[78-L] Some thoughts on J.J.Johnson

[David Lewis]

I'm always ready to listen to J.J. I agree that his concert music is very important; I once looked it up and Johnson is the mostprolific of all the MJQ composers, even more so than Gunther Schuller himself. "Poem for Brass" is a great piece and I look forward to hearing the others. We are in a unique position of being able to hear virtually every note of the major jazz cats without making much effort in termsof locating and consuming the recordings. The only major jazz cats who did not have off days as far as we're concerned are theones who did not make enough records to have their off days recorded. Herschel Evans perhaps belongs in that camp, whereasCharlie Parker himself is decidedly proof of the other. I'm not calling to mind the Parker date to which you refer, Julian, but you could be quite right about it. I think the Connie's Innband of Fletcher Henderson was one of the greatest swing bands ever. But the trumpet solo that opens Crown 3107, "SomebodyStole My Gal," is vacat; whomever it is (maybe Rex Stewart?) has no lip left and piddles out a few notes here and there tryingto get something out, totally failing to do so. This was take 3, and you've got to wonder why Obie didn't try takes 1 or 2, butperhaps they were even worse. With J.J. I'm usually a pretty happy camper; my father played the trombone and I have a real ear for the instrument. That said,what I am most unhappy about in J.J.'s output are those duets with Kai Winding for A&M; they are commercial, uninteresting andbland. Kai probably could've made them on his own, overdubbed, but they had to have J.J. there for the name value and the relative success of duets that they had made earlier for other labels. But this does not turn me off J.J., nor does it tempt me todiagnose possible shortcomings in his playing. I just know now to avoid that stuff. I would have loved to have met J.J. and wouldhave preferred almost any ending to his story to the one that he had.

Uncle Dave Lewis
uncledavelewis at hotmail.com