Editing Bunk Johnson

{{Short description|American jazz trumpeter (1889–1949)}}
{{More citations needed|biography|date=January 2011}}

{{Infobox musical artist
| name              = Bunk Johnson
| image             = Bunk Johnson.jpg
| caption           = Johnson in 1946
| birth_name        = William Gary Johnson
| alias             = Bunk
| birth_date        = {{birth date|1889|12|27}}
| birth_place       = [[New Orleans]], [[Louisiana]], U.S.
| origin            = 
| death_date        = {{death date and age|1949|7|7|1889|12|27}}
| death_place       = [[New Iberia]], [[Louisiana]], U.S.
| genre             = [[Jazz]]
| occupation        = 
| instrument        = Trumpet
| years_active      = 1905–1931, 1942–1947
| label             = 
| past_member_of    = Bunk Johnson & His New Orleans Jazz Band, [[George Lewis (clarinetist)|George Lewis]], [[Louis Armstrong]]
}}

'''Willie Gary''' "'''Bunk'''" '''Johnson''' (December 27, 1889 – July 7, 1949)<ref name="LarkinGE">{{cite book|title=[[Encyclopedia of Popular Music|The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music]]|editor=[[Colin Larkin (writer)|Colin Larkin]]|publisher=[[Guinness Publishing]]|date=1992|edition=First|isbn=0-85112-939-0|page=1294}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2020-03-28 |title=Bunk Johnson: Profiles in Jazz - The Syncopated Times |url=https://syncopatedtimes.com/bunk-johnson-profiles-in-jazz/ |access-date=2024-12-13 |language=en-US}}</ref> was an American prominent [[jazz]] trumpeter from [[New Orleans]].

==Biography==

=== Birth ===
Johnson gave the year of his birth as 1879, although Johnson stated on his 1937 application for [[Social Security (United States)|Social Security]] that he was born on December 27, 1889<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tomko |first=Gene |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5ZKzDwAAQBAJ |title=Encyclopedia of Louisiana Musicians: Jazz, Blues, Cajun, Creole, Zydeco, Swamp Pop, and Gospel |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |year=2020 |isbn=978-0807169322 |location=Baton Rouge |pages=136–137}}</ref> and there is speculation that he may have been younger by as much as a decade. According to jazz critic [[Scott Yanow]], Johnson was probably born at the 1889 date.<ref name=":2" />

Johnson was the youngest of 14 children. He had been schooled in sight reading and improvisation by the time he began playing professionally with the Superior Orchestra and the [[The Eagle Band|Eagle Band]] in 1910. He claimed to have attended [[New Orleans University]], although no diploma from the college survives.<ref name=":2" />

===Education and early musical career===
Johnson received lessons from Adam Olivier and began playing professionally in Olivier's orchestra. Johnson probably played a few adolescent jobs with [[Buddy Bolden]], but was not a regular member of Bolden's Band (contrary to Johnson's claim). Johnson was regarded as one of the leading trumpeters in New Orleans in the years 1905–1915,<ref name="LarkinGE"/> in between repeatedly leaving the city to tour with [[minstrel show]]s and circus bands.

After he failed to appear for a [[New Orleans Mardi Gras]] parade job in 1915, he learned that [[krewe]] members intended to do him bodily harm. So he left town, touring with shows and then by the early 1920s settling in [[New Iberia, Louisiana]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/bunk-johnson|title=Bunk Johnson|work=Know Louisiana|access-date=2017-10-17|publisher=Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities at Turners' Hall|language=en-US|archive-date=2017-10-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171017154333/http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/bunk-johnson|url-status=dead}}</ref> While living in New Iberia, Johnson worked in rice mills and the public school system, and continued playing jazz, but with local groups such as the Black Eagle Band from [[Crowley, Louisiana|Crowley]] and the Banner Orchestra.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Le Menestrel |first=Sara |date=Sep 2007 |title=The Color of Music: Social Boundaries and Stereotypes in Southwest Louisiana French Music |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/220580 |journal=Southern Cultures |language=en |volume=13 |issue=3 |pages=87–105 |doi=10.1353/scu.2007.0032 |issn=1534-1488}}</ref>

In 1931, he lost his trumpet and front teeth when a fight broke out at a dance in [[Rayne, Louisiana]], putting an end to his playing.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> He thereafter worked in manual labor, occasionally giving music lessons.

