BUNK JOHNSON – THIS IS BUNK JOHNSON TALKING, American Music LP 643, 33 1/3 rpm, (USA), 1942

 

Rare red colored  10”vinyl

 

 

This is a spectacular vinyl. Musically. Historically.

We would like to say that this piece of vinyl is as close as you can possible get to the birth of jazz!!! Nothing else then a sensation!

Bunk Johnson, the great New Orleans trumpeter, that was ”found” after years in absence… is recorded at a little studio on Baronne Street, talking about those early years of jazz in New Orleans. Johnson is describing the time, the culture and its people and how the Jazz was actually born.

Having actually played with the legendary Buddy Bolden… Johnson is on this recording describing Boldens way of playing, the way he was phrasing…as ”makin runs”… and actually whistling (!) a whole piece in order to exemplify what he is describing.

This is complety breathtaking. You can actually understand what Johnson is talking about and this might be the only approximate example of how Bolden actually played.

There exists no recordings of Bolden what so ever. This is as close as we can get.

Goose bumbs and cold sweat dominates you… while listening to this historical document.

The music and the talks is rereleased… BUT, this is the very original pressing on red wax… made by the local Chicago label American Music. All Johnson records on American Music is worth having (and yes, they are all red, the 1st pressings), but this one, which seems to be the rarest and most uncommon is the BOMB!

The whistling of Johnson swings like mad. Like MAD! You can only smile and sit back and relax listening to this beautiful  red 10” vinyl.

Bunk also shows how, when he joined the band in 1895, he added a variety by introducing diminished chords during his cornet breaks… and the story goes on…

What is really true here, we don’t know, but we know for sure that this vinyl is a spectacular chance to get closer to core of the question… when jazz was born… what it really was….

 

Bunk Johnson: “Now here is the list about that Jazz Playing. King Bolden and myself were the first men that began playing Jazz in the city of dear old New Orleans and his band had the whole of New Orleans Real Crazy and Running Wild behind it. Now that was all you could hear in New Orleans, that King Bolden’s Band, and I was with him and that was between 1895 and 1896 and they did not have any dixie land Jazz Band in those days.”

 

Bunk Johnson – talking and whistling