Search - James Johnson :: Harlem Stride Piano 1921-1929

James P. Johnson was a key musician among those synthesizing a jazz piano style out of the elements of ragtime in the early decades of the century; he also played a part in the rise of the Charleston dance craze. In Harlem in the 1920s, he reigned supreme as the king of the rent-party pianists, and the creative exuberance of that world comes through as authentically as it possibly can in these ancient recordings. An informal teacher of Fats Waller and Duke Ellington, Johnson was an absolute master of the stride technique of alternating bass notes and chords in the left hand, building tremendous energy with shifting syncopations. "Charleston (South Carolina)" is heard in a piano roll version, while there are both solo piano and band versions of Johnson's masterpiece "Carolina Stomp." The sound quality improves as the decade progresses, and the CD concludes with a lively band number featuring Johnson and Waller both playing piano in a group that included King Oliver. --Stuart Broomer