Biography
Randy Johnston projects an outgoing and frequently groove-oriented hard bop sensibility that also sits easily inside soul-jazz frameworks, maturing into one of the strongest straight-ahead jazz guitarists among musicians born during the Baby Boom. He has never favored a withdrawn style of playing; instead he delivers an assertive, raw, hard-swinging attack that carries pronounced blues inflections throughout his lines. The clearest model for his approach remains the late Grant Green, though his conception also reflects the work of Pat Martino, Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, and George Benson, above all the unadorned jazz sessions Benson cut for Columbia at the beginning of his recording career. Electric blues playing by B.B. King has likewise left its mark, a connection that fits the Detroit native’s assured command of 12-bar blues forms.
Johnston entered the world in Detroit, Michigan—a city long celebrated for its jazz talent—in 1956 and relocated to Richmond, Virginia, at the age of thirteen. At that stage his instrument was rock guitar and his chief inspiration was the groundbreaking singer-guitarist Jimi Hendrix, widely viewed as an early architect of heavy metal whose reach extended to groups such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Mahogany Rush, and Deep Purple. Jazz guitar gradually supplanted rock as his central focus. After finishing high school he moved to South Florida and enrolled at the University of Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While living in Miami he regularly joined jam sessions hosted by multi-horn player Ira Sullivan, a Chicago native, inside a Unitarian church.
In 1981 Johnston left Miami for New York, where he encountered early hardships before his schedule grew steadily busier through the remainder of the decade. By its close he had already worked as a sideman on albums by tenor saxophonist Houston Person and the late singer Etta Jones. Recognition arrived in earnest during the 1990s, when listeners began to regard him as one of the leading jazz guitarists of his generation. Early in 1991 he signed with Muse and made his first album as a leader, Walk On, produced by tenor saxophonist Person and engineered by Rudy Van Gelder, the most renowned recording engineer in jazz history.
Johnston reunited with both Person and Van Gelder for his second Muse release, Jubilation, in 1992. Muse issued his third album, In-A-Chord, in 1994, after which he ended his relationship with the New York label. Additional leader sessions followed in the later 1990s, among them Somewhere in the Night on High Note and Riding the Curve on J Curve. Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s Johnston appeared frequently as a sideman on stage and in the studio alongside Person, Lionel Hampton, Lou Donaldson, Jack McDuff, Dr. Lonnie Smith (distinct from Lonnie Liston Smith), and Philadelphia organist “Papa” John DeFrancesco, father of organist-trumpeter Joey DeFrancesco and brother of guitarist Johnny DeFrancesco.
His early-2000s releases comprise Homage on J Curve and Detour Ahead on High Note.
Johnston entered the world in Detroit, Michigan—a city long celebrated for its jazz talent—in 1956 and relocated to Richmond, Virginia, at the age of thirteen. At that stage his instrument was rock guitar and his chief inspiration was the groundbreaking singer-guitarist Jimi Hendrix, widely viewed as an early architect of heavy metal whose reach extended to groups such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Mahogany Rush, and Deep Purple. Jazz guitar gradually supplanted rock as his central focus. After finishing high school he moved to South Florida and enrolled at the University of Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While living in Miami he regularly joined jam sessions hosted by multi-horn player Ira Sullivan, a Chicago native, inside a Unitarian church.
In 1981 Johnston left Miami for New York, where he encountered early hardships before his schedule grew steadily busier through the remainder of the decade. By its close he had already worked as a sideman on albums by tenor saxophonist Houston Person and the late singer Etta Jones. Recognition arrived in earnest during the 1990s, when listeners began to regard him as one of the leading jazz guitarists of his generation. Early in 1991 he signed with Muse and made his first album as a leader, Walk On, produced by tenor saxophonist Person and engineered by Rudy Van Gelder, the most renowned recording engineer in jazz history.
Johnston reunited with both Person and Van Gelder for his second Muse release, Jubilation, in 1992. Muse issued his third album, In-A-Chord, in 1994, after which he ended his relationship with the New York label. Additional leader sessions followed in the later 1990s, among them Somewhere in the Night on High Note and Riding the Curve on J Curve. Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s Johnston appeared frequently as a sideman on stage and in the studio alongside Person, Lionel Hampton, Lou Donaldson, Jack McDuff, Dr. Lonnie Smith (distinct from Lonnie Liston Smith), and Philadelphia organist “Papa” John DeFrancesco, father of organist-trumpeter Joey DeFrancesco and brother of guitarist Johnny DeFrancesco.
His early-2000s releases comprise Homage on J Curve and Detour Ahead on High Note.
Albums
