” and ended his life on February 4, 2001 with a gunshot.
Countless artists have subsequently given Johnson deserved credit as the father of jazz trombone, and exceptional practitioners of that instrument like Wycliffe Gordon, Robin Eubanks, Andre Hayward, and Conrad Herwig all continue to play music inspired by and in debt to Johnson’s prodigious talent.
https://www.npr.org/2011/06/20/4541365/j-j-johnson-the-eminent-jay-jay-johnson-vol-1-the-eminent-j-j-johnson-vol-2
Review
J.J. Johnson: 'The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson, Vol. 1 & Vol. 2'
[MUSIC]
MURRAY HORWITZ, American Film Institute: Hello,
I'm Murray Horwitz. A.B. Spellman and I don't usually get involved in
useless arguments about who is the greatest this or that, but today's
artist wouldn't generate too much controversy if we nominated him for
the greatest of all jazz trombonists. He's J.J. Johnson, and we're
putting his two-volume Blue Note set The Eminent J.J. Johnson in our NPR Basic Jazz Record Library.
[MUSIC]
A.B.
SPELLMAN, National Endowment for the Arts: Have you ever noticed,
Murray, how people with a lot of technique get accused of being cold?
HORWITZ: Sure do.
SPELLMAN:
The violinist Josha Heifitz and the pianist Vladimir Horowitz heard
that a lot in classical music, and J.J. Johnson, Art Tatum, Wynton
Marsalis have had to put up with it in jazz. But that excerpt from the
1953 set shows you a sweet tone with a romantic disposition. This one
from Volume 2, cut a year later, shows you the technique, and the joined
staccato phrasing that changed the way the trombone is played. But I
dare anybody to say that it doesn't swing.
[MUSIC]
HORWITZ:
And J.J. Johnson's not exactly playing with a bunch of amateurs on
these CDs. There's nothing but masters here: Clifford Brown, the Heath
Brothers, John Lewis, Kenny Clarke, Charles Mingus, Horace Silver, Paul
Chambers, and Sabu Martinez.
[MUSIC]
HORWITZ: J.J. Johnson was recording a lot of tunes in 1953 and 1954, so there are mostly standards on these sets.
SPELLMAN:
That's true, Murray, but the brilliant John Lewis did contribute one
very thoughtful composition called, "Sketch." I'm going to pull a
section that I like out of it, because of the odd, rhythmic effect that
Lewis put under Clifford Brown's muted trumpet.
[MUSIC]
HORWITZ:
Ummph! Not a bad note on these two CDs and a lot of great ones, and on a
very difficult instrument, the trombone. The set is called The Eminent J.J. Johnson. It's on the Blue Note label, and it's in the NPR Basic Jazz Record Library.
HORWITZ:
The NPR Basic Jazz Record Library is made possible by the Lila-Wallace
Reader's Digest Fund, and by our member stations.
SPELLMAN: For NPR Jazz. I'm A.B. Spellman.
HORWITZ: And, I'm Murray Horwitz.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-musical-world-of-jj-johnson-jj-johnson-by-victor-l-schermer.php?page=1
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-musical-world-of-jj-johnson-jj-johnson-by-victor-l-schermer.php?page=1
The Musical World Of J.J. Johnson
by
The Musical World Of J.J. Johnson
Joshua Berrett and Louis G. Bourgois III
Scarecrow Press, Inc.
ISBN 0810836483
1999
J.J. Johnson is known to the listening public as a jazz trombonist who has repeatedly won the Downbeat and many other polls, who has played the instrument at super-rapid clips (a Philadelphia nightclub once billed him, Barnum and Bailey style, as "The Fastest Trombone Player Alive!"), and who, with the great Kai Winding, made the famous "J.J. and Kai" recordings showing that the trombone could indeed be a virtuoso instrument. A new and exciting book by Joshua Berrett and Louis Bourgois III entitled The Musical World of J.J. Johnson corroborates these impressions, and more importantly, details the extraordinary contributions that this consummate musician has made to trombone playing, jazz music and musicians, composition, arranging, and a massive number of recording dates over a period of about 55 years. (Berrett and Bourgois document the recorded legacy in a "state of the art" comprehensive discography of J.J. Johnson to be found in the book. Christopher Smith has also assembled a Johnson discography, available on the Web, and has consulted for the book's compilation.) In this scholarly and comprehensive volume, J.J. Johnson consistently comes across as a highly disciplined, multi-faceted, prolific, and creative musician.
Joshua Berrett and Louis G. Bourgois III
Scarecrow Press, Inc.
