"Rent Party" to Raise Funds for James P. Johnson Monument

Hi, all!  I was as surprised as anyone else to learn that "The Father
of Stride Piano," James Price Johnson, has lain in an unmarked grave
in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Queens, New York, since his death in 1955.
Recently the James P. Johnson Foundation for Music and the Arts,
Riverside, California, has begun the project of raising the funds for
a proper monument for the grave of this great pianist and composer.

Johnson, as most of the readers of MMD are aware, was the composer
of the theme song of the 1920s, "The Charleston", and such standards
as "Old Fashioned Love", "If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight",
"Porter's Love Song to a Chambermaid", and many hundreds of other
tunes.

He also composed large-scale works such as "Yamekraw: A Negro
Rhapsody", "Harlem Symphony", "Jazz-O-Mine Concerto", two one-act
operas, entitled "The Dreamy Kid" (based on a one-act play by Eugene
O'Neill) and "De Organizer", with libretto by Langston Hughes. In
addition he composed many piano pieces such as "Carolina Shout"
(learned from his 1921 QRS piano roll by many later-famous pianists
as Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Cliff Jackson, etc., etc.), "Keep Off
the Grass", "Harlem Strut", "You've Got To Be Modernistic", "Jingles",
"Steeplechase Rag", "Caprice Rag", and dozens of others.

Of particular interest to MMD's readers are the 75 player piano
rolls Johnson made between 1917 and 1927 for Aeolian's various labels,
Perfection, Artempo, and most famously, QRS.  Johnson made rolls for
QRS exclusively after 1921, and his photograph was front and center
in the August 1923 "Announcement!" advertisement that QRS ran in the
African-American press, indicating his status among the New York
pianists of the period.  Many of Johnson's rolls, especially among
his early ones, were of his own compositions, both rags and pop tunes.

Johnson's 1921 phonograph recordings of his "Carolina Shout" and "Keep
Off the Grass" on the Okeh label have been called the first jazz piano
solos on record by some.  The record of "Carolina Shout" makes a
fascinating comparison with the 1918 and 1921 rolls of the piece that
Johnson made for Artempo and QRS, respectively.  MMD's august editor,
Robbie Rhodes, noted, "For example, the phono records display a light,
precise touch at breakneck tempi which I haven't yet heard reproduced
in a piano roll."

Johnson's life and work formed the topic of one full-length work,
"James P. Johnson: A Case of Mistaken Identity" by Scott Brown
(Scarecrow Press and the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University,
Metuchen, NJ,  1986).  Dr. Brown is presently occupied with an
extensive revision and expansion of this work.

Dr. Brown was also instrumental in spearheading the drive to raise
funds for the monument, along with Spike Wilner, of Small's Jazz Club
in Manhattan.  Today (4 October 2009) Small's hosted an all-day event
to raise funds for this worthy cause, at which such luminaries as Mike
Lipskin, Wilner, and Dick Hyman played tributes to the great James P.
The entire event was streamed live (video) on Small's web site, at
http://www.smallsjazzclub.com/  They often archive such video, so if
you take a look in the next few days, you may be able to listen to some
of these performances.  (Hyman's performance of "Yamekraw", in a solo
piano version, was a highlight.)

The James P. Johnson Foundation has put up a web page where you can make
a contribution to the headstone fund, at http://www.jamespjohnson.org/ 
either under "Donate" or "Events", via PayPal.  One can either use an
existing PayPal account or a credit card.  The James P. Johnson
Foundation, with which I am affiliated, thanks you for your support of
this worthy cause.

We hope that Johnson's grave soon can join Scott Joplin's grave, which
is 4 miles north of Johnson's burial site, in the dignity of having an
appropriate monument.  (Joplin's grave only received a marker only in
1974, when Joplin had died in 1917.)

Very best regards,
Bob Pinsker
San Diego, Calif.