Download
1 / 10
E N D
James Booker • By: Chris Bevel
Childhood • Booker was the son and grandson of Baptist ministers, both of whom played the piano. He spent most of his childhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where is father pastured a church. Booker received a saxophone as a gift from his mother, but he demonstrated a stronger interest in the keyboard. He first played organ in his father's churches.
More of his childhood • After returning to New Orleans in his early adolescence, Booker attended the Xavier Academy Preparatory School. He learned some elements of his keyboard style from Tuts Washington and Edward Frank. Booker was highly skilled in classical music and played Bach and Chopin, among other composers. He also mastered and memorized solos by Eroll Garner literature may have enabled his original and virtuosic interpretations of jazz and other popular music.
In 1958, Arthur Rubinstein gave a concert in New Orleans. Afterwards, eighteen-year-old Booker was introduced to the concert pianist and played several tunes for him. Rubinstein was astonished, saying "I could never play that... never at that tempo." (The Times-Picayune, 1958) A gay man, Booker also became known for his flamboyant personality amongst his peers.
After recording a few other singles, he enrolled as an undergraduate in Southern University's music department. In 1960, Booker's "Gonzo" reached number 43 on the U.S.Billboardchart, and number 3 on the R&Bchart. This was followed by some moderately successful singles. In the 1960s, he turned to drugs, and in 1970 served a brief sentence in Angola Prison for possession.
In 1973 Booker recorded The Lost Paramount Tapes at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, California with members of the Dr. Johnband which included John Boudreaux on drums, Jessie Hill on percussion, Alvin Robinson on guitar and vocals, Richard "Didymium" Washington on percussion, David Lastie on sax and Dave Johnson on bass. This album was produced by the former Dr. John and Sweathogbassist, David L. Johnson and Daniel J. Moore. The master tapes disappeared from the Paramount Recording Studios library, but a copy of some of the mixes made near the time of the recordings was discovered in 1992, which resulted in a CD release.
Booker recorded a number of albums while touring Europe in 1977, including New Orleans Piano Wizard: Live!, which was recorded at his performance in the 'Boogie Woogie and Ragtime Piano Contest' in Zurich, Switzerland This album won the Grand Prix du Disque. He played at the Nice and Montreux Jazz Festivals in 1978. Fourteen years later a recording in Leipzig from this tour would become the last record to be produced in the former East Germany. It was entitled Let's Make A Better World!.
From 1977 to 1982 he was the house pianist at the Maple Leaf Bar in the Carrollton neighborhood of uptown New Orleans. Recordings during this time made by John Parsons were released as Spider on the Keys and Resurrection of the Bayou Maharajah.
At the end of October, 1983, film-maker Jim Gabour captured Booker's final concert performance. The footage from the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans was broadcast on Cox Cable and a six-and-a-half-minute improvisation, "Seagram's Jam," featured on Gabour's film - All Alone with the Blues.