ISBN 0810836483
1999
J.J. Johnson is known to the listening public as a jazz trombonist who has repeatedly won the Downbeat and many other polls, who has played the instrument at super-rapid clips (a Philadelphia nightclub once billed him, Barnum and Bailey style, as "The Fastest Trombone Player Alive!"), and who, with the great Kai Winding, made the famous "J.J. and Kai" recordings showing that the trombone could indeed be a virtuoso instrument. A new and exciting book by Joshua Berrett and Louis Bourgois III entitled The Musical World of J.J. Johnson corroborates these impressions, and more importantly, details the extraordinary contributions that this consummate musician has made to trombone playing, jazz music and musicians, composition, arranging, and a massive number of recording dates over a period of about 55 years. (Berrett and Bourgois document the recorded legacy in a "state of the art" comprehensive discography of J.J. Johnson to be found in the book. Christopher Smith has also assembled a Johnson discography, available on the Web, and has consulted for the book's compilation.) In this scholarly and comprehensive volume, J.J. Johnson consistently comes across as a highly disciplined, multi-faceted, prolific, and creative musician.
J.J. Johnson made an indelible mark on the history of
jazz when, with the help of Dizzy Gillespie, he reconfigured trombone
playing for the be-bop era, playing linear progressions, minimizing
vibrato, and producing a lucid, controlled, and clean sound which yet
has the ability to express a wide range of emotions and nusical ideas.
The dust jacket of the Berrett/Bourgois volume nicely sums up J.J.'s
coming of age as the quintessential be-bop trombonist:
In 1946, Dizzy Gillespie overheard J.J. Johnson using his trombone to make music that until then could only be played on other instruments. Gillespie liked what he heard and effectively invited Johnson into the inner circle of beboppers with the comment, "I've always known that the trombone could be played different, that somebody'd catch on one of these days. Man, you're elected."
Figure 3.2 shows how J.J. and the other beboppers such as Fats Navarro and Charlie Parker, influenced each other's soloing. (The book is rich with transcriptions and excerpts.)
Berrett and Bourgois depict and carefully document the evolution of Johnson from his first days with the trombone at Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, his fascination with the recordings of the immortal Jack Teagarden, tenor saxophonist Lester Young, and trombonist Fred Beckett, who appears to have in some ways anticipated J.J.'s "linear" style of playing by a generation (see Figure 1.4); to his big band years with LaVon Kemp, Benny Carter, and Count Basie; to his landing on 52nd Street, New York, where the once thriving jazz clubs became the hub of the development of bebop through the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and others who emerged from the big band era to develop the complex harmonies and melodic and rhythmic variations that formed the basis of "modern jazz." Berrett and Bourgois, first highlighting the importance of the predominantly black groups which performed for black audiences in the late 'thirties and early 'forties-a crucial aspect of jazz history which is too often neglected-show through historical documents, recordings, and transcriptions (the book has many written out samples of solos and ensemble excerpts) how the music evolved within a social, economic, and political context.
Berrett and Bourgois emphasize the continuity between the jazz of the "swing era" and bebop/ modern jazz. While they support their arguments well, this reviewer, along with a number of other jazz critics, is more taken by the extraordinary advances in playing which seemed to occur over just a few years, from about 1943 to 1950 which changed the face ("cosmetically" for the authors, at the foundations, for this reviewer) of jazz. While the authors correctly point out the role of post-World War II economic factors, they devote relatively little space to the creative formation of the small groups which had been previously overshadowed by the big bands. It was as if the economic forces which led to the attrition of the big bands established a need to capture nuances and complexities which would keep musicians and audiences attuned, a parallel to the dialectic between orchestral and chamber music in classical venues.
The book goes on to describe J.J.'s life, career, and output beyond be-bop over the next 45 years right on through his semi-retirement from live performances in 1996. (J.J. continues to oversee his recordings, provide help and guidance to musicians everywhere, compose, and experiment with his array of synthesizers, computers, and music software, in addition to being a loving husband and father.) That career includes recordings, world tours, composing and arranging, and playing within his own combos and those of others. His two most recent CD's "The Brass Orchestra" and "Heroes" recapitulate in 1990's terms aspects of his career writing and performing for larger ensembles with a contemporary and "third stream" flair ("The Brass Orchestra") and small groups, especially his own quintets ("Heroes")
In the process of offering a meticulous and illuminating analysis of J.J.'s musical evolution, Berrett and Bourgois also reflect on J.J.'s personal and professional life, which they have carefully researched via interviews and other sources. There is little here of a "sensationalist" nature. The book is written with the same professionalism which has characterized J.J.'s own stance. There are several very moving times in J.J.'s life which are disclosed and discussed. One is J.J.'s brief hiatus from music in 1952-1953 when he worked as a blueprint inspector for Sperry Gyroscope. Usually explained in terms of the lack of musical work available at the time, this excursion into the engineering field was also, the book discloses, propelled by a brief period of drug use from which he needed escape, and a desire to re-think his life and career.
J.J. subsequently played a key role in abolishing the absurd "cabaret card" laws which were used by the NYPD to keep many jazz musicians from performing in New York clubs. Testifying before the New York State Supreme Court in May 13-14, 1959, J.J.'s professionalism and dedication to his family convinced Judge Jacob Markowitz to see to it that he was issued a permanent cabaret card, setting a legal precedent for his fellow jazz artists. Berrett and Bourgois provide the details of this story, which made news headlines at the time, and offer an interesting explanation of this bizarre and hurtful oppression of musicians, tracing it back to police attitudes that developed in the time of the "speakeasies" of the Prohibition Era, and to a Red scare that occurred within the Roosevelt Administration..
