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Marvin Johnson

Title: Complete Recordings 1946-1951

Label: Blue Moon

Cat No:BMCD6050
Format:CD

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Discovery Records
specialist music - mail order

In the post war period there were many fine but underrated small jump bands plying their trade on the West Coast and alto sax player and vocalist Marvin Johnson led one such combo. This is the music that brought both white and black Angelenos through the doors of the bars and clubs of Southwest LA, which boasted a thriving musical nightlife, though not always a safe one. In 1947 the famous conductor Otto Klemperer was mugged after visiting a jazz club in the neighbourhood and police, looking for marijuana, weapons and contraband, raided several nightspots including the Café Zombie, where Marvin Johnson’s band would often play late night gigs.

These recordings, made both under Johnson’s name and as session group accompanying singers like Jesse Cryor, highlight their full range of blues, ballads, jump jive and humour. The disc also has five tracks from the whistling spoons player Brother Bones backed up by the Johnson band, including his version of Sweet Georgia Brown which became the Harlem Globetrotters’ theme tune and gave Bones (Freeman Davis) an enduring career in showbiz.

Reviews

Blues & Rhythm - Byron Foulger

Marvin Johnson's small jump combo band was one of many similar bands that were active on the West Coast in the late forties and into the fifties.

Juke Blues - Ian Jones

Alto Sax man Marvin Johnson made relatively few records of his own and they have a jazzy R&B flavour. They're all here as are those tracks where he and his band support singer Jess Cryor.

Discovery catalogue available for
Marvin Johnson

Complete Recordings 1946-1951