Budd Johnson

Albert J. " Budd " Johnson ( born December 14, 1910 in Dallas, Texas, † October 20, 1984 in Kansas City, Missouri ) was an American jazz saxophonist and clarinetist and arranger. He is not to be confused with the jazz and rhythm and blues pianist Buddy Johnson.

Life and work

Before he switched to tenor saxophone in 1926, he played piano and was from 1924 already active as a drummer. In the 1920s he appeared in Texas and the Midwest (Kansas City ), among others, Jesse Stone, in Grant Moore and his New Orleans Black Devils and in the band of George E. Lee, the brother of Julia Lee, on. In the 1930s he played with Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy, led a band with Teddy Wilson and went in 1933 with this and his trombonist brother Frederick ( 1908-1967 ), called keg, the Louis Armstrong band, with he also made ​​recordings.

Budd Johnson is known primarily for his time with Earl Hines (1934-1942), he brought together in the early 1940s with " modern" ( bop ) and musicians with whom he also arranged. In 1938, he also played with Fletcher Henderson. Johnson was also one of the bebop pioneers of the "first - Bop Sessions" with Coleman Hawkins and Dizzy Gillespie in 1944 helped organize. And he played in almost all the major bands of the early modern jazz ( Billy Eckstine, Boyd Raeburn - for this he arranged only -, Earl Hines, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman), where he arranged partially. He also starred in the 1940s with Sy Oliver and Buddy Rich.

In the 1950s he had his own band and worked as a studio musician and Musical Director for Atlantic Records. He arranged early rock ' n ' roll pieces, such as the tenor saxophone solo is in Ruth Brown's hit Teardrops from My Eyes by him. From 1956 to 1957 he was with Benny Goodman ( Asia Tour ) 1959 Gil Evans (eg on the album Out of the Cool 1960), from 1959 to 1961 in the Quincy Jones Big Band, from 1961 to 1962 with Count Basie, 1964 to 1969 he played regularly in a quartet of Earl Hines ( inter alia on the USSR Tour 1966). 1969 to 1975 he played with the JPJ Quartet (Bill Pemberton ( bass), Dill Jones ( piano ), Oliver Jackson ( drums) ). His style, he adapted again and again, such as in the 1960s to that of the dominant John Coltrane. In 1975 he worked with the New York Jazz Repertory Orchestra ( a repertory project of the Smithsonian Institution ). From 1979 he worked at Tribute concerts of the Kool Jazz Festival. A few months before his death, he still recorded an album with Phil Woods. In the 1970s, he also taught.

He was inducted into the Big Band Hall of Fame in 1993.

Discography (selection)

• Gil Evans: Great Jazz Standards (Pacific, 1959), Out of the Cool 1960
• Budd Johnson And The Four Brass Giants, Fantasy / Prestige, 1960 ( with Ray Nance, Clark Terry, Nat Adderley, Harry Sweets Edison )
• Let's Swing, Fantasy / Prestige 1960
• The Old Dude and the Fundance Kid ( Uptown 1984) with Phil Woods