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James Price Johnson - February 1, 1894 - November 17, 1955 American Pianist And Composer - "Father of Stride Piano" |
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James P. Johnson was born in New Brunswick, NJ on February 1, 1894. His parents had migrated north from Virginia and brought with them a lively parlor dance called The Ring Shout. Eight-year-old James sat at the top of the stairs absorbing...To read more, Click Here. Excerpt from
James P. Johnson - A Case Of Mistaken Identity |
The "greatest hit" of 20th century popular music was not the creation of Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees or even the Beatles. Anyone with a sense of history will realize that the once-ubiquitous dance tune called the "Charleston" fueled a craze that has never been matched. The creator of this one-tune soundtrack to the roaring twenties was a man named James P. Johnson. Johnson was no mere tunesmith but rather a creative genius who gave birth to a keyboard-bending genre known as "stride piano." But Johnson's story didn't end there. Later in his career, he created full-scale symphonic works of jazz, the first orchestral pieces created by an African-American. But this achievement did not bring Johnson lasting fame, partially because he hid the scores...To read more, Click Here. From James
P. Johnson: A Composer Rescued, |
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James P. Johnson was
an important transitional figure
between ragtime and jazz piano styles. His style became known as Stride.
As a boy, Johnson studied Classical music and Ragtime. He started
playing professionally in a sporting house, and then progressed to
rent parties, bars and vaudeville. He eventually became known as the
best piano player on the East Coast and was widely utilized as an
accompanist on over 400 recordings and from 1916 on, produced hundreds
of piano rolls under his own name. He backed up many of the Classic
Blues singers of the 1920s, such as Ida Cox, Ethel Waters and Bessie
Smith. Johnson's 1921 recording of Carolina Shout is considered to
be the first recorded Jazz piano solo by some critics, although it
sounds a lot like Ragtime to this listener's ears.
Click Here to read the rest of this article, and for a full catalogue of the works accredited to James P. Johnson. Provided by:
Source for contribution above: http://www.redhotjazz.com/jpjohnson.htm |
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