There is also a marvelous vignette-one of those oddities that happen in life-about a time when J.J. was performing at the Village Vanguard, opposite, of all people-Jack Kerouac-who gave a poetry reading there. Kerouac, apparently inebriated, told J.J. that he always wanted to play jazz, perhaps as a saxophonist. J.J., with his characteristic good manners and capacity for understatement, simply said, "I'd think of you more as a trumpet man." Stories such as this are priceless.
Occurring many years later, the most poignant and tragic event in J.J.'s life was probably the death of his first wife, Vivian. J.J., devastated by this loss, cancelled all his "gigs" for a period of time. He emerged with new resolution from this time of grief, sublimating his loss into a hauntingly beautiful album of ballads appropriately entitled "Vivian"—and eventually re-marrying. These and other events show J.J. Johnson in his most humanly vulnerable "off-stage" moments. The book, however, does little to explain J.J.'s motives or personality. It is rather devoted primarily to the man's art, and less his heart (which, by the way, is a deeply caring one).
In sum, The Musical World of J.J. Johnson is a fascinatingly written, stimulating, and scholarly exploration of the musical development of one of the jazz giants of the twentieth century, placed in historical and personal context. One in a series called "Studies in Jazz" produced by Dan Morgenstern and Edward Berger for the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers, it will be the definitive scholarly resource on J.J. Johnson and his music for a long time to come. (It should, of course, be studied carefully by trombonists and jazz scholars.) It will increase the reader's grasp and enjoyment of the musical accomplishments of J.J. Johnson. (I suggest that you have on hand some of J.J.'s recordings-as well as those of some of the other musicians and composers who influenced him-to listen to as you read. This reviewer found it a profound experience to listen once again to Ravel's "Daphnis and Chloe," for example, or Hindemith's "Mathis der Maler," two of J.J.'s favorite pieces, and then to compare them with some of J.J.'s own orchestrations.) And The Musical World of J.J. Johnson is rich with vignettes, anecdotes, and musical observations which will make it memorable and highly readable to anyone with a love of jazz music.
Click here for Vic Schermer's All About Jazz interview with JJ Johnson and the authors, Joshua Berrett and Louis Borgois III on the publication of this new volume.
In 1946, Dizzy Gillespie overheard J.J. Johnson using his trombone to make music that until then could only be played on other instruments. Gillespie liked what he heard and effectively invited Johnson into the inner circle of beboppers with the comment, "I've always known that the trombone could be played different, that somebody'd catch on one of these days. Man, you're elected."
Figure 3.2 shows how J.J. and the other beboppers such as Fats Navarro and Charlie Parker, influenced each other's soloing. (The book is rich with transcriptions and excerpts.)
Berrett and Bourgois depict and carefully document the evolution of Johnson from his first days with the trombone at Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, his fascination with the recordings of the immortal Jack Teagarden, tenor saxophonist Lester Young, and trombonist Fred Beckett, who appears to have in some ways anticipated J.J.'s "linear" style of playing by a generation (see Figure 1.4); to his big band years with LaVon Kemp, Benny Carter, and Count Basie; to his landing on 52nd Street, New York, where the once thriving jazz clubs became the hub of the development of bebop through the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and others who emerged from the big band era to develop the complex harmonies and melodic and rhythmic variations that formed the basis of "modern jazz." Berrett and Bourgois, first highlighting the importance of the predominantly black groups which performed for black audiences in the late 'thirties and early 'forties-a crucial aspect of jazz history which is too often neglected-show through historical documents, recordings, and transcriptions (the book has many written out samples of solos and ensemble excerpts) how the music evolved within a social, economic, and political context.
Berrett and Bourgois emphasize the continuity between the jazz of the "swing era" and bebop/ modern jazz. While they support their arguments well, this reviewer, along with a number of other jazz critics, is more taken by the extraordinary advances in playing which seemed to occur over just a few years, from about 1943 to 1950 which changed the face ("cosmetically" for the authors, at the foundations, for this reviewer) of jazz. While the authors correctly point out the role of post-World War II economic factors, they devote relatively little space to the creative formation of the small groups which had been previously overshadowed by the big bands. It was as if the economic forces which led to the attrition of the big bands established a need to capture nuances and complexities which would keep musicians and audiences attuned, a parallel to the dialectic between orchestral and chamber music in classical venues.
