What was George Happy Johnson so happy about? Perhaps it was being able to play both tenor saxophone and trombone, an instrumental double that few instrumentalists can claim to have mastered. The usual result of trying such a combination on a musician's chops can be compared to a marathon stretch of gnawing barbecued goat, although in terms of actual flavor the combination of reed and brass slobber would be deemed an insufficient competitor. Johnson's scene was largely Chicago during a period when rock roll was being developed out of a combination of jazz and blues. Groups such as that of Duke Henderson's, with whom the horn man was happy to perform and record with in the '40s, were called jump bands, the leader's style of singing known as blues shouting.

Shouting, jumping -- it all added up to a wall of noise for a horn section to pierce through. Johnson often recorded in close quarters or makeshift conditions, all part of the growing Windy City recording industry in which several independent labels managed quite well by keeping close tabs on what was happening musically when budgets were cut to the bone. Johnson recorded with the fine vocalist Linda Hopkins for the Savoy label, for example, but unfortunately, some of the efforts made by adaptable sidemen such as this multi-instrumentalist went uncredited on original releases. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi