1943 - November 17

 James P. Johnson – November 17, 1943 

 

Richard Havers – Uncompromising Expression 

In November 1943, James P. Johnson and Edmond Hall recorded at WOR Studios at 1440 Broadway, near Times Square. Johnson, who came from Harlem, had made his first piano rolls in 1916. He later backed Bessie Smith, and also mentored the young Thomas Waller, who became known to the world as ‘Fats’.

 

Michael Cuscuna Blue Note Photos – Francis Wolff   

Shifting their sessions to WOR Studios, which like many New York studios was a radio station with extra studios that they rented out. 

Richard Cook - Blue Note Records: The Biography – Secker and Warburg 2001

This fresh start took place at a problematic moment in the recording industry's progress. The big-band business was being hurt by the war: a cabaret tax made booking orchestras expensive, and the rise of radio brought fears that live music was being further affected. In 1942, the AFM, the union of musicians, began talking to the major record companies about paying royalties to the union on every disc sold. When there was little progress, the AFM instigated a ban on all instrumental recording from 1 August. It was to last for nearly two years, but Blue Note came to an agreement with the union in 1943 and was able to stage a return to business when they wanted. They also opened a bigger office at an address which vinyl collectors revere to this day: 767 Lexington Avenue, the first 'proper' Blue Note headquarters, which features as a byline on the label of all the most sought-after Blue Note ten- and twelve-inch LPs.  
 

Robert Hilbert - The Complete Edmond Hall / James P. Johnson / Sidney DeParis / Vic Dickenson Blue Note Sessions  

As one of the first who wrought ragtime into jazz, Johnson’s role as a major transitional figure has been eclipsed in jazz lore by Jelly Roll Morton, the man who claimed to have “invented” jazz.  James P.’s piano style, which became known as Harlem stride piano, is much closer to a pure jazz style while Morton’s retains more of the distinctive ragtime feeling. 

Probably his most influential composition was “Carolina Shout,” derived from the ring shouts he had heard as a child from his mother. He first cut a piano roll of it in 1917, when he was 23 years old. The composition was markedly different from ragtime and caused a sensation with many young jazz pianists. 

James P. reappeared on the scene as an “historical” figure in John Hammond’s famous “Spirituals to Swing” concerts in 1938 and 1939.  In 1940 at the age of 46 he suffered the first of a series of several strokes, but they did not seem to impair his keyboard techniques. By that time, a revival of interest in early jazz and especially figures from its history like New Orleans trumpet player Bunk Johnson (no relation) was underway. White “dixieland” and what came to be known as mainstream jazz was being recorded aby small independent companies such as Commodore, and a few years later, by Blue Note. Slowly at first, Johnson began performing again as a sideman and soloist at some of the jazz spots on “Swing Street.” In 1943 he resumed his recording career with a series for Asch and then launched into the[se] brilliant Blue Note recordings. 

Max Margulis – Blue Note 24, 25, 26, 27 Marketing Brochure 

NOW that for more than a decade jazz has been moving toward abstractness, and concerning itself with generating sheer excitement, we encounter fewer and fewer musicians who think and feel in terms of its traditional language. Only rarely, indeed, does a musician of the stature of Meade “Lux” Lewis appear to reaffirm the values of jazz expression by remaking those values. Lewis contributes an authentic contemporary note which crystallizes our view of jazz as a living organism, a historical artistic and social manifestation. 

James P. Johnson is another such musician whose work advances our own view of the significant continuity of jazz. Although Johnson has had renown as a pianist for about thirty years, he has had to be rediscovered. This is not surprising, since like Lewis, he cannot be pigeonholed according to the working standards which apply to practically all jazz pianists today. 

Aspects of Johnson’s style have been absorbed by pianists of considerable ability, including in particular the late Fats Waller; but the impulse which characterizes his music is complex and peculiarly his own. This impulse has led to audacious exploration and extensive discovery in the piano field, freeing new areas of sensibility. 

Of the eight 12-inch piano solos listed above, the rapid pieces have a pure dance character so rhythmically patterned and contoured that they have hardly any suggestion of vocal style, while the two poignant blues pieces are exquisite with fingered intervals and rich passing harmonies. The selections are all rooted in modes of feeling that were intensely felt in the comparatively remote past of jazz, Johnson has brought to them the seriousness, dignity, and critical consciousness that define total art. He has brought, moreover, a technical equipment so dazzling and resourceful, so erudite, and so tastefully utilized, that it has no equal in our day.  

 

Downbeat – 15 March 1944 – Volume 11 Issue 18 

If possible, these are even finer than other James P. numbers recently issued. Back Water is a downright wicked blues, Carolina not so lowdown but just as effective. The four remaining sides furnish a perfect composite, superb cross-section of the solo piano, representing the various forms and styles employed by hot pianists of today and yesterday.  

Carlton Brown - November 23 1943 - “Pic” Magazine 

“Boogie woogie” has been a household word for some time now, but it’s probably still a rare household that possesses any of the authentic stuff on records. This style of piano playing has been counterfeited by every swing-band pianist in the country, but almost the only men who really have the hips to swing it are the three who first brought it from the obscurity of Chicago honky-tonks. They are given plenty of room to demonstrate their superiority on three 12-inch Blue Note records. “Honky Tonk Train Blues” “Tell Your Story,” by Meade “Lux” Lewis (B.N, No.15). “Boogie Woogie Stomp” “Boogie Woogie Blues” by Albert Ammons (B.N, No 2), and “Holler Stomp” “You Don’t Know My Mind,” by Pete Johnson (B.N, No 12). The discs are available, at $1.50 each, at the Commodore Music Shop, 136 East 42nd Street, N.Y.C. Enough said. 

Session Information 

James P. Johnson, piano. 

WOR Studios, NYC, November 17, 1943 

 

BN777 J.P. Boogie, Blue Note 24

BN778 Back Water Blues, Blue Note 25, BLP 7011  

BN779 Carolina Balmoral, Blue Note 24, BLP 7011

BN780 Gut Stomp, Blue Note 24, BLP 7011