James P.Johnson - The Chronological Classics, 8 Albums

One of the great jazz pianists of all time, James P. Johnson was the king of stride pianists in the 1920s. He began working in New York clubs as early as 1913 and was quickly recognized as the pacesetter. In 1917, Johnson began making piano rolls. Duke Ellington learned from these (by slowing them down to half-speed), and a few years later, Johnson became Fats Waller's teacher and inspiration. During the '20s (starting in 1921), Johnson began to record, he was the nightly star at Harlem rent parties (accompanied by Waller and Willie "The Lion" Smith) and he wrote some of his most famous compositions during this period. For the 1923 Broadway show Running Wild (one of his dozen scores), Johnson composed "The Charleston" and "Old Fashioned Love," his earlier piano feature "Carolina Shout" became the test piece for other pianists, and some of his other songs included "If I Could Be with You One Hour Tonight" and "A Porter's Love Song to a Chambermaid."

Ironically, Johnson, the most sophisticated pianist of the 1920s, was also an expert accompanist for blues singers and he starred on several memorable Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters recordings. In addition to his solo recordings, Johnson led some hot combos on records and guested with Perry Bradford and Clarence Williams; he also shared the spotlight with Fats Waller on a few occasions. Because he was very interested in writing longer works, Johnson (who had composed "Yamekraw" in 1927) spent much of the '30s working on such pieces as "Harlem Symphony," "Symphony in Brown," and a blues opera. Unfortunately much of this music has been lost through the years. Johnson, who was only semi-active as a pianist throughout much of the '30s, started recording again in 1939, often sat in with Eddie Condon, and was active in the '40s despite some minor strokes. A major stroke in 1955 finished off his career. Most of his recordings have been reissued on CD.

Tracks:



James P. Johnson - 1921-1928 {The Chronological Classics, 658}

01. The Harlem Strut (2:35)
02. Keep Of The Grass (3:15)
03. Carolina Shout (2:47)
04. Carolina Shout (3:00)
05. Dear Old Southland (3:06)
06. Bandana Days (intro. Love Will Find A Way) (2:47)
07. Weeping Blues (3:19)
08. Worried And Lonesome Blues (3:14)
09. You Can't Do What My Last Man Did (3:12)
10. Bleeding Hearted Blues (3:11)
11. Scouting Around (2:36)
12. Toddlin' (2:44)
13. All That I Had Is Gone (2:46)
14. Snowy Morning Blues (2:41)
15. All That I Had Is Gone (3:06)
16. Lucy Long (3:01)
17. Skiddle-De-Scow (2:39)
18. Can I Get It Now? (2:56)
19. What's The Use Of Being Alone? (2:37)
20. Original Bugle Blues (2:34)
21. Chicago Blues (2:43)
22. Mournful Tho'ts (2:55)



James P. Johnson - 1928-1938 {The Chronological Classics, 671}

01. Daylight Savin' Blues (2:49)
02. Georgia's Always On My Mind (2:49)
03. Riffs (3:05)
04. Feelin' Blue (2:56)
05. Put Your Mind Right On It (3:17)
06. Fare Thee Honey Blues (3:22)
07. You Don't Understand (2:56)
08. You've Got To Be Modernistic (3:04)
09. Crying For The Carolines (3:01)
10. What Is This Thing Called Love? (3:09)
11. You've Got To Be Modernistic (3:16)
12. Jingles (3:29)
13. How Could I Be Blue? (3:21)
14. I've Found A New Baby (2:54)
15. Go Harlem (3:37)
16. A Porter's Love Song (To A Chambermaid) (3:26)
17. Just A Crazy Song (Hi-Hi-Hi) (3:07)
18. Baby, Won't You Please Come Home? (2:29)
19. There'll Be Some Changes Made (trumpet version) (2:54)
20. There'll Be Some Changes Made (piano version) (3:02)
21. Horn Of Plenty Blues (Zutty's Hootie Blues) (3:02)
22. Dinah (2:42)



James P. Johnson - 1938-1942 {The Chronological Classics, 711}

01. I've Found A New Baby (2:19)
02. Everybody Loves My Baby (2:25)
03. Harlem Woogie (2:56)
04. Hungry Blues (3:04)
05. Back Water Blues (2:56)
06. He's Mine All Mine (2:47)
07. After Tonight (2:36)
08. If Dreams Come True (3:14)
09. Fascination (3:22)
10. A Flat Dream (3:14)
11. The Mule Walk (2:29)
12. Lonesome Reverie (3:18)
13. Blueberry Rhyme (3:23)
14. Memories Of You (3:06)
15. Old-Fashioned Love (3:03)
16. Swingin' At The Lido (2:22)
17. Havin' A Ball (2:57)
18. Hungry Blues (2:51)
19. Boogie Woogie Stride (3:21)
20. Impressions (3:18)
21. Snowy Morning Blues (2:45)



