JOHNNY FOURIE 1937 - 2007
The late Jan Carel Fourie (known universally as Johnny) started his lifelong
love affair with jazz at
the age of twelve. Born near Postmasburg in
1937, he was a professional session guitarist in the hothouse that was
the Johannesburg music scene by the age of fifteen. Here was a boy,
barely a teenager, whose passions had already been ignited by George
Shearing, Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel, Jimmy Raney and others. Amazingly,
he arrived at this appreciation of deep jazz through the filter of the
country music great vocalists’ ballads and
orchestral soundtracks heard at the “bioscopes” (cinemas) of his Benoni
childhood.
Albums:
- Johnny Fourie
THE MASTER IS GONE – LONG LIVE THE MASTER
"I write this dedication knowing full well that whatever words I use to
attempt to describe the beautiful person and music phenomena that is
Johnny Fourie will struggle to truly reflect his gigantic stature on
the music scene for over 40 years. Johnny played and we all
listened.....over and over and over......it never sounded jaded or
safe; it was always fresh and stunningly beautiful. We were indeed
inspired as were hundreds of others by the soft spoken master with the
most innovative approach to the complete mastery of harmony, melody and
improvisation. Johny was truly a guitarist’s dream but more importantly
he was the musician’s musician - with a technique that “skrik vir niks”
(scared of nothing).
Over the 34 years I have known him I have observed his inspiration and
influence spread with resonance through generation after generation of
aspiring guitarists and musicians. Gifts from a Guru are plenty but not
always easy to see. I know that those I managed to see will be kept
close to my heart always. Further about Johnny see below.
Greg Georgiades"
The heart breaking news of JOHNNY FOURIE passing on the 19th August 2007 in Johannesburg has been announced worldwide.
From such humble roots has come many a prodigy. And Johnny
Fourie is a prodigy, make no mistake. It seems tragic in some respects
that a guitarist capable of such heart-stopping virtuosity and natural
born empathy with the soul of beauty central to the greatest music,
should labour unheralded and unrewarded in his own country. But perhaps
this is the path of the martyr/ savant whose devotion to and
concentration on his art, has evolved into the disc you hold in your
hand. The songs here represent Johnny’s earliest loves: the melodies in
which he first heard the seeds of beauty. They are the distillation of
50 years spent evolving and developing his sound by ear, via mentors,
harmonic theory, metropolitan recording studios and many thousands of
smoke-filled nights spent on the bandstands of London, New York &
Johannesburg. And practicing in the solitude of a thousand bedrooms,
kitchens and lounges.
Yet amid this cocktail of memory and
inspiration, we find something totally new. The great melodies of the
past have been reharmonised and rearranged with the startling
originality of the future. Musicians, connoisseurs and critics of jazz
will be astonished to know that only three guitars at most were used in
painting the myriad emotional colours and complexities of these freshly
realised portraits of passion. No bass. No vibraphones. No keyboards.
No tricks. No gimmicks.
The sincerity and the love are palpable in
every passage, every note. At this table, there is a feast for the
traditionalist, the purist and the innovator.
The mantle of Tal Farlow, the camaraderie of John McLaughlin, the
melodic concepts of Bill Evans, the ghost of first mentor George
Shearing are all here. And it is a unique re-union.
As
a teenager, Johnny played hundreds of sessions at Johannesburg’s Gallo,
EMI and Trutone music “factories” in the early fifties, backing
innumerable hit musicians of the day. He can be heard on the records of
the Manhattan Brothers, Lemmy “Special” Mabaso, Spokes Mashiane, Nico
Carstens, the Merry Blackbirds and others. This was his day job.
In
1961, Johnny had a taste of the jazz scene in Soho, London and after a
brief hiatus, returned to strike up relationships with, among others,
guitarist John McLaughlin, whose friendship continues to this day.
Johnny eventually led the house band at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.
Here he was suddenly playing alongside the very biggest names in jazz.
“There
was a different face every second week. Hearing Bill Evans at Ronnie
Scott’s was just amazing. Then there was a guitarist who came out with
Kenny Clarke’s (Charlie Parker’s great drummer) trio. This was René
Tomas. And I was gobsmacked. I couldn’t believe how great he was. He
was a genius. He sounded like Jimmy Rainey but with more muscle. It was
incredible how beautifully he could solo.”
“Sonny Rollins, you
know, just touched me very deeply. And then there was Roland Kirk.
Rassan Roland Kirk blew my mind.! These were the ones who stood out.
Not forgetting a young trumpet player. A young lad who was my age, 23
or 24 at the time too. Wonderful...Freddie Hubbard.”
During
this four year stint at Ronnie Scott’s with the Johnny Fourie Trio,
playing in front of many of the mentors from his record collection of
the ‘50s, he learned the meaning of mental stamina and a deeper
awareness of music.
From 1971, after revisiting South Africa and
London, Johnny pursued freer fusion styles in New York. His great
friendship with John McLaughlin (dating back to when they traded jobs
and chops on the London scene) saw him working with and around people
such as Billy Cobham, Charles Erland, Hubert Laws, Lee Morgan; as well
as auditioning for Chick Corea’s second Return to Forever band.
Bureacracy and domestic events conspired to bring Johnny back to South Africa in 1975.
“I came back home from the USA with a new agenda, namely to study music
from an academic point of view. I continued in fusion mode, working
latterly mainly in groups formed by my son Sean (keyboards) and myself;
but also with a cross section of local players in Johannesburg, Cape
Town and Durban. Thanks to all of them. They all know who they are.
Important consolidation of concepts occured working with Hennie
Bekker’s band Profile, pianist Robert Payne and bassist Carlo Mombelli.”
As
Jonathan Crossley has observed (in his MA thesis) two things became the
focus of Fourie’s energy in the 1990’s. Namely teaching at the (then)
Pretoria Technikon Jazz Department, and the creation of the Short
Attention Span Ensemble. The group was prolific, performing at concerts
and gigs countrywide, playing mainly original compositions by Sean
Fourie and Johnny. Their debut album Fingerprints of the Gods appeared
in 1997. During these years Johnny worked relentlessly with Allan
Kwela, Kevin Gibson, Barney Rachabane, Carlo Mombelli, Bruce Cassidy,
Errol Dyers, Bob Mintzer, Barry van Zyl, Trevor Don-Jeany, Dave
O’Higgins, Cyril Ngubane, Nico Carstens, Johnny Boschoff, Robert Payne,
Groove Holmes, Avzal Ismail, Wessel van Rensburg, Gilbey Karno, Jack
van Pohl, Bob Zotolla and many other musicians.
For further excellent biographical information, check out:
www.joemoretti.org
www.music.org.za
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