The book goes on to describe J.J.'s life, career, and output beyond be-bop over the next 45 years right on through his semi-retirement from live performances in 1996. (J.J. continues to oversee his recordings, provide help and guidance to musicians everywhere, compose, and experiment with his array of synthesizers, computers, and music software, in addition to being a loving husband and father.) That career includes recordings, world tours, composing and arranging, and playing within his own combos and those of others. His two most recent CD's "The Brass Orchestra" and "Heroes" recapitulate in 1990's terms aspects of his career writing and performing for larger ensembles with a contemporary and "third stream" flair ("The Brass Orchestra") and small groups, especially his own quintets ("Heroes")
In the process of offering a meticulous and illuminating analysis of J.J.'s musical evolution, Berrett and Bourgois also reflect on J.J.'s personal and professional life, which they have carefully researched via interviews and other sources. There is little here of a "sensationalist" nature. The book is written with the same professionalism which has characterized J.J.'s own stance. There are several very moving times in J.J.'s life which are disclosed and discussed. One is J.J.'s brief hiatus from music in 1952-1953 when he worked as a blueprint inspector for Sperry Gyroscope. Usually explained in terms of the lack of musical work available at the time, this excursion into the engineering field was also, the book discloses, propelled by a brief period of drug use from which he needed escape, and a desire to re-think his life and career.
J.J. subsequently played a key role in abolishing the absurd "cabaret card" laws which were used by the NYPD to keep many jazz musicians from performing in New York clubs. Testifying before the New York State Supreme Court in May 13-14, 1959, J.J.'s professionalism and dedication to his family convinced Judge Jacob Markowitz to see to it that he was issued a permanent cabaret card, setting a legal precedent for his fellow jazz artists. Berrett and Bourgois provide the details of this story, which made news headlines at the time, and offer an interesting explanation of this bizarre and hurtful oppression of musicians, tracing it back to police attitudes that developed in the time of the "speakeasies" of the Prohibition Era, and to a Red scare that occurred within the Roosevelt Administration..
There is also a marvelous vignette-one of those oddities that happen in life-about a time when J.J. was performing at the Village Vanguard, opposite, of all people-Jack Kerouac-who gave a poetry reading there. Kerouac, apparently inebriated, told J.J. that he always wanted to play jazz, perhaps as a saxophonist. J.J., with his characteristic good manners and capacity for understatement, simply said, "I'd think of you more as a trumpet man." Stories such as this are priceless.
Occurring many years later, the most poignant and tragic event in J.J.'s life was probably the death of his first wife, Vivian. J.J., devastated by this loss, cancelled all his "gigs" for a period of time. He emerged with new resolution from this time of grief, sublimating his loss into a hauntingly beautiful album of ballads appropriately entitled "Vivian"—and eventually re-marrying. These and other events show J.J. Johnson in his most humanly vulnerable "off-stage" moments. The book, however, does little to explain J.J.'s motives or personality. It is rather devoted primarily to the man's art, and less his heart (which, by the way, is a deeply caring one).
In sum, The Musical World of J.J. Johnson is a fascinatingly written, stimulating, and scholarly exploration of the musical development of one of the jazz giants of the twentieth century, placed in historical and personal context. One in a series called "Studies in Jazz" produced by Dan Morgenstern and Edward Berger for the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers, it will be the definitive scholarly resource on J.J. Johnson and his music for a long time to come. (It should, of course, be studied carefully by trombonists and jazz scholars.) It will increase the reader's grasp and enjoyment of the musical accomplishments of J.J. Johnson. (I suggest that you have on hand some of J.J.'s recordings-as well as those of some of the other musicians and composers who influenced him-to listen to as you read. This reviewer found it a profound experience to listen once again to Ravel's "Daphnis and Chloe," for example, or Hindemith's "Mathis der Maler," two of J.J.'s favorite pieces, and then to compare them with some of J.J.'s own orchestrations.) And The Musical World of J.J. Johnson is rich with vignettes, anecdotes, and musical observations which will make it memorable and highly readable to anyone with a love of jazz music.
Click here for Vic Schermer's All About Jazz interview with JJ Johnson and the authors, Joshua Berrett and Louis Borgois III on the publication of this new volume.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/06/business/j-j-johnson-jazz-trombonist-is-dead-at-77.html
J. J. Johnson, the most influential trombonist in postwar jazz, died on Sunday at his home in Indianapolis. He was 77.
The Marion County Sheriff's Department reported the death as a suicide.
Mr.
Johnson translated the fast, linear style of bebop to the trombone in
the late 1940's. ''He was the definitive trombonist of the bebop
generation,'' said the saxophonist Jimmy Heath, who played with him in
the early 1950's and remained a close friend. ''He didn't use the
trombone as it was usually played, with the slide being the important
part; he could speak the language of bebop with such clarity and
precision. And everybody wanted to play trombone like that afterward.''
Mr.
Johnson, born James Louis Johnson, started his music studies on the
piano. He began listening to jazz in his early teenage years and
switched to trombone in high school. In 1941, instead of going to
college, he left Indianapolis to travel with the midwestern bands led by
Snookum Russell and Clarence Love.