James P. Johnson - 1944 {The Chronological Classics, 835}

01. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter (2:32)
02. Keepin' Out of Mischief Now (2:47)
03. Squeeze Me (2:35)
04. Honeysuckle Rose (2:58)
05. I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling (3:01)
06. Honeysuckle Rose (2:44)
07. Keepin' Out of Mischief Now (2:39)
08. My Fate Is in Your Hands (3:01)
09. Hesitation Blues (3:07)
10. The Boogie Dream (3:38)
11. Four O'Clock Groove (3:49)
12. The Dream (Slow Drag) (3:57)
13. Hot Harlem (3:12)
14. Euphonic Sounds (2:46)
15. Everybody Loves My Baby (3:38)
16. Ballin' the Jack (4:47)
17. Who's Sorry Now? (4:17)
18. The Call of the Blues (4:20)


James P. Johnson - 1943-1944 {The Chronological Classics, 824}

Rich and rewarding, this collection contains one powerful Blue Note blowing session and 16 beautiful solos recorded for four different labels. Two sides waxed for Moses Asch during the summer of 1943 were unavailable for many years. This interpretation of "Snowy Morning Blues" is more relaxed and inventive than the familiar Decca version. "J.P. Boogie" takes the barrelhouse tradition by the tail, redefining an entire idiom. Moving into November, "Backwater Blues" revisits a duet that Johnson recorded with Bessie Smith back in 1927. Running at an accelerated tempo, "Carolina Balmoral" is the essence of what critics came to call stride piano. "Gut Stomp" is less frantic but just as tight. Johnson appears to have been deliberately engaged in setting down a compendium of fundamental jazz piano works for Blue Note. The session of December 15th is a perfect match for the preceding installments. "Mule Walk Stomp" is particularly joyous and the haltingly slow "Arkansas Blues" dates back to piano-roll days. "Caprice Rag," played at an insanely accelerated tempo, was published back in 1914. "Improvisations on Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" is Johnson's creative response to a popular trend. By coincidence, these four sides were recorded on the very day that Fats Waller passed away at the age of 39. Two solos recorded three days later convey Johnson's emotional state as he grieved over the loss of his good friend. "Blueberry Rhyme" is an unparalleled masterpiece of private reverie. First recorded in 1939, its reappearance on this occasion seems to indicate the intense personal nature of this delicate opus. "Blues for Fats" is like a prayer uttered in a state of numbness. James was still in shock. Beginning in April of the following year, he set out to record an extended series of piano tributes in the form of songs composed or made popular by Fats Waller. Another very constructive way to cope with such a crushing personal loss was to get busy and lead a few ensembles. The Blue Note session of March 4, 1944, resulted in four of the very best group recordings ever made by this pianist. There's no topping the front line of Ben Webster, Vic Dickenson, and Sidney DeParis, and Big Sid Catlett was exceptionally solid on that day. The slow drag "Blue Mizz" is followed by a shower of adrenaline called "Victory Stride." "Joy Mentin'" is a relaxed stroll through the blues and "After You've Gone" cooks at a rolling boil.

01. Daintiness Rag (2:06)
02. Snowy Morning Blues (3:10)
03. J.P. Boogie (3:47)
04. Backwater Blues (4:01)
05. Carolina Balmoral (3:38)
06. Gut Stomp (3:33)
07. Mule Walk (Stomp) (4:03)
08. Arkansas Blues (3:56)
09. Caprice Rag (3:17)
10. Improvisations on Pinetop's Boogie Woogie (4:03)
11. Blueberry Rhyme (2:53)
12. Blues for Fats (3:02)
13. Blue Mizz (3:53)
14. Victory Stride (4:02)
15. Joy-Mentin' (4:28)
16. After You've Gone (4:27)
17. I've Got a Feelin' I'm Fallin' (2:58)
18. My Fate Is in Your Hands (3:10)
19. Ain't Misbehavin' (2:47)
20. Blue Turning Grey over You (2:38)



