J.J. Johnson - "Willie Dynamite" (1974)

more previews further down ...

This one's been out on the blogosphere before, but I wanted to get a good quality vinyl rip out there - the arrangements on this soundtrack album are fantastic, particularly the percussion. So upgrade your files and enjoy ...

I also wanted to have a general look through J.J. Johnson's 70s film and TV soundtrack work as a composer and arranger, in order to fill in the 1971-1977 funky gap in his AMG discography.

THE COMPOSER

It was perhaps inevitable that trombonist/composer/arranger J.J. Johnson would end up doing film soundtracks at some stage, given the breadth of the orchestral colours he'd previously explored, both in his own compositions and in other ensembles. Born in 1924, Johnson was on board for Miles Davis' pivotal "Birth Of The Cool" period from the late 1940s, both in the studio and live, as well as many other bands. His trombone style was regarded as having redefined the use of the instrument in bebop, much as Charlie Parker is seen as having redefined the alto saxaphone, or Hendrix the guitar.

After beginning his work as a leader by recording several jazz quintet dates in the mid-1940s, he went on to record some 70 albums as a leader - such as "The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson" (1953) and "Live at Café Bohemia" (1957) - not to mention hundreds of albums as a sideman. In the late 1940s he formed a recording and performing partnership with fellow trombonist Kai Winding, which lasted on and off for several decades on albums like "Jay and Kai" (1954-57), "Nuf Said" (1955), "The Great Kai and J.J." (1960) and the CTI album "Israel" (1967) featuring Herbie Hancock and others.

At the same time, he was exploring orchestral arrangement and composition in pieces like his "Poem for Brass" in 1956, and Dizzy Gillespie's "Perceptions" (1961), a six-movement suite for "brass choir", percussion and harps which references classical structures. Some of the muted brass and harp sequences in the latter work can be seen as precursors of his later film soundtrack work.

THE SOUNDTRACKS

In 1965, Johnson played trombone on the soundtrack for Quincy Jones' "The Pawnbroker" followed by Sonny Rollins' "Alfie" in 1966. In 1967, film composer Elmer Bernstein got Johnson a job as the staff conductor and composer at MBA Music in New York, where he mainly composed TV commercials.

In 1969, after Johnson had worked on his album "Walking In Space", Quincy Jones convinced him to make a move from New York to California, and to try his hand at film composing. He completed one more album - "Stonebone" with Kai Winding, featuring Herbie Hancock on electric keyboards - then headed west.

After scoring some episodes of 'The Mod Squad' and "Barefoot in the Park" for TV, Johnson's first feature film scoring job came in 1971, when he did string and horn arrangements on the track “Walk from Regio’s” on Isaac Hayes' "Shaft".

His first full soundtrack, still under the 'supervision' of Quincy Jones, was "Man and Boy" in 1971 . Set in the early 19th century, it's about Bill Cosby and son trying to find a stolen horse. Johnson responded with a predominantly Ennio Morricone-influenced harmonica and tremelo guitar lineup, though the occasional funky beat creeps in. Bill Withers guests on vocals on one track.

1972's "Across 110th St" was a shared affair with vocalist Bobby Womack, notable for the superb title track - written by Womack and Johnson - that was recycled on Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown" 20 years later. Elsewhere, Johnson's mixing a southern-funk base with brass that touches on both bigband and classic Quincy Jones, supplemented by some tight clavinet ("Harlem Clavinette") and rhodes ("Harlem Love Theme"). Story : Two New York City cops go after amateur crooks who are trying to rip off the Mafia and start a gang war.

Also in the same year, Johnson arranged the percussion-driven "T Stands for Trouble" on Marvin Gaye's superb "Trouble Man" album, which along with Hayes' "Shaft" and Mayfield's "Superfly" stands as one of the templates for the blaxploitation sound - muted brass backing lead saxaphones, upfront percussion and minor string arrangements. The track was later sampled by both Brand Nubian and Ice Cube. If you check the above youtube preview of the track, you can hear Johnsons' signature complex, hard-hitting conga lines that he developed on his 70s soundtracks.

review - review - video torrent/stills

Written, produced, directed by and starring "Shaft" sidekick Christopher St John, "Top Of The Heap" (1972) (new link to DVD rip) concerns a black beat cop who is disgruntled with his life, family, job and his white superiors. He begins daydreaming about being an astronaut forced to fake a moon landing for a NASA photo-opportunity. 

Johnson stretches out with a larger orchestral palette in 'Cleopatra Jones' from 1973, particularly with his string work on tracks like "The Wrecking Yard" and "Airport Flight", and continues the big-band funk in tracks like "Go Chase Cleo". There's a great low-key rhodes number called "Emdee", and the requisite soul-funk tracks are provided by vocalists Joe Simon and Millie Jackson. Jackson was perhaps the only vocalist who could have matched the swagger of action star / model Tamara Dobson.

In 1973, Johnson composed the score for Don Medford's "The Fuzz Brothers", starring Louis Gossett Jr. The movie was a pilot for a TV series - two black police officers, who happen to be brothers, battle crime in a run-down section of Los Angeles.

