Jazz Music News, Press Releases - TOM JOHNSON's "TIME TAKES ODD TURNS"

After a long career as a psychologist, full-time professor, and part-time musician, trumpet player, pianist, and composer DR. TOM JOHNSON is finally releasing his debut album, TIME TAKES ODD TURNS, a compilation of modern, original compositions written for and performed by a full jazz orchestra. The charts are related to various episodes of Johnson’s life. Some were written more than 40 years ago, while others were written after 2012.

As the name of the album suggests, Johnson’s life has taken some unexpected turns. Raised in Indianapolis, IN, he grew up listening to his father, a trumpet player, perform with several big bands that toured with many top names in the music world. Johnson began studying trumpet in fifth grade and composition in high school, but his father, a child of the Depression and experienced with the vicissitudes of being a freelance musician, strongly encouraged his son to get a day gig. So, heeding his father’s advice, Johnson decided to pursue his interest in psychology and went on to earn an undergraduate degree with honors in psychology from Indiana University, where he also studied jazz arranging and composition with Dominic Spera. His idea was to work as a psychologist part-time while still pursuing his music career.

After graduating from IU, Johnson studied composition at the University of Wisconsin with Joel Naumann, taught music, performed professionally, and wrote background music for radio PSAs. He returned to graduate work in clinical psychology and received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. His teaching position at Indiana State University turned into a full professorship, but he continued studying music and completed a Certificate in Jazz Arranging and Composition via the Berklee School of Music Online.

Although he continued to study music and even play an occasional gig, Johnson spent most of the 1990s working as a professor, publishing more than 30 articles and book chapters in psychology. However, as Johnson says, “I really enjoyed my academic work, but my true love has always been music, so in 2019, I began studying jazz arranging and composition privately with Brent Wallarab, the David N. Baker Associate Professor of Jazz Studies at Indiana University.” In 2022, Johnson began classes in the Master of Music Composition program at Butler University and retired from teaching in January 2023.

In May 2023, Johnson and a band comprising IU students and graduates, as well as members of the Indianapolis jazz scene, went into the studio to record TIME TAKES ODD TURNS. Johnson’s charts are very modern and complex. The seeds for many of the charts were germinated from exercises in various composing and arranging classes. The level of musicianship on the album is high. Many of the performers have experience playing in top Indiana based bands, such as the Buselli Wallarab Jazz Orchestra, the Steve Allee Big Band, the Sean Imboden Large Ensemble, and other groups. Notable soloists include Sam Butler, Andrew Danforth, Chance Davis, Garrett Fasig, Michael Stricklin, Joel Tucker, and Alex Wignall.

Johnson opens the album with “Naught Won,” which he wrote as an experiment using a major7sus4 chord throughout much of the tune. On a trip to a picturesque town with his wife, Johnson bought a hammered dulcimer, which became the inspiration for “Simple Song.” His idea was to take a simple diatonic melody, in this case with a repeating interval sequence, and then harmonize it in different ways.

Johnson calls the next three compositions his 80s Suite. “Book One” was not actually written in the 80s but was inspired by the 1970s and 80s recordings of the progressive rock band Genesis. Johnson wrote “One More Time” the night Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds” was performed on the 1985 Oscars broadcast. Johnson says, “Phil’s song did not win, but it inspired me to try and write one that was better than his!” “Lucky 13” was Johnson’s final project in his second semester of Jazz Arranging and Composition with Dominic Spera. Spera was not a fan of odd time signatures, so this project wound up being his only assignment not given an “A.”

Johnson is a fan of Grammy-winning Snarky Puppy and named “En La Casa de Los Perritos” (In the House of the Puppies) as a nod to them, because he felt it sounded like one of their tunes. The composition was an assignment for the Berklee Online Jazz Composition class, which was to write an arrangement beginning in E Dorian, followed by a section using G Phrygian. Johnson wrote “Well You Better” for a local high school jazz band. However, the swing tune with an angular melody proved too challenging for the student musicians.

Johnson dedicates the swing ballad “Ballad for the A1 Band” to the Al Cobine band, an early musical hero of his that his father was a member of. Johnson says, “Cats and Mouses,” which sounds like a Tom & Jerry soundtrack with solos, is a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster, because he constructed it from bits and pieces of two assignments he wrote in a composition class.

“Bossa Monday Suite” comprises three sections – minimalism/bossa/samba. Johnson built much of it using a 4-note motive. “Simply Stuff and Nonsense” is a fun album closer. It uses metric modulation to achieve a swing feel and tempo change, and then a reprise of the melody.

Johnson has recently retired from his professorial duties and can finally turn his attention full-time to his music. Although many of Johnson’s compositions and arrangements started as experiments or school assignments, he has turned them into first rate orchestral music that is sophisticated, hip, and fun. Despite a long and noteworthy academic career, Johnson has always been committed to his art. TIME TAKES ODD TURNS is an auspicious debut for this talented composer and portends much success for his future endeavors.

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TIME TAKES ODD TURNS will be available digitally on selected platforms on August 30, 2024. Physical copies will be available at Bandcamp.

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