James P. Johnson - 1944, Vol.2 {The Chronological Classics, 856}

This installment in the James P. Johnson chronology includes no less than eight sides featuring the clarinet of Rod Cless, who didn't live long enough to make very many recordings. The first four selections are played by Max Kaminsky & His Jazz Band, a staunch Eddie Condon group recording for Commodore Records in June of 1944. Their music is warmly reassuring. Next comes a series of gorgeous piano solos, each one precious and iridescent as lapis lazuli. In the months that followed the sudden death of his close friend and protégé Fats Waller, Johnson created a series of interpretations of songs written by Waller ("Squeeze Me") or forever linked with him ("I'm Gonna Sit Right Down"). Johnson also set down on record a marvelous catalog of his own compositions, eight of which appear on this disc. Some of these melodies date back to before the 1920s, like "Carolina Shout," which was published in 1914. The Rod Cless Quartet, a combination of Cless and Johnson with a gifted trumpeter named Sterling Bose and bassist Pops Foster, made four records that rank among the best that any of these guys ever made it onto. Bose needs his own retrospective! Hardly anybody knows anything about him. Cless was a woodwind ace who showed great promise, and would have enjoyed some measure of success during the continuation of what became known as the Dixieland revival. What a pity he fell off a balcony and never woke up. James P. Johnson, who had only three partial years of creative activity ahead of him, sounds exceptionally fine throughout this collection of essential Harlem jazz.

01. Love Nest (3:04)
02. Everybody Loves My Baby (2:31)
03. Eccentric (That Eccentric Rag) (3:06)
04. Guess Who's in Town (2:45)
05. Blue Turning Grey over You (2:53)
06. Squeeze Me (2:56)
07. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter (2:55)
08. Aint' Misbehavin' (3:05)
09. Snowy Morning Blues (2:35)
10. The Carolina Shout (2:36)
11. Keep Off the Grass (2:41)
12. Old Fashioned Love (3:14)
13. Froggy Moore (2:50)
14. Make Me a Pallet on the Floor (3:25)
15. I Know That You Know (3:01)
16. Have You Ever Felt That Way? (2:59)
17. If I Could Be with You One Hour Tonight (2:47)
18. A Porter's Love Song to a Chambermaid (2:46)
19. Over the Bars (2:29)
20. Riffs (3:11)



James P. Johnson - 1944-1945 {The Chronological Classics, 1027}

This beautifully proportioned sampling of Johnson's late recordings is instrumentally varied and covers a wide range of moods. Four jam tunes from the Blue Note catalog each exceed four minutes in duration, which was a big deal in 1944. There was no stopping a front line composed of Sidney DeParis, Vic Dickenson, and Edmond Hall. Much of the remaining material on this album was recorded by Moses Asch, and issued on LP many years later. Six songs composed by W.C. Handy are sung by his daughter, Katherine Handy, who sounds a bit like Mildred Bailey. Johnson the soloist creates what might be his most intensive improvisations on record: "Blue Moods 1," "Blue Moods 2," and "Blue Moods, Sex," amounting to just a little under 13 minutes of freely inventive piano reflections. A further 12 minutes of solo piano ensues, this time much more programmatically conceived. "Yamekraw," originally put together in 1927, was presented as "A Negro Rhapsody." "Yamecraw," to use the geographically authentic spelling, was the name of the rough-and-tumble waterfront district in Savannah, GA. Here Johnson has carefully painted an entire landscape in sound for posterity. The W.C. Handy songs, together with these nearly 26 minutes of solo piano, existed in a state of phonographic limbo for many years. The people behind the Classics reissue series are to be commended for having restored and presented these rare recordings for public perusal. Now for some finishing touches. Whether you identify them as "the Omer Simeon Trio with James P. Johnson" or as "the Carnival Three," it is entirely possible that Simeon and Johnson, in teaming up with bassist Pops Foster, made four little recordings that might be considered perfect. Perfect? What's perfect? Well, there's perfect symmetry. Simeon wrote an attractive piece of blues with Foster, and another even more haunting blues with Johnson. That makes two immaculate collaborative blues, rendered with collaborative immaculate ease. Balance them out with two lively jams -- piano, bass, and clarinet -- no drums required, no brass need apply. These were three of the greatest jazz musicians who ever lived, and on 1944-1945 they are heard expressing ideas and emotions as a unit comprised of individuals. Yet there must be an imperfection somewhere. Look carefully: "Harlem Hotcha" was composed by Johnson, to whom the discography incorrectly attributes "Bandana Days," which of course was a major hit for Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. So the discography contains one minor error (very unusual for this label) but the music, like most of James P. Johnson's work, comes very close to perfection.