Most
of his influences, he told the writer Ira Gitler in ''The Masters of
Bebop: A Listener's Guide'' (Da Capo Press), were not trombonists but
trumpeters and saxophonists like Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy
Gillespie and Charlie Parker. In transferring bebop to the trombone, he
used a clean, dry tone and short notes. He was often wrongly assumed to
be playing the valve trombone, which allows easier articulation than the
slide trombone. He did acknowledge the influence of Fred Beckett, a
trombonist who played with Harlan Leonard and Lionel Hampton in the
1930's and 40's. Leonard, Mr. Johnson once explained, ''was the first
trombonist I ever heard play in a manner other than the usual sliding,
slurring, lip-trilling or gutbucket style.''
Returning
to Indianapolis for a time, he was hired by Benny Carter in 1942 and
spent three years in Carter's big band. In 1945 he joined the Count
Basie Orchestra for a short period before becoming a bandleader in his
own right.
For
the next nine years Mr. Johnson balanced his bandleading career with
jobs as a sideman, playing with Parker, Gillespie, Illinois Jacquet,
Woody Herman, Miles Davis and others. But the work wasn't enough to
support a family, so Mr. Johnson, ever curious about electronic
equipment, took a two-year job with the Sperry Gyroscope Company as a
blueprint inspector.
In
1954 the Savoy label decided to record him and the trombonist Kai
Winding in a double-trombone front line, a format that proved to be a
hit. Jay & Kai, their band, allowed Mr. Johnson to quit his day job
and was one of jazz's most popular acts until it disbanded in 1956.
Mr.
Johnson was an admirer of Hindemith, Stravinsky and Ravel, and after
his part in the famous ''Birth of the Cool'' nonet recordings of 1949
with Davis and Gil Evans, he soon got involved in the new large-ensemble
jazz as a composer. His first large-scale work was the four-part ''Poem
for Brass,'' included on Columbia's ''Music for Brass'' album of 1956, a
sort of recorded manifesto of the Third Stream movement, conducted by
Gunther Schuller.
He
wrote two pieces commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1959:
''El Camino Real'' and ''Sketch for Trombone and Orchestra.'' And
Gillespie, after hearing ''Poem for Brass,'' asked Mr. Johnson to write
him a whole album's worth of music in a similar style. The result was
''Perceptions,'' a 1961 35-minute suite including six trumpets, four
French horns and two harps.
From
1967 to 1976, Mr. Johnson barely recorded, devoting his energy to
composing. In 1967, through the help of the film composer Elmer
Bernstein, he got a job as staff composer and conductor for M.B.A. Music
in New York, a company that provided music for television commercials.
He moved to Los Angeles in 1970, writing and orchestrating music for
films like ''Barefoot in the Park,'' ''Scarface,'' ''Trouble Man'' and
''Sea of Love.''
Despite
his prolific career as a composer, Mr. Johnson's skill as a trombonist
did not dull, even into his 60's and 70's. He was a firm believer in
practicing every day, and his strength is fully evident in
''Quintergy'' and ''Standards,'' albums recorded live at the Village
Vanguard in 1988.
In
the 1990's, under contract with the Verve label, Mr. Johnson created
some ambitious recordings, including ''Tangence,'' a collaboration with
the arranger and film composer Robert Farnon; ''The Brass Orchestra,''
which presented music ranging from bebop to selections from
''Perceptions''; and ''Heroes,'' an innovative straight-ahead jazz
sextet album.
Mr.
Johnson returned to Indianapolis with his first wife, Vivian, in 1987
and finally retired from public performance in 1997, refusing to play
when he wasn't in top form. He had survived prostate cancer and spent
much of his spare time in his home studio, mastering the new hard-drive
technology for composing and recording.
He
is survived by his second wife, Carolyn; two sons, Kevin and William,
both of Indianapolis; a stepdaughter, Mikita Sanders, of Indianapolis; a
granddaughter; a stepgranddaughter; and a sister, Rosemary Belcher of
Denver.
THE MUSIC OF J.J. JOHNSON: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH J.J. JOHNSON:
JJ Johnson-Blue Trombone 1957 -
J. J. Johnson - J Is for Jazz ( Full Album ) -
J.J. Johnson - Laura -
J.J. Johnson - J.J. 's Broadway ( Full Album )
J J Johnson Quartet - Blue Trombone -
JJ Johnson - Greatest Hits (Full Album - THE BEST OF JAZZ)
J.J. Johnson - Live at the Bohemia ( Full Album )
JJ Johnson - Jazz Quintets ( Full Album)
J.J. Johnson - Groovin' -
J.J. Johnson - It's Only A Paper Moon
JJ Johnson – Standards - Live At The Village Vanguard -
J.J. Johnson Quintet - Solar
JJ Johnson - The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson Volume 1
Jay - JJ Johnson Trombone Solo Transcription
JJ Johnson-" Satin Doll" - YouTube
J.J. Johnson-"Minor Blues" - YouTube
J.J. Johnson-"My Favorite Things" -
JJ Johnson - Blues Waltz -
jj johnson & company - Lament -
GET HAPPY / THE EMINENT J.J.Johnson with Clifford Brown -
jj johnson & company - Lament
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._J._Johnson
James Louis Johnson (January 22, 1924 – February 4, 2001)[1] was an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.
