I still haven't gotten Rainbow Crow. I need to get that. The Dylan covers album sounds He left the D'angelo band because it wasn't all about music.




LINK:
http://reviews.citypaper....ee-johnson

Despite several decades in the music business, Jef Lee Johnson's guitar skills have gotten notice only on a need-to-know basis. Everybody who's worked with him sings his praises.

And everybody else has never heard of him.


"I'm used to that, whether I want to be or not," says the 51-year-old Johnson from his home in Germantown. "I'm a cranky old guy now. My original thing was to be great, like Thelonious Monk, not to be famous. I wanted to be expansive musical infinity. Being famous is a whole other gene. Every time I tried to get famous, it died."

This prevailing obscurity is being threatened, however, as he's currently in Los Angeles recording with fusion master George Duke. "George has said he's going to make making me well-known his cause," laughs Johnson, on a break from packing his suitcase. While he's out there he'll visit with "cyber girlfriend" Chaka Khan, too. Also on the front burner are two new solo albums, Longing Belonging Ongoing (under the name "Rainbow Crow") and The Zimmerman Shadow (an odd, beautiful Dylan covers collection).

"Man, I can't believe you're letting my secret out," says Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson. The Roots drummer hosted Johnson on his band's Phrenology (2002) and played with him through studio sessions and tours backing D'Angelo and Erykah Badu. Thompson, a renowned musicologist, didn't even know the fellow Philadelphia native before the D'Angelo gig.

Johnson's had an innovative slate of solo albums, starting with 1995's Blue, that have equal footing in legato-loving jazz, out blues and frenetic space funk. Usually, he plays all of the instruments and does all of the production. Each album is ripe with his gorgeously appointed melodies, deeply pointed lyrics and, more often than not, sketches and photographs that he's taken for that project.

"To be so damned great, not only in a supporting role but as an artist in every way," marvels Thompson. "In a fair world, I should be carrying Jef's bags."

Once he worked with the guitarist, Thompson "got" that Johnson had the discipline and chops of a jazz cat like David Murray with the free-visionary potential of Hendrix. "I didn't think anyone would ever find this out: Jef Lee Johnson is the G.O.A.T."

The Germantown-born Johnson grew up in the church his grandfather Roland C. Lamb Sr. built, Providence Baptist on East Haines Street. He did his first (uncredited) sessions on records by gospel legends like the Rev. James Cleveland at age 18. Playing without your name above the title made it so that the music was the only thing. The musician becomes anonymous and at one with the music.

That sounds just like Jef Lee Johnson.

To Philly drummer Adam Guth, Johnson is holy. He is funk. "When I say 'funk,' I'm talking about the larger metaphysical sense of the word," says Guth, who's played in the Jef Lee Johnson Trio as well as their new progressive electronic outfit, Resistance Message. "While others play clichés — George Benson lines, Van Halen licks — Jef plays cosmic singularities, exploding worlds and post-apocalyptic terra-forming. At the center of it all is a sensitive being and positive spirit intent on being a force for good."

Germantownian Aaron Levinson also speaks of Johnson in reverent terms. Besides playing with him in the local noise-jazz act Gutbucket, Levinson produced Rediscovering Lonnie Johnson and cast his friend in the role of the blues/jazz legend. From the first moment I met him, it was like finding a missing limb of my body," says Levinson of their 1987 introduction. "Like Coltrane, Jef is inside the music. He plays from a place that is beyond notes, beyond technique."

Swampy bluegrass, blissful avant-garde jazz, deep strange blues, dusky funk — Jef Lee Johnson does it all, especially on solo albums where he's freer than on his session work. "I'm not trying to be out," states Johnson. "The out guys never bother to come in. I can go further out than anybody, but I want to go in. I want to put all this music together and for it to be accessible." He wants people to hear News from the Jungle (his 2007 import) and get Duke Ellington. He wants people to catch the Monk and Sly Stone references on Longing Belonging Ongoing. "The Britney, Raymond Scott and the Jonny Quest theme, too," he says.

