Artist: JJ Johnson
JJ Johnson was an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.
Johnson was one of the earliest trombonists to embrace bebop. While the trombone was featured prominently in dixieland and swing music, it fell out of favor among bebop musicians, largely because instruments with valves and keys (trumpet, saxophone) were believed to be more suited to bebop's often rapid tempos and demand for technical mastery.
In 1941, he began his professional career with Clarence Love, and then played with Snookum Russell in 1942. In Russell's band, he met the trumpeter Fats Navarro, who influenced him to play in the style of the tenor saxophonist Lester Young. Johnson played in Benny Carter's orchestra between 1942 and 1945.
Johnson toured with Illinois Jacquet in 1947. During that period, he also began recording as a leader of small groups featuring Max Roach, Sonny Stitt and Bud Powell.
In 1954, producer Ozzie Cadena, then with Savoy Records, convinced Johnson to set up a combo with trombonist Kai Winding: the "Jay and Kai Quintet". The trombone styles and personalities of the two musicians, although very different, blended so well that the pairing, which lasted until August 1956, was a success both musically and commercially. They toured U.S. nightclubs and recorded numerous albums.
He became an active contributor to the Third Stream movement in jazz, (which included such other musicians as Gunther Schuller and John Lewis), and wrote large-scale works which incorporated elements of both classical music and jazz. He contributed his "Poem for Brass" to a Third Stream compilation titled Music for Brass in 1957, and composed a number of original works which were performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Johnson's work in the 1940s and 1950s demonstrated that the slide trombone could be played in the bebop style; as trombonist Steve Turre has summarized, "J. J. did for the trombone what Charlie Parker did for the saxophone. And all of us that are playing today wouldn't be playing the way we're playing if it wasn't for what he did. And not only, of course, is he the master of the trombone—the definitive master of this century—but, as a composer and arranger, he is in the top shelf as well."
Several of Johnson's compositions, including "Wee Dot", "Lament", and "Enigma" have become jazz standards.
Further information about JJ Johnson is found here and here.
This content was excerpted from the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._J._Johnson, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
Concord Jazz Festival '91 / J.J.JOHNSON QUARTET / Confirmation
JJ Johnson: Videos
J.J. Johnson Quintet - Blue Bossa - U. Jazz 1993
J. J. Johnson - Like Someone In Love