It was me, or maybe Fats (Waller), who sat down to warm up the piano. After that, James took over. Then you got real invention - magic, sheer magic." DUKE ELLINGTON.

 

JAMES P. JOHNSON, February 1, 1894 - November 17, 1955.

"It was me, or maybe Fats (Waller), who sat down to warm up the piano. After that, James took over. Then you got real invention - magic, sheer magic." DUKE ELLINGTON.

https://youtu.be/mGmAVncq3QU

Mule Walk Stomp (1944)

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nSFGyipsNsg&fbclid=IwAR36eAs4jKB20-Cf-ZOum-H_BFg05ccKCXDUsrAU5u8oVvfbc3QQ6BYxUVw

Carolina Shout

From "Music Is My Mistress", by Duke Ellington :

 "My first encounter with James was through the piano rolls, the Q.R.S.  rolls. Percy Johnson, a drummer in Washington who told me about them,  took me home with him, and played me 'Carolina Shout'. He said I ought  to learn it. So how I was going to do it, I wanted to know. He showed me  the way. We slowed the machine and then I could follow the keys going  down. I learned it !

 And how I learned it ! I nursed it, rehearsed  it ... Yes, this was the most solid foundation for me. I got hold of  some of his other rolls, and they helped with styling, but 'Carolina  Shout' became my party piece.

 Then James came to Washington to play  Convention Hall. It holds maybe four or five thousand people. I was  always a terrific listener. I'm taller on one side than the other from  leaning over the piano, listening. This time I listened all night long.  After a while my local following started agitating.

 'You got to get up there and play that piece,' they said. 'Go on ! get up there and cut him !'

 So, you know, I had to get up on there and play it.

 'Hey, you play that good,' James said. We were friends then, and I  wanted the privilege of showing him around town, showing him the spots,  introducing him to my pals, the best bootleggers, and so on. That,  naturally, meant more leaning on the piano. Afterwards, we were fast  friends, and James never forgot.

 Later, when I showed up in New  York, I found him there, and I met Lippy, too. Lippy was his dear  friend, his pal - his agent, you'd have said, except he never took that  10 percent. James was doing pretty good. He'd written the show Running  Wild - not the tune but the show - and that's where 'Charleston' was  born. So he wasn't hungry. But he never lost contact with his  foundations, with the real, wonderful people in Harlem. Harlem had its  own rich, special folklore, totally unrelated to the South or anywhere  else. It's gone now, but it was tremendous then.

So there in that atmosphere I became one of the close disciples of the  James P. Johnson style. Some nights we'd wind up - James, Fats Waller,  Sonny Greer, and I - and go down to Mexico's to hear The Lion. I was  working and would buy a drink. Tricky Sam had likely stayed up all night  to help make it. Tricky was Mexico's official taster. So we would sit  around, and during intermission I would move over to the piano. Then it  would be Fats. Perharps he'd play 'Ivie' ( he dedicated that to Ivie  Anderson, I think ). Afterwards, he'd look over his shoulder jovially at  James and call, 'Come on, take the next chorus !' Before you knew it,  James had played about thirty choruses, each one different, each one  with a different theme.

 By then The Lion would be stirred up. James  had moved into his territory and was challenging. 'Get up and I'll show  you how it's supposed to be done,' he'd say. Then, one after the other,  over and over again they'd play, and it seemed as though you never heard  the same note twice.

 James, for me, was more than the beginning. He  went right on up to the top. You know, he ordinarily played the most,  and in competition a little bit more. You couldn't say he cut The Lion.  It was never to the blood. With those two giants it was always a  sporting event. Neither cut the other. They were above that. They had  too much respect or each other. They played some impossible things, toe  to toe, a saber in each hand - en garde !

 Other times, Lippy and the  bunch would get together, get James cornered, find a taxi, or maybe  walk over to someone's house, and ring the bell. This would be 3 or 4  A.M. People stuck their heads out of windows, ready to throw a pot (  flowerpot, maybe ).

 'Who's that down there ?' they'd growl.

 'This is Lippy,' the answer would be. 'I got James with me.'

 Those doors flew open. Lights switched on. Cupboards emptied, and  everybody took a little taste. Then it was me, or maybe Fats, who sat  down to warm up the piano. After that, James took over. Then you got  real invention - magic, sheer magic.

 James he was to his friends - just James, not Jimmy, nor James P. There never was another."