Johnson was one of the earliest trombonists to embrace bebop.[2]
After leaving Basie in 1946 to play in small bebop bands in New York clubs, Johnson toured in 1947 with Illinois Jacquet. During this period he also began recording as a leader of small groups featuring Max Roach, Sonny Stitt and Bud Powell. He performed with Charlie Parker at the 17 December 1947 Dial Records session following Parker's release from Camarillo State Mental Hospital.[5]
In 1951, with bassist Oscar Pettiford and trumpeter Howard McGhee, Johnson toured the military camps of Japan and Korea before returning to the United States and taking a day job as a blueprint inspector. Johnson admitted later he was still thinking of nothing but music during that time, and indeed, his classic Blue Note Records recordings as both a leader and with Miles Davis date from this period. Johnson's compositions "Enigma" and "Kelo" were recorded by Davis for Blue Note and Johnson was part of the Davis studio session band that recorded the jazz classic Walkin' (1954).
This period overlaps with the beginnings of Johnson's serious forays into Third Stream music (see below). Periods of writing and recording his music would alternate with tours demanding attention to his playing.
Following the six months he spent writing Perceptions (see below), Johnson entered the studio for a date with André Previn's trio (adding Johnson as the only horn). They recorded an entire album of the music of Kurt Weill. The inventive arrangements and inspired playing of both stars on Andre Previn and J.J. Johnson Play 'Mack The Knife' and Other Kurt Weill Songs bore out the producer's foresight, yet this recording was not released on CD until after his death. In 1962 Johnson toured for a number of months with Davis' sextet of that year, which went unrecorded.
Johnson's 1963 solo album J. J.'s Broadway is an example of both his mature trombone style and sound, and his arranging abilities. 1964 saw the recording of his last working band for a period of over 20 years – Proof Positive. Beginning in 1965 Johnson recorded a number of large group studio albums under his name, featuring many of his own compositions and arrangements. The late 1960s saw a radical downturn in the fortunes of many jazz musicians and Johnson was consequently heard almost exclusively on big band-style studio records, usually backing a single soloist.
While touring Japan in December 1988, Johnson learned that his wife Vivian had suffered a bad stroke, which incapacitated her for her remaining three and a half years of life. During this period Johnson cancelled all work, devoting his energy to caring for his ailing wife. After her death in 1991, he dedicated an album to her on Concord. A year later the former Carolyn Reid became his second wife, and Johnson began actively performing once again. Following this second comeback in 1992, Johnson's contracts with a variety of record labels, including Verve and Antilles, resulted in five albums as a leader, from small groups to separate brass orchestra and string orchestra recordings, as well as sideman appearances with his leading disciple, trombonist Steve Turre, and the vocalist Abbey Lincoln. He earned several Grammy nominations during this period. He retired from active performing and touring in late 1996, after having performed his last concert at William Paterson College on November 10, 1996, then choosing to stay at his home in Indianapolis where he could indulge his passion of composing and arranging music with computers and MIDI.
Later diagnosed with prostate cancer, Johnson maintained a positive outlook and underwent treatment. He wrote a book of original exercises and études for jazz musicians, published later by Hal Leonard. A biography, titled The Musical World of J. J. Johnson, was published in 2000. On February 4, 2001, he took his own life by shooting himself.[6] His funeral in Indianapolis drew jazz musicians, friends and family from around the country.
The two-trombone jazz combo setup pioneered by Johnson and Winding has been imitated by more recent trombonists, with such combinations as Jim Pugh/Dave Taylor, Conrad Herwig/Steve Davis, and Michael Davis/Bill Reichenbach.
Several of Johnson's compositions, including "Wee Dot", "Lament", and "Enigma" have become jazz standards.
From the mid-1950s on, Johnson was a perennial polling favorite in jazz circles, even winning "Trombonist of the Year" in Down Beat magazine during years he was not active. He was voted into the Down Beat Hall of Fame in 1995.
J. J. Johnson
J.J. JOHNSON
(1924-2001)
Johnson was one of the earliest trombonists to embrace bebop.[2]
Biography
Big bands
After studying the piano beginning at age 9, Johnson decided to play trombone at the age of 14. In 1941, he began his professional career with Clarence Love, and then played with Snookum Russell in 1942. In Russell's band he met the trumpeter Fats Navarro, who influenced him to play in the style of the tenor saxophonist Lester Young. Johnson played in Benny Carter's orchestra between 1942 and 1945, and made his first recordings in 1942 under Carter's leadership, recording his first solo (on Love for Sale) in October 1943. In 1944, he took part in the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concert, presented in Los Angeles and organized by Norman Granz.[3] In 1945 he joined the big band of Count Basie, touring and recording with him until 1946.
