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J.J. Johnson
January 22 marks the birthdate of J.J. Johnson, the most influential trombonist in jazz history.
Johnson's professional career stretched from the swing era, through the bebop revolution, and into the jazz-classical crossover movement known as the Third Stream. Equally wide-ranging and significant were Johnson's musical associations, a who's who of modern jazz that included Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Benny Carter, Stan Getz, and many others.
"It was profound, the way J.J. played, it was profound," says trombonist Steve Turre. "Just like the way Coltrane played, it went to the deepest source. Things like that, you can't really define them with words."
With an astonishingly clean, sharp tone, Johnson, essentially single-handedly, brought the trombone into the technically-demanding bebop arena, and erased popular notions of the instrument as a playful, even clownish novelty.
"J.J. did for the trombone what Charlie Parker did for the saxophone," continues Turre. "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."
1924 - 2001
Photo by Freddie Warren
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Artist, Teacher, Innovator, Gentleman
Jazz Photgraphy
Photo of J.J. Johnson by Bob Parent
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