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Donald Macleod journeys through Johnson’s early career when he wanted to become a tickler - a ragtime saloon pianist.

James P Johnson is known as the Father of Stride Piano, and composed the most iconic work that captures the essence of the Roaring Twenties, the Charleston. Both pianist and composer, he not only wrote jazz but also music for theatrical shows, symphonic works and opera too. He performed alongside jazz greats such as Fats Waller, Willie the Lion Smith and Sidney Bechet, and also collaborated with George Gershwin as well. Johnson was an early pioneer in the recording industry, and made many studio recordings as a soloist and with his own jazz band. Yet despite all of this, his name has been largely forgotten today. One possible reason for this is that being a transitional figure between ragtime and jazz, he’s been hard to categorise. Each day in this series, Donald Macleod will explore a period in Johnson’s life where Johnson strove to achieve a different role: recording artist, theatre composer, performer and teacher, and also a tickler - a ragtime saloon pianist.

James P Johnson was born in the 1890s, although the exact date is uncertain. Music played an important part in his life from the off, as his mother played the piano, and he’d creep down stairs late at night as a child to hear the musical house parties his parents hosted. As he grew up, he’d often play music on the street, performing songs he’d picked up hanging around the doors of saloons. His ambition was to become a tickler, a ragtime piano player who performed inside clubs. What he was maybe unaware of was that these venues also offered gambling, drugs, and prostitution. His family moved to New York where Johnson got to hear symphonic music for the first time. This made a big impression on him. Soon he’d drop out of school altogether to pursue a career as a musician, performing at the piano in clubs, accompanying cinema screenings, and starting to write his own music.

Charleston
The Temperance Seven

Carolina Shout
James P. Johnson, piano

Fascination
James P. Johnson, piano

Concerto Jazz A Mine
Leslie Stifelman, piano
The Concordia Orchestra
Marin Alsop, conductor

Caprice Rag
James P. Johnson, piano

Empty Bed Blues
Bessie Smith, vocals
Charlie Green, trombone
Porter Grainger, piano

Daintiness Rag
James P. Johnson, piano

Twilight Rag
James P. Johnson, piano
E. E. Wilson, piano

Steeplechase Rag
Dick Hyman Jazz Band

Johnson & Irving Mills
There’s No Two Ways About Love
Lena Horne, vocals
Studio Orchestra
Alfred Newman, conductor

Johnson
My Sweet Hunk O’Trash
Billie Holiday, vocals
Louis Armstrong, vocals
Sy Oliver’s Orchestra

Produced by Luke Whitlock, for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Wales