Bebop
While the trombone was featured prominently in dixieland and swing music, it fell out of favor among bebop musicians, largely because instruments with valves and keys (trumpet, saxophone) were believed to be more suited to bebop's often rapid tempos and demand for technical mastery. In 1946, bebop co-inventor Dizzy Gillespie encouraged the young trombonist's development with the comment, "I've always known that the trombone could be played different, that somebody'd catch on one of these days. Man, you're elected."[4]
After leaving Basie in 1946 to play in small bebop bands in New York clubs, Johnson toured in 1947 with Illinois Jacquet. During this period he also began recording as a leader of small groups featuring Max Roach, Sonny Stitt and Bud Powell. He performed with Charlie Parker at the 17 December 1947 Dial Records session following Parker's release from Camarillo State Mental Hospital.[5]
In 1951, with bassist Oscar Pettiford and trumpeter Howard McGhee, Johnson toured the military camps of Japan and Korea before returning to the United States and taking a day job as a blueprint inspector. Johnson admitted later he was still thinking of nothing but music during that time, and indeed, his classic Blue Note Records recordings as both a leader and with Miles Davis date from this period. Johnson's compositions "Enigma" and "Kelo" were recorded by Davis for Blue Note and Johnson was part of the Davis studio session band that recorded the jazz classic Walkin' (1954).
Jay and Kai
In 1954 producer Ozzie Cadena, then with Savoy Records, convinced Johnson to set up a combo with trombonist Kai Winding: the "Jay and Kai Quintet". The trombone styles and personalities of the two musicians, although very different, blended so well[2] that the pairing, which lasted until August 1956, was a huge success both musically and commercially. They toured U.S. nightclubs constantly and recorded numerous albums before parting amicably, satisfied that they had fully explored (and exploited) their novel group. The duo reunited again in 1958 for a tour of the UK, an Impulse! studio album in 1960 and in 1968–1969 (two albums for CTI/A&M Records). In January 1967, Johnson and Winding were in an all-star line-up (alongside the likes of Clark Terry, Charlie Shavers and Joe Newman) backing Sarah Vaughan on her last sessions for Mercury Records, released as the album Sassy Swings Again, with three of the cuts, including Billy Strayhorn's "Take the "A" Train", being arranged by Johnson himself. The duo also made some jazz festival appearances in Japan in the early 1980s, the last shortly before Winding died in May 1983.
Solo success
Following the mid-1950s collaboration with Winding, J. J. Johnson began leading his own touring small groups for about 3 years, covering the United States, United Kingdom and Scandinavia. These groups (ranging from quartets to sextets) included tenor saxophonists Bobby Jaspar and Clifford Jordan, cornetist Nat Adderley, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, pianists Tommy Flanagan and Cedar Walton, and drummers Elvin Jones, Albert "Tootie" Heath, and Roach. In 1957, he recorded the quartet albums First Place and Blue Trombone, with Flanagan, Paul Chambers and Roach. He also toured with the Jazz at the Philharmonic show in 1957 and 1960, the first tour yielding a live album featuring Johnson and tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. In 1958–59 Johnson was one of three plaintiffs in a court case which hastened the abolition of the cabaret card system.[4]
This period overlaps with the beginnings of Johnson's serious forays into Third Stream music (see below). Periods of writing and recording his music would alternate with tours demanding attention to his playing.
Following the six months he spent writing Perceptions (see below), Johnson entered the studio for a date with André Previn's trio (adding Johnson as the only horn). They recorded an entire album of the music of Kurt Weill. The inventive arrangements and inspired playing of both stars on Andre Previn and J.J. Johnson Play 'Mack The Knife' and Other Kurt Weill Songs bore out the producer's foresight, yet this recording was not released on CD until after his death. In 1962 Johnson toured for a number of months with Davis' sextet of that year, which went unrecorded.
Johnson's 1963 solo album J. J.'s Broadway is an example of both his mature trombone style and sound, and his arranging abilities. 1964 saw the recording of his last working band for a period of over 20 years – Proof Positive. Beginning in 1965 Johnson recorded a number of large group studio albums under his name, featuring many of his own compositions and arrangements. The late 1960s saw a radical downturn in the fortunes of many jazz musicians and Johnson was consequently heard almost exclusively on big band-style studio records, usually backing a single soloist.
The composer
From the mid-1950s, but especially the early 1960s on, Johnson dedicated more and more time to composition. He became an active contributor to the Third Stream movement in jazz, (which included such other musicians as Gunther Schuller and John Lewis), and wrote a number of large-scale works which incorporated elements of both classical and jazz music. He contributed his Poem for Brass to a Third Stream compilation titled "Music for Brass" in 1957, and composed a number of original works which were performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1961, he composed a suite in six movements, titled Perceptions, with Gillespie as soloist. The First International Jazz Festival, held in Washington, D.C. in 1962, featured another extended work. In 1965 he spent time in Vienna to perform and record his Euro Suite with a jazz-classical fusion orchestra led by Friedrich Gulda. In 1968, a Johnson work titled "Diversions" was commissioned by the American Wind Symphony and performed.
