General Resources and Further Reading

This page lists some of the musicians, researchers, sources (and all of the above) who have been invaluable to me in my rediscovery of Frank Johnson. Brent White, trombonist and educator, was my co-musical investigator at The Library Company of Philadelphia. Hearing Johnson’s music through his lens was such an inspirational part of the process and I have included liks to both the live performance at Mother Bethel AME Church, and the subsquent studio recorded album titled code-switching in the Media list. The same list also features recordings by the Chestnut Brass Company. I was introduced to their work by Jay Krush, a member of the ensemble who so generously shared his knowledge of the types of brass instruments that Johnson would have performed on. Both Brent and Jay kindly contributed to my BBC documentary ‘Frank Johnson, Queen Victoria and the Black Brass Band’ which traced the early stages of this research across Philadelphia and London.

Media

  • The Chestnut Brass Company, Tamara Brooks, and Diane Monroe (2007) The Music of Francis Johnson and His Contemporaries: Early 19th-Century Black Composers. Music Masters.
  • Trombonist Brent White leads an ensemble presenting Francis (Frank) Johnson (2022). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG30LZkiiRE (Accessed: 11 December 2023).
  • White, B. (2022) code-switching. Available at: https://www.deezer.com/en/album/361068067 (Accessed: 11 December 2023).

Literature

  • Cromwell, J.W. (ed.) (1976) ‘Frank Johnson’s Military Band’, The Black Perspective in Music, 4(2), pp. 208–212. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1214510.
  • Davies, J. (2010) ‘Saint-Dominguan Refugees of African Descent and the Forging of Ethnic Identity in Early National Philadelphia’, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 134(2), pp. 109–126. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5215/pennmaghistbio.134.2.109.
  • Dudgeon, R.T. (2004) The keyed bugle. Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press. Available at: http://archive.org/details/keyedbugle0000dudg (Accessed: 31 July 2022).
  • Floyd, S.A. and Reisser, M.J. (1980) ‘Social Dance Music of Black Composers in the Nineteenth Century and the Emergence of Classic Ragtime’, The Black Perspective in Music, 8(2), pp. 161–193. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1214050.
  • Gardner, E. (2002) ‘Francis Johnson’, in M.C. Carnes (ed.) American National Biography: Supplement. Oxford University Press, pp. 286–287.
  • Jones, C.K. (2006) Francis Johnson (1792-1844): Chronicle of a Black Musician in Early Nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Associated University Press.
  • Lamb, E. (2014) ‘The Music of Francis Johnson and His Contemporaries: Early 19th-Century Black Composers. The Chestnut Brass Company and Friends, Tamara Brooks, conductor. Music Masters 7029-2-C, 1990.’, Journal of the Society for American Music, 8(2), pp. 266–267. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196314000133.
  • Philadelphia Stories: People and Their Places in Early America (2021). University of Pennsylvania Press. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv18dvvp6 (Accessed: 15 December 2022).
  • Southern, E. (1977) ‘Frank Johnson of Philadelphia and His Promenade Concerts’, The Black Perspective in Music, 5(1), p. 3. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1214356.

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