===Career revival and first recordings===
In 1938 and 1939, the writers of an early jazz history book, ''[[Jazzmen]]'', interviewed several prominent musicians of the time, including [[Louis Armstrong]], [[Sidney Bechet]], and [[Clarence Williams (musician)|Clarence Williams]], who spoke highly of Johnson in the old days in New Orleans.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.redhotjazz.com/bunk.html|title=Bunk Johnson|website=Red Hot Jazz Archive|access-date=2017-10-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171014115013/http://www.redhotjazz.com/bunk.html|archive-date=2017-10-14|url-status=dead}}</ref> The writers tracked down Johnson's address, and traded several letters with him, where he recalled (and possibly embellished) his early career.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> Johnson stated that he could play again if he only had new teeth and a new trumpet.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> A collection was taken up by writers and musicians, and he was fitted with a set of dentures by Bechet's dentist brother, Leonard, and given a new trumpet.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/early-jazz-trumpet-bunk-johnson|title=An early jazz trumpet, Bunk Johnson|website=African American Registry|language=en|access-date=2017-10-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171017145707/http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/early-jazz-trumpet-bunk-johnson|archive-date=2017-10-17|url-status=dead}}</ref> He made his first recordings in 1942, for [[Jazz Man Records]].<ref name="LarkinGE"/>

[[File:SuperiorOch1910.jpg|right|thumb|The Superior Orchestra, 1910]]

===Later touring career===
These first recordings propelled Johnson (along with clarinetist [[George Lewis (clarinetist)|George Lewis]]) into public attention.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> Johnson and his band played in New Orleans, [[San Francisco, California|San Francisco]], [[Boston]], and [[New York City]] and made many more recordings. Johnson's work in the 1940s shows why he was well regarded by his fellow musicians.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> On his best days he played with great imagination, subtlety, and beauty, as well as suggesting why he had not gained prominence earlier, for he was unpredictable, temperamental, with a [[passive-aggressive]] streak and a fondness for drinking alcohol to the point of impairment.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-09-12 |title=Bunk Johnson Rare & Unissued Masters 1943-46 - The Syncopated Times |url=https://syncopatedtimes.com/bunk-johnson-rare-unissued-masters-1943-46/ |access-date=2024-02-05 |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Death===
Johnson suffered from a [[stroke]] in late 1948 and died in [[New Iberia]] the following year.<ref name=":0" />

== Legacy ==
Jazz historians have debated Johnson's legacy, and the extent to which his colorful reminiscences of his early career were accurate, misremembered, exaggerated, or untrue. Although in recent years, new evidence has appeared in jazz historian Vic Hobson's 2014 ''Creating Jazz Counterpoint. New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues'', in which is stated that Buddy Bolden's band member Willy Cornish — who is seen on the only surviving picture of the Bolden Band — affirmed Bunk Johnson as a member of the early jazz group. This puts Johnson's own statements and recordings, in which he actively recreated the Bolden tunes, in a plausible and positive light, making them of great historical and musicological importance to the study of jazz and New Orleans jazz in particular.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hobson|first=Vic|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/857288200|title=Creating jazz counterpoint : New Orleans, barbershop harmony, and the blues|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=2014|isbn=978-1-62674-025-9|location=Jackson|pages=3–5|oclc=857288200}}</ref>

His recordings have been reissued on CD.