Hollywood
Johnson moved to California to compose for cinema and television. During this period, he played almost no concerts, except in 1977 and 1982 in Japan, and in 1984 in Europe. Despite the low profile, he did record six albums as a leader between 1977 and 1984 (including a 1984 trombone duo album with Al Grey) and a few albums as a sideman, two with Basie, and on The Sting II soundtrack. During the California period he also played in the Cocoanut Grove orchestra of Sammy Davis, Jr. and the TV orchestra of Carol Burnett.
Return to performing
Johnson returned to performing and recording in November 1987, with an engagement at the Village Vanguard in New York City. Tours of the United States, Europe and Japan followed as well as a return engagement to the Vanguard in July 1988 which yielded two albums worth of material.
While touring Japan in December 1988, Johnson learned that his wife Vivian had suffered a bad stroke, which incapacitated her for her remaining three and a half years of life. During this period Johnson cancelled all work, devoting his energy to caring for his ailing wife. After her death in 1991, he dedicated an album to her on Concord. A year later the former Carolyn Reid became his second wife, and Johnson began actively performing once again. Following this second comeback in 1992, Johnson's contracts with a variety of record labels, including Verve and Antilles, resulted in five albums as a leader, from small groups to separate brass orchestra and string orchestra recordings, as well as sideman appearances with his leading disciple, trombonist Steve Turre, and the vocalist Abbey Lincoln. He earned several Grammy nominations during this period. He retired from active performing and touring in late 1996, after having performed his last concert at William Paterson College on November 10, 1996, then choosing to stay at his home in Indianapolis where he could indulge his passion of composing and arranging music with computers and MIDI.
Later diagnosed with prostate cancer, Johnson maintained a positive outlook and underwent treatment. He wrote a book of original exercises and études for jazz musicians, published later by Hal Leonard. A biography, titled The Musical World of J. J. Johnson, was published in 2000. On February 4, 2001, he took his own life by shooting himself.[6] His funeral in Indianapolis drew jazz musicians, friends and family from around the country.
Material loss
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed J. J. Johnson among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.[7]
Influence
Johnson's work in the 1940s and 1950s demonstrated that the slide trombone could be played in the bebop style; as trombonist Steve Turre has summarized, "J. J. did for the trombone what Charlie Parker did for the saxophone. And all of us that are playing today wouldn't be playing the way we're playing if it wasn't for what he did. And not only, of course, is he the master of the trombone—the definitive master of this century—but, as a composer and arranger, he is in the top shelf as well."[8]
The two-trombone jazz combo setup pioneered by Johnson and Winding has been imitated by more recent trombonists, with such combinations as Jim Pugh/Dave Taylor, Conrad Herwig/Steve Davis, and Michael Davis/Bill Reichenbach.
Several of Johnson's compositions, including "Wee Dot", "Lament", and "Enigma" have become jazz standards.
From the mid-1950s on, Johnson was a perennial polling favorite in jazz circles, even winning "Trombonist of the Year" in Down Beat magazine during years he was not active. He was voted into the Down Beat Hall of Fame in 1995.
Discography
Bibliography
- The Musical World of J. J. Johnson by Joshua Berrett and Louis G. Bourgois (Rowman & Littlefield). ISBN 0-8108-3648-3
- Exercises and Etudes for the Jazz Instrumentalist by J. J. Johnson (Hal Leonard Corporation, February 1, 2002). ISBN 0-634-02120-6
References
- Fordham, John (7 February 2001). "Obituary: JJ Johnson". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
- Berendt, Joachim E (1976). The Jazz Book. Paladin. pp. 196–198.
- Trombone.org
- Scharmer, Victor (2004-03-04). "The Musical World Of J.J. Johnson". All About Jazz. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
- Russell, Ross (1976). Bird Lives!. Quartet. pp. 252–253. ISBN 0-7043-3094-6.
- "Premier Exponent of Jazz Trombone". The Scotsman. 2001. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
- Rosen, Jody (June 25, 2019). "Here Are Hundreds More Artists Whose Tapes Were Destroyed in the UMG Fire". The New York Times. Retrieved June 28, 2019.
- Bernotas, Bob (1994). "An Interview with Steve Turre". Online Trombone Journal. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
External links
- A tribute page on www.trombone.org with links to numerous interviews
- An article on a very busy month early in Johnson's career- December, 1947
- video of J. J. Johnson, Sonny Stitt and Howard McGhee on "Now's The Time" on YouTube
- video of J. J. Johnson and Jamey Aebersold on "Just Friends" on YouTube
- Album cover gallery
- An obituary on The Dead Musician Directory
- J. J. Johnson at Find a Grave
- "The Incredible Kai Winding, His Official Site" – has some photos of J.J. and information on the music partnership between J. J. and Kai, as well as a pictorial discography on their recordings.
- J. J. Johnson at Trombone Page of the World
- J. J. Johnson on IMDb