In the minds of those he's worked with, and from the upswing in his solo album output (four since 2007), Johnson seems to be eschewing the session/pop world for the intimacy of his own recordings and for oddly angular jazzy sounds. "Jef played the profile gigs to eat, but all along he's been making his own personal brilliant music," says Levinson. "He doesn't consider himself a 'jazz cat' but of course he is. He's also a country musician and Jonathan Winters in sheep's clothing."

Ahmir Thompson recalls D'Angelo's Voodoo tour in 2000. The drummer assembled what's been known as the best R&B band in history, The Soultronics, only to have D'Angelo cancel shows in a fit of narcissism. "If he didn't look ripped, he canceled," says Thompson. "Jef wasn't having any of that. He left the band because it had nothing to do with the music. Music is all to him."

Johnson laughs and says these things aren't the case. He states that he didn't leave D'Angelo's tour because he wanted to — he was asked to when the ailing musician he replaced got better.



And, in his mind, he's not a jazz guy but gets where the idea comes from.

"I developed chops playing with McCoy Tyner back in '79," says Johnson. "Tyner plays dense chordal stuff like George [Duke] and I'm stupid enough to try to play like them on guitar. That's what's known as notes that aren't on the neck. When I played Ronald Shannon Jackson, I was a blues guy who had absurd jazz chops."

Johnson says he'll continue to do as many sessions as he can if people would only hire him. Without a shred of egotism or hubris, he claims he might be too great and inventive a musician for his own good. Rumor has it he was all set to tour with Steely Dan until one of its principal players put the kibosh on it — for fear of being upstaged. Johnson won't confirm that, though. All he'll say is: "My mom always told me, sometimes it's bad to be too prepared.

"I've had that said to me, that I'm too good at what I do and that I show people up. I'm not looking to show off other musicians' shortcomings. Their shortcomings are not my problem. I may be a guy who has said no more often than I said yes, but I'm just trying to knock the gig out of the park every time."

He thinks it's great that Thompson remembers the D'Angelo thing differently than he does, and that Chaka and Duke are his champions. "But there's not much that they can do," he says. "I fit in less than I did when I was a kid. I'm not tall, pretty or blond, even if am skinny. And I don't follow industry rules. Ultimately I'm just trying to bend and tweak things the way I hear them in my head. I'm obligated to do this."
[Edited 3/4/10 10:12am]
[Edited 3/4/10 10:13am]

Thanks for the post. Jef is one of my all time underrated faves.

Trickology said:

Ain't that the truth.

Lemme guess, he didn't make the Rolling Stone "100 Best Guitarists" (or whatever dopey name they used) list.



Music for adventurous listeners


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SPYZFAN1 said:

What's crazy is how everyone has so many tapes and performances of Jef and he has yet to be in someplace with a feature article in a publication like Mojo magazine. When you do projects for example, Dylan Covers project or Lonnie Johnson covers, you would think that would be the buzz moment. But if you look, you will see hardly any profile pieces on his work outside of the US. It's cool that there is a local profile piece from time to time on him, but these projects he is releasing he always is doing something different. You can build a small buzz on that and in exchange you can get a little bit wider audience. Not much, but enough to not worry on what happens 5 years from now.

I didn't even know about this other band he is a part of until I read that "sentence" about "The Resistance" That gives you a indication of how it works with his projects. They just materialize quietly. Personally I think J is one of the best lyricists/sages in the music scene today without a a doubt. And that's rare for a guitarist to have so much depth in lyrical ability as well. One that comes to mind is obviously Jimi Hendrix or Chris Rea. (I just listened to TV People Another great lyrical insight and floating chordal groove http://undercoverblackman...0860d.html What more could you want? )

The only thing I think that is keeping Jef from the wider audience is alot of his Dream Media projects are sketches instead of "Portraits", if that makes sense. His cerebral approach to writing is a bit dense for the average listener.

Anyways I find it interesting that no one has covered any of his material when his catalog is pretty extensive since 1995. I guess what im saying is, Jef has better lyrics & music than 95.9999 percent of the artists recording he passes in the studio on a daily basis who say "That was a nice riff, you rule dude" And that makes me think about the fact that many artists are afraid to be upstaged by J, so they dont hire him or mention his work in a loud manner.