Johnson was a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]], and as of 2019 an annual Jazz Mass and procession was conducted in his hometown of New Iberia, beginning at St Edward Catholic Church and ending at Johnson's gravesite.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Vaughn|first=Corey|date=2019-05-27|title=Mass and procession to cemetery honor Bunk Johnson|url=https://www.iberianet.com/news/mass-and-procession-to-cemetery-honor-bunk-johnson/article_5aeeeac4-8032-11e9-8077-87ff57234ba9.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-06-09|website=The Daily Iberian|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190527171822/https://www.iberianet.com/news/mass-and-procession-to-cemetery-honor-bunk-johnson/article_5aeeeac4-8032-11e9-8077-87ff57234ba9.html |archive-date=2019-05-27 }}</ref>

In about 1996, Bunk Johnson Park was dedicated to his memory in New Iberia, Louisiana. Twenty years later, in 2016, the park was dismantled due to criminal activity in the area.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.thedailyiberian.com/opinion/editorials/targeting-wrongs-at-bunk-park/article_eb68422c-f0af-11e1-b3f5-0019bb2963f4.html | title=Targeting wrongs at Bunk park | date=28 August 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.theadvertiser.com/story/entertainment/2016/06/01/bunk-back-third-and-final-fete/85045782/ | title=Bunk is back for third and final fete }}</ref>

The [[Iberia Parish Library]] hosts an archival collection of Johnson's papers and a special exhibit room for Johnson.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Crook |first=Don |date=2009 |title=The Bunk Johnson Collection |url=https://iberialibrary.org/wp/special-collections/the-bunk-johnson-collection/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928034347/https://iberialibrary.org/wp/special-collections/the-bunk-johnson-collection/ |archive-date=2023-09-28 |access-date=2024-02-20 |website=Iberia Parish Library |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Selected discography ==
===1942===
The following records were recorded June, 1942, and released on [[Jazz Man Records]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.discogs.com/label/265832-Jazz-Man-2|title=Jazz Man|website=Discogs|access-date=February 28, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.weijts.com/bj/420611.htm |first=Willem|last=Weijts|title=Bunk Johnson Discography: June 1942|website=Weijts.com|access-date=February 28, 2018}}</ref>
* "Down By The River / Panama": Jazz Man 8. Recorded in New Orleans, 1942.
* "Weary Blues / Moose March": Jazz Man 9. Recorded in New Orleans, 1942.
* "Storyville Blues / Bunk's Blues": Jazz Man 10. Recorded in New Orleans, 1942.

The following records were recorded October, 1942, and released on [[Milt Gabler]]'s Jazz Information label, distributed by [[Commodore Records]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.discogs.com/label/587067-Jazz-Information-2|title=Jazz Information (2)|website=Discogs|access-date=February 28, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.weijts.com/bj/421002.htm| first=Willem|last=Weijts|title=Bunk Johnson Discography: 1942-10-02|website=Weijts.com|access-date=February 28, 2018}}</ref>
* "Franklin Street Blues / Weary Blues": Jazz Information 12. Recorded in New Orleans, 1942.
* "Shine / Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula": Jazz Information 15. Recorded in New Orleans, 1942.
* "Sobbin' Blues No. 2 / Sometimes My Burden Is So Hard To Bear": Jazz Information 16. Recorded in New Orleans, 1942.

===American Music Records, 1943-1946===
The following records include recordings made for [[Bill Russell (composer)|Bill Russell]]'s [[American Music Records|American Music]] label between 1943 and 1946.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.discogs.com/label/243387-American-Music|website=Discogs| title=American Music|access-date=March 1, 2018}}</ref>
* ''Bunk Plays The Blues And Spirituals'': [[American Music Records|American Music]] 638 (10" LP). Recorded in New Orleans. Includes recordings by Johnson's working band (August 1944) and a brass band (May, 1945).<ref>{{cite AV media notes |title=Bunk Plays The Blues And Spirituals |publisher=[[American Music Records]] }}</ref>
* ''1944-1946'': [[American Music Records|American Music]] 644 (10" LP). Recorded in New Orleans, May 1945, and New York, June 1946. Includes recordings by Johnson's working band (1945) and a trio featuring [[Don Ewell]] (1946).
* ''New Orleans 1944'': [[American Music Records|American Music]] 647 (10" LP). Recorded in New Orleans, August 1944.
* ''Rare And Unissued Masters, Volume 1 (1943-1945)'': [[American Music Records|American Music]] AMCD-139. CD; reissued as ORG Music ORGM-2101 on LP for Record Store Day 2018. Includes further recordings by Johnson's working band (July–August 1944; May 1945) and Johnson's brass band (May, 1945); also includes duets with pianist Bertha Gonsoulin recorded in San Francisco, May 1943.<ref>{{cite AV media notes |title=Rare And Unissued Masters, Volume 1 (1943-1946) |publisher=ORG Music}}</ref>

