Sy Johnson

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sy Johnson (born April 15, 1930 in New Haven , Connecticut ) is an American pianist and arranger of modern jazz .

Live and act

Johnson played jazz in high school and later studied music. He then moved to Los Angeles and worked there as a freelance arranger, a. a. with Paul Bley and Ornette Coleman . In 1960 he played in New York for two weeks in the band of Charles Mingus . During this time he also had his own trio, played with the octet by Rod Levitt and accompanied the singer Yolande Bavan .

From 1971 to 1978 Johnson worked again for Mingus' smaller formations ( Changes Two , 1974) and his big band projects, such as the 1971 Columbia album Let My Children Hear Music , on which James Moody , Charles McPherson and Julius Watkins also participated. At that time, in order to write the arrangement for the composition " The Shoes of Fisherman's Wife are Some Jive Ass Slippers ", Johnson had to listen to the original recording from the record Music Written for Monterey ... from 1965, since no more notes were available. transcribe it and re-orchestrate it. However, according to Mingus biographers Horst Weber and Gerd Filtgen, the band leader did not honor his achievements in the best “Mingus spirit” because he wanted to see “Orchestration by Charles Mingus” on the album cover without mentioning Johnson's considerable arrangement. In 1972 he was responsible for the arrangements for the Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert concert .

He also worked for the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Big Band and for Quincy Jones . From 1975 to 1979 he wrote arrangements for Lee Konitz 's nine-piece ensemble and played the piano. In 1984 he worked on the musical concept for the film Cotton Club . In addition to his work as a musician and arranger, Johnson also worked as a journalist and photographer.

literature