01. Tishomingo Blues (4:33)
02. Walkin' the Dog (4:32)
03. Easy Rider (4:38)
04. At the Ball (4:10)
05. Yellow Dog Blues (2:59)
06. Memphis Blues (2:11)
07. Loveless Blues (2:43)
08. Chantez les bas (2:41)
09. Joe Turner Blues (3:23)
10. St. Louis Blues (3:02)
11. Blue Moods 1 (4:04)
12. Blue Moods 2 (4:22)
13. Blue Moods, Sex (4:40)
14. Yamekraw - A Negro Rhapsody - Part 1 (2:31)
15. Yamekraw - A Negro Rhapsody - Part 2 (2:51)
16. Yamekraw - A Negro Rhapsody - Part 3 (3:07)
17. Yamekraw - A Negro Rhapsody - Part 4 (3:30)
18. Lorenzo's Blues (Morning After Blues) (2:41)
19. Harlem Hotcha (2:51)
20. Bandanna Days (3:02)
21. Creole Lullaby (Peephole Blues) (3:00)




James P. Johnson - 1945-1947 {The Chronological Classics, 1059}

These are the last recordings made by James P. Johnson, accomplished composer, pianist, bandleader, and mentor to Thomas "Fats" Waller. Unlike certain other reissues, this collection presents the precious material most carefully, without a lot of excessive surface noise. Poetically speaking, "Blues for Jimmy" is a sort of self-portrait, even an open letter from Johnson to himself -- in which case, everyone ought to enjoy such a peaceful relationship with his or her doppelgänger. Musically, this little study seems at first like an imaginary sequel to Fats Waller's "London Suite," with touches of Sergei Rachmaninov in the descending runs. Specifically, "Blues for Jimmy" is a condensed version of "Jazzamine Concerto," or at least its first movement. That work appears here in a six-and-a-half-minute rendering, along with three amiable stride piano exercises. Right in the middle of the set there erupts a surprising adventure in dissonance, "Jungle Drums," reminding listeners that the piano is, after all, a percussion instrument. The main theme begins with a repeated tattoo in the basement of the keyboard. The melody itself is exciting and hints at barely tapped resources of harmonic and rhythmic innovation. The session from May of 1945 is outstanding. "Liza" has often been singled out as a glowing example of Johnson's fully mature style. "Aunt Hagar's Blues" is solid as a mountain. "The Dream" rolls off of his fingers most elegantly, its tango rhythms soothing to the nerves. "St. Louis Blues" gets the boogie-woogie treatment. "Sweet Lorraine" reveals Johnson's personality with calm, passionate dignity. There is a gap in the chronology. Having survived a debilitating stroke, Johnson rested up and was back in front of the recording microphone in February and June of 1947. "Maple Leaf Rag" has all the rambunctious anarchy of a Fats Waller solo. "Daintiness Rag" allows for one last delightful glimpse of Johnson's famous ability to exercise his powerful touch in the most delicate ways imaginable. Every part of this last solo session is executed with immaculate ease. It is apparent that James P. Johnson influenced Thomas Waller, who in turn influenced James P. Johnson. If "Ain't Cha Got Music" doesn't make the point, "I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby" certainly will. West Indian and Caribbean culture was an active component in the Harlem jazz scene. Both Willie "The Lion" Smith and James P. Johnson participated in recording dates that focused on music from the islands. The Creole Serenaders session led by Albert Nicholas was part of an interesting surge of blended New York/New Orleans traditions that found its way onto phonograph records during the years 1946 and 1947. A tasty overview of this phenomenon can be found on the CD Jazz à la Creole: The Baby Dodds Trio (GHB 50), issued in the year 2000. That disc contains a second version of "Salee Dame" that is not included on Classics 1059.

01. Blues for Jimmy (2:55)
02. Jersey Sweet (2:30)
03. Keep Movin' (3:13)
04. Jungle Drums (2:34)
05. Twilight Rag (2:35)
06. Jazzamine Concerto - Parts 1 & 2 (6:30)
07. Liza (2:50)
08. Aunt Hagar's Blues (2:16)
09. The Dream (2:15)
10. St. Louis Blues (4:02)
11. Sweet Lorraine (2:39)
12. Maple Leaf Rag (1:57)
13. Daintiness Rag (3:17)
14. Mama and Papa Blues (2:51)
15. Ain't Cha Got Music (3:31)
16. Old Fashioned Love (2:46)
17. I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby (3:07)
18. Salee Dame (3:22)
19. Mo Pas Lemme Ca (2:46)
20. Les Ognons (3:01)
21. Creole Blues (3:11)
22. Woman Blues (3:47)