1939-1945

Abstract

Abstract In The Closing months of 1939, James P. John¬ son, only forty-eight years old but now referred to as “the old master” and “the gargoyle of the keyboard,” was still appearing in New York and “still rules at the keyboard.”1 He had a week’s solo spot at Cafe Society, where he was followed by Stuff Smith and the Slam Stewart Trio. Marlowe Morris was playing piano at Kelly’s. Clarence Profit was working with his own trio and in September was rumored to be Goodman’s choice to replace Teddy Wilson with the Goodman Trio. Wilson had recently left Goodman to organize his own big band. A week later it was Mary Lou Williams who was “slated to join the Goodman Quartet,” but only a week after that she was criticized for the fact that she “like Teddy Wilson-perhaps following him-has given up that simple, powerful style, in favor of a characteristically delicate, decorative way of playing.” (“Delicate” and “decorative” were negative terms for some jazz critics, as Bill Evans was to discover later.)