JAMES P JOHNSON t: Jazz CD Reviews - 2021 MusicWeb International

CD 1 (1917-1944)
1. Carolina Shout
2. Over The Bars (piano roll)
3. Bleeding Hearted Blues (pre-electric)
4. Preachin’ The Blues
5. Backwater Blues
6. Snowy Morning Blues
7. Willow Tree
8. Chicago Blues
9. My Handy Man
10. Daylight Savin’ Blues
11. Riffs
12. You’ve Got To Be Modernistic
13. Jingles
14. Dinah
15. Everybody Loves My Baby
16. The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise
17. Who?
18. Stop It, Joe
19. Hungry Blues
20. If Dreams Come True
21. The Mule Walk
22. Blueberry Rhyme
23. Old-Fashioned Love
24. Swingin’ At The Lido
25. Boogie Woogie Stride
26. Blues At Blue Note

CD 2 (1943-1949)
1. Blue Note Boogie
2. Blue Mizz
3. After You’ve Gone
4. I’ve Got A Feeling I’m Falling
5. Honeysuckle Rose
6. The Boogie Dream
7. The Dream
8. Ballin’ The Jack
9. Who’s Sorry Now?
10. The Love Nest
11. Make Me A Pallet On The Floor
12. I Know That You Know
13. Keep Off The Grass
14. If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight
15. A Porter’s Love Song To A Chambermaid
16. Tishomingo Blues
17. Harlem Hotcha
18. Lorenzo’s Blues
19. Liza
20. Fast Blues
21. The Charleston
22. September Song

Personnel includes; Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Sidney Bechet, Omer Simeon, Rod Cless, Henry ‘Red’ Allen, Vic Dickenson, Edmond Hall, Max Kaminsky, Frankie Newton, Muggsy Spanier, Fats Waller, Ben Webster, Pee Wee Russell, Rosetta Crawford, Sidney De Paris

As so often with Retrospective this twofer begins in media res with a 1944 recording of James P Johnson’s solo piano performance of one the numbers most associated with him, Carolina Shout (and note its subtitle ‘fast jump’), complete with near-obligatory drummer. A number of record labels didn’t credit pianists with the ability to provide their own inbuilt rhythm, so Stride and Boogie masters were often saddled with drummers, for no good reason I can tell, as here, but it’s always fine to hear Johnson in a good sounding disc. Thenceforth we go back in time to a 1917 piano roll, one of around 55 that he made, and none of them reflective of what he really sounded like, something that is made abundantly clear in the acoustic 1923 recording he made of Bleeding Hearted Blues.

Johnson as good as codified Harlem Stride. His two-handed virtuosity, propulsive but subtly voiced, was a compendium of its devices and acted as a pivotal role model for such as his protégé Fats Waller. He was also a fine accompanist to Classic Blues singers, the most famous of whom was Bessie Smith and their coupling of Preachin’ the Blues and Backwater Blues – the latter especially important and very influential on country blues artists and Classic singers alike – is duly included. Many admirers of Early Jazz admire the Louisiana Sugar Babes, a stellar little group with Johnson, Waller, cornet player Jabbo Smith and reedman Garvin Bushell. Retrospective select Willow Tree, a fascinating gumbo with Waller’s organ and Johnson’s piano working well, and Smith muted to great effect.

A much messier band was the Gulf Coast Seven, its personnel as yet seemingly still subject to doubt. Trumpeter Louis Metcalf was always more than dependable and had good ideas; if as suggested the trombonist is Tricky Sam Nanton he seems quite subdued and if the soprano sax playing is by Johnny Hodges – cited alongside Barney Bigard as a possible reed player – he’s not at his best. We don’t hear much of Johnson on this track so it stands as representative of the kind of recording outfits he was associated with, rather than for any especial flair in his soloing.

Ethel Waters was invariably a fine purveyor of genteel filth, something she demonstrates on Andy Razaf’s My Handy Man, but the best of Johnson is when he relinquishes accompaniment or band work and plays solos. His advanced harmonies – he is becoming increasingly well-known for hos orchestral music – show how far ahead he was of most contemporaries;You’ve Got To Be Modernistic or his Stride classic Jingles for example or his great approach to the melodic and harmonic implications of Fats’ Honeysuckle Rose. But if you do want to hear what a crisp and vibrant band player he was, you could do a lot worse than listen to Dinah, with Pee Wee Russell, Max Kaminsky and Dicky Wells on board – marvellous one-man band propulsion at the keyboard but perfectly suited to the role.

Retrospective has just reissued many of Frankie Newton’s small band sessions from the years 1937-39 and here we have two titles with Johnson that show what a superb group this was, not least with the huffy-puffy and unstoppable Pete Brown hustling on alto ( The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise and Who?). Accompanying bad singers was a regrettable chore and Rosetta Crawford and Anna Robinson, in particular, are forgettable; Red Allen, normally the most effervescent of players, sounds downright bored accompanying the latter on Hungry Blues. But this was all part of a jobbing musician’s work in the studio and compensation comes in the solo Johnson – an excellent trio of solos from June 1939 is included – and when recording for Blue Note, a particularly fine source of recordings, not least when he has such high-quality players as Ben Webster, Vic Dickenson, Edmond Hall and Sid Catlett in his band.

He was popular with white bands – with players such as Max Kaminsky and that much underrated clarinettist Rod Cless and there’s an especially enjoyable couple of sides with The Carnival Three – himself, Omer Simeon (ex-Jelly Roll) and Pops Foster. They sound much bigger than a trio and it’s good to hear Simeon unfold his blues licks. There’s also a vignette from Johnson’s association with Sidney Bechet from 1947 – the indefatigable hustler Mezz Mezzrow inevitably in there as well, as part of the Bechet-Mezzrow Feetwarmers - and a final one from 1949 where they play a lovely version of Kurt Weill’s September Song. Two years later Johnson suffered a terrible stroke that ended his performing life and he died in 1955.

This great song writer, pianist, band leader, orchestrator and composer also happened to be universally acknowledged as a genuinely nice guy. He has been excellently represented in this well transferred and selected twofer, graced with Digby Fairweather’s typically insightful notes.

Jonathan Woolf


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