Hello and welcome to GBH Music Presents Jazz Now.

I'm Julia Marcus, one of the hosts here at GBH Music.

And tonight we are so thrilled to have Etha Iverson here for a performance.

In addition to being a celebrated musician, Ethan is a prolific writer.

He's published significant commentary in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Nation, and he teaches at NEC so we can claim him as our own here in Boston.

Please join me in welcoming Ethan Iverson.

I'm happy to be here.

And thank you, Julia.

Thank you.

Can you tell us what we're about to hear?

Yes.

I'm playing two jazz composers, who are not usually paired together.

The first is James P Johnson and the second is John Coltrane.

All right, we look forward to it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

I first got interested in James B Johnson when I was, teenager acquiring jazz records.

And Duke Ellington said that he learned to play the piano by playing along with the piano roll of Carolina Shout.

And then Thelonious Monk said in a liner note that he sounded just like James P. Johnson.

That's what Monk told his producer after recording The Blues Functional.

At that time in the late 80s, it was hard to find records of James P. Johnson, but I persisted.

I like the way he looked in the books.

Looked like he was a cool guy.

So I finally heard James P. Johnson and he has sort of become a theme of my life.

I've been supporting or trying to advocate for James P. Johnson for a long time.

He is, in some way the one of the first great jazz pianists, although he was also a bard of the Jazz Age.

I mean, literally what we call the Jazz Age.

F Scott Fitzgerald flappers, speakeasies.

And, he actually wrote the Charleston, which was the most famous dance of that era.

He also wrote some other hit songs and many many musicals and, stage revues.

Anyway, there's something about him.

He's.

He hasn't fallen through the cracks.

Not if Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk are talking about him, but nonetheless, there's Scott Joplin and there's George Gershwin.

And in my opinion, this also James P. Johnson right in there with those two others of early incredible American music, you know, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, right in there.

James P is one of the key figures.

In a way, this is a classical recital.

I transcribed the music.

I thought about what would be best.

And, a moment like this like to reproduce it.

I don't know if I'm going to stay here playing, essentially classical music by James P Johnson for the rest of my life.

But it's a it's incredibly nutritious.

And maybe I'll talk more abou that when we get to the second composer and more conventional jazz, John Coltrane.

That was amazing.

That was amazing.

I think, I think many of us would agre that that music transports you to a different time.

I mean, I was imagining flappers.

Great Gatsby.

But John Coltrane, do you remember the first time you heard Coltrane's music?

Oh, what a nice question.

You know, I thin I think I have a classic answer to this question that's very standard.

It was a Miles Davis album called Kind of Blue, and Miles takes a great solo on So What?

And then the tenor comes in an the world is changed for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

To you programing James Johnson and John Coltrane back to back like this.

What do they say about eac other's music when you hear it like this?

Very good question.

Thank you.

Well, I'm a a sort of a jazz historian as well as a practitioner.

And one thing that it's I'm always astonished by is how fast everything moved.

In other words, one way to look at this is through James P. Johnson and John Coltrane.

James P. Johnson died in 1955, which was the first year Coltrane made his records with Miles Davis.

I don't know if Coltrane and James P. Johnson would have met.

But many circa 1950 jazz musicians did know James P. Johnson.

He was on the scene, a respected elder.

All the piano players sort o got an informal lesson from him.

You know when when Monk's talking about James P. Johnson, he' talking about a family member.

And the person who was a hug influence on John Coltrane was Thelonious Monk.

So it's it is actually close.

It's closer than we sometimes remember.

So that's the first reason is just to say, hey, you know, it's it's an incredible innovation that took place so quickly, in jazz music in the 20th century.

But then the other thing is, it's pretty uncommon for someone who self-identifies as a modern jazz pianist to play James P. Johnson, bu it's fairly unusual for a jazz pianist to also pla John Coltrane in a solo context.

I'm not saying people have never done it.

At this point, everything' been done at least twice.

But, the repertoire I'm about to play, which is very center of the Coltrane repertoire.

This is not esoteric, the James P. Johnson that's esoteric.

I'm about to play Blue Train, Mr.

PC, Spiritual or Lazy Bird, I'm really playing stuff everybody learned at jazz camp at age 16, but there still isn' so much of a solo piano lineage.

And so I'm asking, can I learn something from James P to bring to John Coltrane?

Can it can I be infected?

Almost like worth a good virus?

And, so far in the in the practice room, the answer has been a qualified yes.

It's it's going in the right direction.

But if the first half was quite strict, really, a classical recital, then the second half really is going to be far more open.

And there are sketches really just a few heads.

And then I go for myself.

In the jazz tradition.

I'm very excited to hear what comes in the moment.

What happens.

Yeah.

What happens?

Let's find out.

Thank you.

Thats the exciting part.

Thank you.

To conclude, I actually have a piece that I've written.

It's a little bit in the John Coltrane lineage.

Okay, well, it's a lot like a Coltrane piece, but, I also I'm really trying to sort of think about James P. Johnson as well, and I sort of se a future in the distance here.

This is like step one of probably going to be a lot of steps.

But, I'm feeling, moderately positive about this direction.

I appreciate you, being here on this first attempt.

The name of the piece is called Cosmic Cycle.

Thank you.

I'm Ethan Iverson.