1944 was a rather busy year for pianist James P. Johnson (1894-1955). Johnson, if not the first (although he was the earliest on records), was certainly the definitive stride pianist of the 1920s. A brilliant player who was a major influence on his contemporaries and the generation to follow, Johnson is today often thought primarily as the inspiration for his protégé Fats Waller. However as a pianist and a songwriter (including “The Charleston,” “If I Could Be With You,” and “Old Fashioned Love”), Johnson had few if any peers in his early days.
During much of the 1930s, Johnson devoted a lot of his time to writing extended orchestral works that unfortunately were not recorded and are now lost. By 1938 he was performing much more in public again although a stroke kept him out of action during part of 1940-42. He was quite active during the remainder of the 1940s until a major stroke in 1951 forced his retirement.
In 1944 James P. Johnson led two all-star septet sessions for Blue Note, and a quintet date for the Asch label, accompanied Katherine Handy on six songs composed by her father W.C. Handy, was on a V-disc session led by Eddie Condon, guested on five of Condon’s Town Hall radio concerts, and recorded with the Will Bradley/Yank Lawson All-Stars, Sidney DeParis’ Blue Note Jazzmen, Max Kaminsky, and clarinetist Rod Cless. He also recorded a solo piano version of his extended work “Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody.”
In addition, for a tribute to the late Fats Waller, Johnson not only recorded seven Waller-associated songs plus his own “Keeping Out Of Mischief Now” as piano solos on April 12 & 20 but remade the same eight songs as duets with drummer Eddie Dougherty on June 8 & 28. He also recorded piano solo versions of eight of his own songs on Aug. 15 and Sept. 22. The 24 performances were originally released by the Decca label.
But that was not all. The 23 selections on James P. Johnson’s World Broadcast Recordings (Solo Art) have never been released for sale before. Originally made to be played on the radio, these recordings were performed on June 8, 1944 (six piano solos), June 28 (eight piano solos), Sept. 15 (six duets with Dougherty), and Sept. 22 (three piano solos). Oddly enough , the first 14 piano solos were performed on the same days as Johnson’s Decca duets with the drummer.
All of the World Broadcast Recordings are songs that Johnson also recorded for Decca that year. In fact, these remakes include 15 of the 16 individual tunes (all but “Over The Bars”) with eight of the songs being performed twice. Johnson often had worked-out routines on how he performed his repertoire, but not always. In some cases, these performances are quite fresh, and even the more familiar choruses are worth hearing again. Dougherty, a fine supportive drummer, decades later wondered why he was hired for the duets because Johnson certainly could keep the rhythm steady without any assistance. However his playing adds a bit of variety to the music.
80 years after the fact, it is rewarding to hear some “new” James P. Johnson performances.
James P. Johnson
World Broadcast Recordings
Solo Art SACD-175
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