Charles K. Jones. Francis Johnson (1792-1844): Chronicle of a Black Musician in Early Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia.

Charles K. Jones. Francis Johnson (1792-1844): Chronicle of a Black Musician in Early Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh UP/ London: Associated UP, 2006. 330 pp. $57.50.

In his portrait of Francis Johnson, the late Charles K. ones employs a memorable discursive strategy. It could be termed a "bio-historiographical" paratactic, or a collage of recorded facts, inferences, and opinions combined with a strong visual element. The latter includes archival illustrations, transcripts of letters, poetry excerpts, public notices, invitations, announcements, advertisements, receipts, playbills, and miscellaneous clips depicting topical events in Johnson's life. The bulk of this material was extracted from the annals of nineteenth-century Pennsylvania where the personable and diminutive Johnson--affectionately named "Frank"--first established himself as a master musician and composer.

Jones's work is formally scattered but intellectually cohesive. The mix of textual and graphic elements makes reading the biography not unlike a foray into academic scrap-booking. Instead of unduly distracting the reader or serving as filler for gaps in the flow of the narrative, the graphic component underscores the creative nature of Jones's scholarship. The "choppiness" of the text actually imitates the historian's task of cobbling together the fullest reconstruction possible of a past life; such an endeavor is not always linear or coherent. Unlike more conventional biographies where the progression of the writing is meant to mimic the chronological development of the central figure, this work offers frame after frame of information plus supplement; the order lies in the seeming disorder.

Jones's objective is to establish Johnson as a black pioneer of American music. Unfortunately, this "composer, bandmaster, and originator of music for the new Republic" is not always recognized for his contributions (29). Military marches and cotillion fare, Johnson's genres of choice, have less appeal nowadays than more contemporary modalities like jazz, hip-hop, soul, or rap. Born in 1792, Johnson was the result of an interracial union; he was not, however, a "tragic mulatto" by any definition of the term. Jones portrays the musician's exceptionalism from the offset, sketching out the privileged Society Hill backdrop where races "mixed with an easy acceptance" (29). The kind of upbringing Johnson had differed from the typically graphic depictions (bullwhips, auctions, plantations) that antebellum slavery had seared upon the collective imagination of Americans. A figure resolutely associated with the North, Johnson had no formal training in music but managed to consolidate influences from native and foreign sources. As Jones explains, Johnson was not a prodigy but rather an autodidact who excelled at the horn and keyed (Kent) bugle. He was "an able young professional" (39) who was ostensibly one of the country's first cultural ambassadors when he toured Europe with his most talented bandmates during the reign of Queen Victoria (165).

Thematically, Jones offers a breadth of compelling information. We tour, for instance, the rise of military bands, the earliest of which was in Johnson's home state of Pennsylvania. The biographer repeatedly underscores his subject's breakthroughs in a multitude of social spheres: the military, the recreational world of balls and society gatherings, and musical theater (including the circus). Through spirited descriptions, the text illustrates the fruitful and enduring partnership between the musician and his publisher, George Willig. It also recreates the scenes of upper-class joie de vivre that allowed Johnson's work to garner popular acclaim, both for its technical virtuosity and its emotional appeal. The sparkling resorts at Saratoga Springs, New York had Johnson's bands regale summer guests for over two decades. Stressing Johnson's autonomy as an artist, Jones includes reviews from newspapers and guest testimonials that offer a full range of responses to the lively musicians and their flexible repertoire of waltzes, marches, promenades, and other dance numbers.

A key phrase that recurs throughout the biography is "lasting place" (78). Jones emphasizes that Johnson was a man of firsts: he established himself as "the earliest American of African ancestry to publish music, his own or anyone else's" (92). Readers will especially appreciate Jones's scrupulous evaluation of blackface minstrelsy as the parallel--and yet contrastive--phenomenon that made Johnson's successes all the more poignant and necessary. Although the musician's primary audience consisted of moneyed whites, Jones strives to show that Johnson was still something of a "race man," helping to found the African Harmonic Society, tutoring students in his spare time, and participating in the life of Philadelphia's black churches. That being said, as a relatively privileged figure that had the opportunity to travel internationally and play with the likes of Johann Strauss, he does not fit easily into the prevailing stereotypes about antebellum black experience. The biography helps to break down readers' cognitive resistance to differing versions of black success during the abject age of the Peculiar Institution. Music did not have to be political, nor did it have to have a vernacular base. Jones is not unaware of the ironies underlying his subject's ascent: "Evidence indicates that in [Johnson's] professional life his complexion mattered little or not at all" (168). There were unpleasant incidents that he endured, but Johnson placed his faith in his craft, not in an abstract vision of race-based heroics.

This portrait of Johnson offers a wealth of material in its appendices, including a list of the musician's contemporaries, a compendium of extant compositions, and essays on the era's music publishers as well as bandmasters. The biography is flawed in minor aspects only, as Jones mentions "the 1831 insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia" but adds Nat Turner's name as a kind of afterthought pages later. He dutifully mentions David Walker's 1828 Appeal as well as abolitionism, The Liberator, and the contributions of the Forten family, but these are passing observations and are not connected directly to Johnson's concert-filled, peripatetic life. Strangely, however, Jones consistently chooses to call blacks "free Africans" and whites "Euro-Americans." When discussing the Turner revolt, he writes, "The aftermath of the uprising is documented as violent and bitter against the Africans in the region" (129). Similarly, he evokes a "group of five Africans traveling together" (157) when recreating the departure of Johnson and his entourage to Europe. Granted, "African American" was not a term that has the same currency as it does today. Yet the choice on Jones's part to stress African over American ancestry obscures the reality that many of these "free Africans" were not African-born or African-identified at all. It is myopic to equate "African" with "American of African ancestry" without qualification. What's more, many blacks, including Johnson himself, were of mixed-race parentage, making "free African" as a synonym for "black" ultimately a limiting choice of terminology.

Jones also avoids the term "racist," opting for "reactionary" when describing anti-black prejudice. For some readers, this may appear intellectually timid or at least somewhat archaic; others may see it as a conscientious choice because "racist" is such a loaded and accusatory term. Not using a word that is so ubiquitous in present-day discourses of power and injustice appears odd, to say the least. This mild discomfort continues when Jones names a section "Carrying His Music to the People." This heading is misleading to the reader accustomed to understanding "the people" as a way of referring to African Americans. The idea is something akin to the social organicism implied by the concept of "the folk." As mentioned earlier, Johnson's white listeners far outnumbered his black listeners; the former were composed of a specific demographic of middle- and upper-class whites with leisure time, a genuine interest in classical music, and sufficient investment in military history and the pomp it entailed to keep returning to his concerts and commemorations. Thus, as an epithet, "the people" is hardly as communal, racially inclusive, or democratic as it first appears. Although Jones asserts that his subject "was always willing to use his music for more than just entertainment" (204), Johnson's legacy owes less to his implied humanitarian service than to his success as a talented, ambitious, and prolific artist. One suspects, however, that throughout his life, his under-examined racial effacement ultimately played its own significant role.

Reviewed by

Nancy Kang

Syracuse University