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Donald Macleod traces James P. Johnson’s career as a highly successful studio artist.

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.

During the late 1920s and into the 1930s, James P Johnson clocked up an impressive sixty recording sessions cutting piano rolls, recording in studio as a soloist, leading bands and accompanying singers. It’s a period when the record industry was booming. Johnson regularly recorded with Ethel Waters and the Queen of the Blues, Bessie Smith. The recordings he made demonstrate Johnson’s indisputable prowess as a pianist, and also as a shrewd businessman pursuing the changing market away from live performances towards the studio. He also took the opportunity to compose and record some more experimental works, including Riffs, and You’ve Got to Be Modernistic. Meanwhile in the orchestral pit, conducting musical theatre, he was considered something of a showman.

Stop That Dog
Marty Grosz and the Hot Winds

Lock and Key
Bessie Smith, vocals
James P. Johnson, piano

Sweet Mistreater
Bessie Smith, vocals
James P. Johnson, piano

Don’t Cry Baby
Bessie Smith, vocals
James P. Johnson, piano

Riffs
James P. Johnson, piano

You’ve Got to be Modernistic
Jimmie Johnson and His Orchestra

Sippi
Marty Grosz and the Hot Winds

Charleston
Frederick Boothe, tap dancer
Leslie Stifelman, piano
The Concordia Orchestra
Marin Alsop, conductor

American Symphonic Suite
The Concordia Orchestra
Marin Alsop, conductor

Put Your Mind Right On It
Jimmy Johnson and His Band

Go Harlem
Chick Webb and His Orchestra

A Porter’s Love Song to a Chambermaid
Pearl Bailey, vocals
Studio orchestra

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