Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Speakeasies to Symphonies: The Jazz Genius of James P. Johnson

Speakeasies to Symphonies: The Jazz Genius of James P. Johnson

Brown, Scott E.

Hardcover

Series: American Made Music

Biographies GeneralMusiciansBlack American Studies

ISBN10: 1496857526
ISBN13: 9781496857521
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: Dec 3 2025
Pages: 480
Weight: 1.87
Height: 1.19 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
James P. Johnson (1894-1955) is one of the most important figures in twentieth-century American music. However, few people other than scholars and serious fans know of his life and work. Rare jazz aficionados know him as the Father of Harlem Stride piano but his other monumental contributions to American music are seldom acknowledged. Speakeasies to Symphonies: The Jazz Genius of James P. Johnson seeks to rectify this.

Johnson, born in New Jersey, absorbed many musical elements in his youth, especially the African American culture of the Southeastern Seaboard, to create a new musical and rhythmic force for jazz, musical theater, and symphonic music. Johnson's career stretched from the early 1910s to the early 1950s. His heyday was the 1920s--the decade known for the Jazz Age, the Harlem Renaissance, rent parties, classic blues singers, the first golden age of Broadway and the Great American Songbook, and, perhaps most notably, the worldwide music and dance phenomenon the Charleston. Johnson not only composed the signature tune that has come to define the decade but was a critical part of the other seminal cornerstones of American music.

Speakeasies to Symphonies presents a detailed portrait of Johnson's life, music, teachers, associates, protégés, and activity right up to his death. Scott E. Brown explores primary sources previously unavailable, including Johnson's personal papers, to fill in many gaps and answer lingering questions in his biography, painting a complete picture of his essential legacy.

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