JLJ has always been a perfect example of what happens when you are extremely gifted, and do not want to write ABC type lyrics/music. There are very few artists who I can point to and say, "I dont know what he is going to write about topic wise from song to song" Jef is one of those artists. He always has a thoughtful comment on society whether its time/space,racism,modern times,art,surrealness,music,celeb culture,politics,destruction of man Maybe John Mayer can cover something of his, he has a bit of IOU in that dept.

PS That's interesting about Steely Dan. But you know what, I wouldnt be surprised at all,not at all. This piece put alot into perspective of who/why/where/when/what of it all. Thanks to that writer for giving us another profile piece after a few years of no articles or so.
[Edited 3/5/10 9:59am]

...

I've always been amazed at how prolific he's been with his own realeases, even without being that well-known. Ever since Blue, I've been trying to keep up with his albums-almost seemed like two a year at one point...

I've got Blue, Communion, Singularity, Hype Factory, Thisness, St Somebody,and Things are Things(and I'm sure I've missed a few)...but I
don't have Rainbow Crow Yet....




...

paligap said:

See? That's what I mean. I need to get Rainbow Crow,Zimmerman and whatever else. Have you ever heard Monkey Zero? That's his saxophone project. He just decided to pick up the saxophone and sound like Rahsaan Roland Kirk meets James Brown meets Ornette Coleman meets Albert Ayler! It's crazy. And to just do that? Who does that? "I like the sax, I think I will do a project with just me playing Saxophones and it's going to have all monkey track titles"

PBS has dropped the damn ball. The background story is craaaazy. You know what PBS or Ovation should do? Someone should do a special on Black Guitarists outside the fringe. PBS did a hour on Hedges! Im thinking of the obvious names here: Ulmer/Reid/Bourelly/Jef/Fuze/Keziah Jones/. The theme should be alienation and finding your way to an audience and the salvation you receive. You could focus it on generations of outside the fringe guitarists. The logistics of that shouldn't be too difficult and a hour of that is going to cost you peanuts to do.

Damn, I am thinking you me and Audience should put together a proposal to make a documentary. Maybe we can get a professional cinematographer to put together this vision correctly so it doesn't look like a shoddy vh1 show. Any cinematographers out there? I dont know about you but I think Hendrix focus needs to be lessened to let those with catalogs be recognized. It's bad out there and the combo I just named should make those reading say, "Yea, that would be " I think we could probably get a grant to film this. Otherwise we might as well just instruct all of these players their future "Are you familiar with KEB Mo? Do you have a hat? Do you know Robert Johnson? Do you know Jimi? Have fun"

Who knows? Maybe Steve Vai will help us put this together. He knows something about marketing & promoting different guitarists/musicians. I know there are people out there who are just as passionate who will help us piece this together. It would be cool to just get a IMDB credit for Jef/Keziah/Jean Paul/Vernon Reid

Trickology said:

The next time I talk to Steve Vai i'll ask him about it.
I'm going to see Vernon tonight.

paligap has writing chops along with his apparition of a partner, ElRoy.

"Who Knows" ( ) , this might actually happen.




Music for adventurous listeners


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theAudience said:

Vernon has to get interested if it's something different. He knows about promoting musicians. Maybe we can get the director from Electric Purgatory involved. There are alot of go to people we could get. My broader point is it's up to the music fans to carry the media if things go astray,I guess.

Man, how cool would it be to get actual network excited about Far Left Music again? I think the reality of everything being relatively so inexpensive to produce and film, we could have something. Grants arent that hard to get for something like this. Especially if we say "We dont need catered lunches or trailer trucks to make this. We know the subject and we have a general direction" There has to be audience for viewing if you make it compelling and it tells a story. And then there is the DVD edition

What would we call it? Something like "Creating Art is Complicated"

Trickology said:

I'm gonna show this to "Elroy"--it's right up his alley!

It's interesting -- a few years back, BETJazz showed an episode of "Live at the Knitting Factory"--and it focused on Jean Paul Bourelly and Jef Lee Johnson, featuring interviews and performance footage--and I was thinking back then how cool it would be to expand that kind of coverage--just like what you're talking about now.....







...

paligap said:

Nice, do it. I have a feeling there is going to be a gap for this type of project that is needed. Im sure there were plenty of people around the world watching those "at midnight" specials on music that only air once.
The internet is opening the way for something new. A bridge to creative music is being built.

