Renowned as an influential jazz pianist, James P. Johnson also flourished as a composer of opera and of show tunes in the 1920s and 1930s. His two short operas The Dreamy Kid and De Organizer offer contrasting stories of African American life at that time, revealing both its incredible hopefulness and precariousness in the inter-war years. The Dreamy Kid is a tragedy, marked by police violence in a racially unjust atmosphere, and De Organizer is a hopeful story of solidarity and resistance meant to break the twin oppressions of poverty and racism. Johnson sets these stories to an eclectic and powerful mixture of jazz, swing, blues and ragtime that capture the essence of African American music-making in the early 20th century.

Artists

Rabihah Davis Dunn (soloist), Olivia Duval (soloist), Emery Stephens (soloist), Lonel Woods (soloist), Kenneth Kellogg (soloist), Monique Spells (soloist), Darnell Ishmel (soloist), Branden C.S. Hood (soloist), Elizabeth Gray (soloist), Lori Celeste Hicks (soloist), De Organizer Chorus, University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Kiesler