Jay Jay Johnson - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Biography

Full orchestras

After, as of 9 years, having studied the Piano, it began the Trombone at the 14 years age. It started its professional path at the sides of Clarence Love in 1941, then of Snookum Russel in 1942. At this last, it met the Trompettiste Fats Navarro which influenced it towards a play pointing out that of the Saxophoniste tenor Lester Young. He played in the orchestra of Benny Carter of 1942 with 1945 then, between 1945 and 1946, joined with New York that of Count Basie, which recorded one of these compositions. In 1944, it took part in the round Jazz At the Philharmonic of Norman Granz.

The Bebop

In 1946, it left Basie to turn to the small formations of the Bebop incipient at the sides, inter alia, of max Roach, Illinois Jacquet, Sony Stitt, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Woody Hermann and Dizzy Gillespie. Its incredible dexterity to handle the slide - the legend affirms that much, by hearing it, believed that he played of the valve trombone - contributed to make accept the instrument in this kind with the very fast tempos. In 1951, it left with the bass player Oscar Pettiford for a round in the military camps the Japan and Korea, before leaving first once the musical career.

Jay and Kai

It returned in 1954, when the producer Ozzie Cadena persuaded it to assemble a quintet with the Danish trombonist Kai Winding: the “ Jay and Kai quintet ”. Sonorities of the two musicians, although very different, being combined sumptuously, this unit, which will perdura until in 1956, was a musical and commercial real success. The duet was reformed in 1960 and 1968. Meanwhile, Jay Jay occurred in small formations around the Hard bop.

The type-setter

Starting from the Years 1960, Jay Jay Johnson was devoted more and more to the composition and directed various units. At that time, he wrote his three more famous compositions: Spangles , Enigma and Kelo . In 1961, it composed for Dizzy Gillespie Perception , a continuation in six movements. It still recorded many albums as a soloist, occurred with the whole of Miles Davis in 1961, Bobby Jaspar in 1964 and the same year, left in tounée to the Japan and Europe with Sony Stitt.

In 1970, Quincy Jones the convainquit to settle in California to compose for the Cinema and the Television, which it did while writing inter alia the musics of the films Cleopatra Jones and Top off the heap , as well as televised series Starsky and Hutch , Mike Hammer and the man who was worth three billion . Its investment in the composition was made with the detriment its appearances on scene, even if one could still see it in 1977 with the Japan, in 1984 in Europe, in a round with the the United States which finished at the Vanguard Village in 1987, then with Paris in 1993. In 1997, reached of a Cancer of the prostate, it gave up the trombone definitively, continuing to devote itself exclusively to the composition.