Later in the year, Johnson composed music (alongside Benny Golson and Dave Grusin) for a short-lived TV series called "Roll Out", a comedy that examined race relations through the eyes of predominantly black World War 2 supply drivers. It's been described as a M.A.S.H. ripoff that didn't really work, and soon failed in its timeslot against the popular "Odd Couple".

WILLIE DYNAMITE (1974)

Johnson's last feature soundtrack, 1974's "Willie Dynamite", is also his most cohesive and tight. He's working with a stripped-back ensemble, with a soul-jazz band punctuated by the usual great brass arrangements, upfront percussion - who is that conga player? - and some great rhodes and hammond work. It's carefully arranged, yet still has the air of a live band.

"Willie Chase" starts with some standard blaxploitation brass stabs that sit on a driving conga line, before building up into a brass tour-de-force and going out on a great band workout, complete with rhodes solo over a cowbell-led percussion section. "Willie Escapes" is another good variation of this.

"Passion's Dilemma" is an uptempo number with a flute melody giving way to the rhodes as it builds up; and "Make It Right" is a low-key piece with flute and harmonica working over rhodes and organ.

The Martha Reeves songs - often written or co-written by the film's director Gilbert Moses III - are also a notch up from the standard blaxploitation vocal tracks - with "Willie D"; "King Midas" and "Keep On Movin' On" all holding their own as soul songs outside of the film context. Arrangements on these last two were by Dale Oehler, who produced most of Bobby Hutcherson's 70s output, and had worked alongside Johnson on "Trouble Man"

Poster boy for the fur industry

TELEVISION

"Willie Dynamite" was Johnson's last major film scoring job, though he continued to work in television until the end of the decade. He was never the main composer on any of the TV shows, instead becoming more of an incidental music "episode composer" in various science fiction and police shows, while others like Oliver Nelson usually had the main show credits.

He scored a few episodes each in TV series like 'The Six Million Dollar Man', 'The Bionic Woman', 'The Bionic Boy' (!), 'Starsky and Hutch', 'Buck Rogers In the 25th Century' and 'Future Cop' (can I hear his trombone in that last theme?).

After searching out all of the particular TV episodes that Johnson actually scored - yes, this how I spend my weekends - I found three on youtube :

Starsky and Hutch : THE BAIT episode (1975)

Our fearless fighters are chased by the cops, giving Johnson yet another opportunity to score a chase scene.

The Bionic Woman : KILL OSCAR episode (1976) 

Some good horror stings from Johnson as the dreaded FEMBOTS are exposed! "Kill Oscar" was a special three-episode storyline for which Johnson also composed a new one-off theme over the opening credits.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century : OLYMPIAD episode (1980)

A not-to-be-missed disco scene. Also check this great episode preview.

THE COMPOSER RE-EMERGES

Although I don't have an actual quote from J.J. Johnson himself, one of his biographies alludes to his belief that "racism and other prejudices kept a black jazz musician such as himself from securing the amount and quality of work he was qualified to perform" within the Hollywood system. Unfortunately, there are echoes of these same problems in quotes from fellow film composer Todd Cochran some thirty years later ...

As his film composition career petered out, Johnson began to record and perform again, with "The Yokohama Concert" in 1977 being his first non-soundtrack release in eight years. He went on to record another 17 albums as a leader, including "Standards: Live at the Village Vanguard" (1988) , "Tangence" (1994) and "The Brass Orchestra" (1996).

Sadly, Johnson became ill with prostate cancer in the late 90s, and took his own life in 2001.

WILLIE DYNAMITE (1974)

TRACKLIST

01. 'Willie D' (4:11)
02. 'Willie Chase (Instrumental)' (3:05)
03. 'King Midas' (4:51)
04. 'Willie Escapes' (Instrumental) (3:00)
05. 'Passion's Dilemma' (Instrumental) (3:01)
06. 'Keep On Movin' On' (3:36)
07. 'Make It Right' (2:58)
08. 'Parade Strut' (Instrumental) (2:35)
09. 'Gospel Family' (1:37)
10. 'Willie D' (2:49)

Tracks 2, 4, 5, 7-9 written by J.J. Johnson
Tracks 1, 10 written by j.J. Johnson and Gilbert Moses III
Tracks 3, 6 writtem by Gilbert Moses III

MUSICIANS
Vocals - Martha Reeves & The Sweet Things (tracks 1, 3, 6, 10)
Keyboards (Solo) - Ian Underwood , Pete Jolly (track 9)
Harmonica - Tom Morgan (track 7)

PRODUCTION DETAILS
MCA Records # 393
Released 1974
Arrangements on tracks 3, 6 by Dale Oehler
Engineer - Ami Hadani , Eddie Brackett
Executive Producer - Gil Rodin
Producer, Conductor, Composed By, Written-By - J.J. Johnson

POST CREDITS
Vinyl rip by Simon666 to WAV and MP3 @ 320kbps

Other albums linked in this post are at :
blaxploitation pride, dexondaz, zona de jazz, call it anything, speaker mix, produto di-gestivo, that would be an ecunemical matter, funky disposition, and regalame esta noche.

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DOWNLOADS

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