Tom Johnson Jazz Orchestra: Time Takes Odd Turns

Time is not the only thing that has taken odd turns in composer/trumpeter Tom Johnson's life and career. Even though a musician at heart, he chose a more practical and lucrative path, spending his adult years as a psychologist and full-time professor at Indiana State University, placing his dream of a musical career on hold while he earned a living elsewhere. But the dream never died, and Johnson continued to study music, play and occasional gig, and explore jazz arranging and composition with bandleader and mentor Brent Wallarab, among others.

In 2023, Johnson decided the time had come to share his music with a wider audience. In May of that year, he entered a studio with a group comprised of IU students, graduates and stalwarts on the Indianapolis jazz scene to record Time Takes Odd Turns, an album comprising eleven of his charming and impressive big-band compositions. As Johnson puts it: "I really enjoyed my academic work, but my true love has always been music." That love is abundantly clear on Time Takes Odd Turns, wherein Johnson gives his musical imagination free rein, even when defining a "Simple Song" (inspired by a hammered dulcimer) or depicting raucous "Cats and Mouses" (who sound at times like fugitives from an old Warner Brothers cartoon). These and other themes follow the bright and bustling opener, "Naught Won."

Johnson also presents an "80's Suite" (sic), which consists of three disparate yet equally seductive movements: "Book One," "One More Time" and "Lucky" (the last using Johnson's Moog voyager to good effect), and leads to the funky "En la Casa de los Perritos" (In the House of the Puppies), saluting one of his favorite groups, Snarky Puppy; the buoyant yet intricate "Well You Better" and graceful "Ballad for the A1 Band," the last a bow to the Al Cobine Band, of which Johnson's father, also a trumpeter, was a member. After the "Cats and Mouses" have had their say, the band wraps the impressive session with a second extended work, the three-movement Bossa Monday Suite (minimalism/bossa/samba), and "Simply Stuff and Nonsense," which uses every available device to make its point but is not nearly as fanciful as the name implies.

A word or two must be said about the orchestra, whose twenty members fully embraced Johnson's design and have given each theme their utmost diligence and care. Without them, there would be no music save that on the written page. Everyone pulls his collective weight, while soloists make the most of every opportunity. As for Johnson, he shows by any measure that he is a creative and accomplished writer whose talents have now been uncovered and appreciated, better late than never.

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