Friday, December 19, 2008

AllAboutJazz.com: Keith Ingham 'says James P. Johnson was the best of the stride-style pianists'

[Victory Stride: The Symphonic Music of James P. Johnson; The Concordia Orchestra; Marin Alsop, Conductor; Music Masters 67140 (1994)]

AllAboutJazz.com
Published December 19, 2008 
By Simon Jay Harper 
“As a pianist, Ingham was keen to discuss some of the piano legends of jazz, in particular the names from the first fifty or sixty years of the music. James P Johnson was a pianist that Duke Ellington learned from, by placing his hands over the keys raised up and down by the piano rolls he inserted into the player piano machines of the day. Johnson's most influential record was the famous 'Carolina Shout.' Ingham says Johnson was the best of the stride-style pianists of that era, and was, in the words of Duke Ellington, 'pure magic.'" [Full Post] 

James Price Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey on February 1, 1894. His biography is James P. Johnson: A Case of Mistaken Identity by Scott E. Brown. Brown also wrote the liner notes for the CD Victory Stride: The Symphonic Music of James P. Johnson, Music Masters 67140 (1994). The biographer writes that Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody was the first work to bring to life Johnson's dream of being a serious composer: “The foreword to 'Yamekraw' describes the intent of the work as 'A genuine Negro treatise on spiritual, syncopated and “blue” melodies by James P. Johnson, expressing the religious fervor and happy moods of the natives of Yamekraw, a Negro settlement situated on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia.” “'Yamekraw' was the first realization of Johnson's desire to be considered a serious composer.” James Price Johnson died in New York City on Nov. 17, 1955 after suffering his eighth stroke at home. Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington and James Price Johnson are among 52 Black composers and musicians who are profiled at AfriClassical.com
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