===San Francisco, 1944===
Bunk Johnson recorded for [[Good Time Jazz Records|Good Time Jazz]] with the [[Yerba Buena Jazz Band]] in early 1944.
* Bunk Johnson and the Yerba Buena Jazz Band: ''Spirituals & Jazz'': Good Time Jazz L-17. Recorded in San Francisco, January–February 1944.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.weijts.com/bj/440102.htm| first=Willem|last=Weijts|title=Bunk Johnson Discography: January-February 1944|website=Weijts.com|access-date=March 3, 2018}}</ref>

===New York, 1945===
Bunk Johnson recorded for Blue Note in March, 1945, and for Decca and RCA Victor in late 1945.
* Sidney Bechet and Bunk Johnson: ''Days Beyond Recall'': [[Blue Note Records|Blue Note]] BLP 7008. Recorded in New York, March 1945.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.weijts.com/bj/450310.htm| first=Willem|last=Weijts|title=Bunk Johnson Discography: 1945-03-10|website=Weijts.com|access-date=March 3, 2018}}</ref>
* ''Hot Jazz'': [[RCA Records|RCA Victor]] HJ-7. Album of four 78 RPM shellac records; recorded in New York, December 1945.<ref>{{cite AV media notes |title=Hot Jazz|first=Ralph J.|last=Gleason|publisher=[[RCA Records|RCA Victor]] }}</ref>
* ''New Orleans Memories'': Ace of Hearts AH 140. 12" LP, includes four recordings from a Decca session in New York, November 1945. Also includes recordings by Kid Ory and George Lewis.<ref>{{cite AV media notes |title=New Orleans Memories|first=Peter|last=Tanner|publisher=Ace of Hearts Records }}</ref>

===New York, 1947===
Bunk Johnson's final recordings were made for Columbia in December, 1947.<ref>{{cite AV media notes |title=The Last Testament Of A Great New Orleans Jazzman |first=George|last=Avakian|publisher=[[Columbia Records]] }}</ref>
* ''The Last Testament Of A Great New Orleans Jazzman'': [[Columbia Records|Columbia]] CL 829. 12" LP, recorded at Carnegie Recital Hall, New York City, December 1947.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
*[https://bunkjohnson.com Bunk Johnson Tribute Site]
*[http://www.doctorjazz.co.uk/portnewor.html#bunkjohn Detailed discussion of research on Bunk's early life and possible birthdates]
*[http://www.fellers.se/Bunk/Welcome.html The Swedish Bunk Johnson Society]
*[http://www.doctorjazz.co.uk/draftcards2.html#musdcwj Willie (Bunk) Johnson's WWI Draft Registration Card and essay]
*[http://hnoc.minisisinc.com/thnoc/catalog/3/533 William Russell Jazz Collection] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326025014/http://hnoc.minisisinc.com/thnoc/catalog/3/533 |date=2023-03-26 }} at [https://www.hnoc.org/  The Historic New Orleans Collection]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Bunk}}
[[Category:1879 births]]
[[Category:1949 deaths]]
[[Category:Dixieland trumpeters]]
[[Category:Dixieland bandleaders]]
[[Category:Jazz musicians from New Orleans]]
[[Category:American jazz trumpeters]]
[[Category:American male trumpeters]]
[[Category:Blue Note Records artists]]
[[Category:People from New Iberia, Louisiana]]
[[Category:American male jazz musicians]]
[[Category:The Eagle Band members]]
[[Category:Good Time Jazz Records artists]]
[[Category:African-American Catholics]]
[[Category:20th-century African-American musicians]]