Oh Btw check out the Resistance tracks, audience and Pali Gap:

http://www.myspace.com/paniccolonel

How is this sounding with these dudes? Their debut is going to be cool. This material is sounding really funky and abstract. I wonder what tracks will make the cut on the album? Or do you think this is the whole project on the myspace?

P.S. Real shame no 2nd Sons of Almighty lp came about. But at least J still gives us things like this.
[Edited 3/6/10 7:19am]

TV people:

http://undercoverblackman...0860d.html

I dare you not to sing the hook refrain. I can see that never ever getting any spins except late at night on college radio just because of the lyrics.

That James Cleveland shit is What record do you think J was on? we should go investigate


BTW, J was on the radio when he played the bassline to "Billy Joel's River of Dreams" "In the midddlee of the niiiight" Everyone has listened to him in America almost. Mission accomplished

Gadamn this "shocked" track, I know you guys are going to be , 247,PaliGap and Audience. This is the ish Im talking about. I love the improv off this groove. It's like he's falling through a black hole playing his guitar. Those string bends and that melody

Resistance message This is a pleasant surprise for 2010. The citypaper article should have linked the Resistance Message myspace page.
[Edited 3/6/10 7:50am]

Trickology said:

Not sure about the specific time frame in which this rumor supposedly takes place, so for the sake of the exercise let's assume it's within the last 10 years.

Using the process of elimination/incrimination, my guess is that it would be...(dramatic orchestral cue #1) ...A GUITARIST!

The process...

Wayne Krantz (another very inventive, chops heavy, outside the box guitar player) did the Donald Fagen Morph The Cat tour.
Wayne was the 2nd guitarist during the '96 SD tour. So this could work in my theory's favor as he didn't re-appear again until Donald's MTC solo tour in '06.
Scratch DF



The MTC tour also included Jon Herrington who's been SD's tour/studio guitarist since the '00s.
Scratch JH



We all know that Donald Fagen/Walter Becker have the last word on these matters.
The facts above would tend to erase DF as a potential suspect leaving...(dramatic orchestral cue #2) ...WALTER BECKER!

As Jef Lee himself didn't confirm this rumor, it could all be a crock. But in the meantime...

I wrote a song that shook the world
You're still mad cause you don't understand
The one line by Steely Dan, but in the meantime
I wrote a song that shook the world

...Who Knows



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theAudience said:

Interesting mention with that lyric. Now it's making sense, kinda sorta. To be honest with you, Id rather see J in a group like Resistance Message then Steely Dan. Partly because Steely Dan is so concise and precise. I think it would be a chore to do the same songs over and over. Did you check out the Resistance Message material yet?

Trickology said:

All bands have to play some of their songs over and over.
Unfortunately, the majority of concert listeners do not go to shows with an open mind and won't accept hearing a slew of tunes they haven't heard before.
It's messes with their pre-planned sing/groove-along routines.

There's a certain cache attained amongst the musician crowd when you've gotten the guitar chair with Steely Dan.
However, it doesn't translate to popularity, especially in the American market, with solo projects. Wayne Krantz is a prime example.


Regarding Resistance Message, finally got MyGarbageDump to behave long enough to actually hear a few of the tracks.

Cool tunes.
URDisEngageD sounds like something you would've expected Parliament/Funkadelic to have evolved into had they stayed focused.
Always enjoy listening to someone who can really play pushing the envelope.
Afraid it's too deep for the masses but if enough groups start becoming fearless in this way, it may end up creating its own space.


From a live performance...



...Resistance Message




...That Thing





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theAudience said:

Yea, I know all about the sing along routines. Too many artists engage in that and that's why I can't part with my money. I can take a little of that but it looks like that's mostly what the audience is receptive too

Resistance message will always be a side project type thing. Instrumental bands have had their hey day in the sixties/seventies in the public eye, I am afraid. The public is too hypnotized to even listen to one track like Resistance Message. It will hold me over until the George Duke project. Im going to listen to the Zimmerman Shadow project next and then I will purchase Rainbow Crow soon.
[Edited 3/8/10 8:48am]

for some reason I thought he was younger