James Dapogny‘s 50 Year Flash-Back: Recreating the History of Jazz and a Lost Black Opera

Dec. 18, 2002

Professor James Dapogny had a vision in the early ‘70s to be able to present the first 50 years of jazz in one show with one band. Since 1976 he has been successfully accomplishing that at concert halls and festivals throughout the United States, with his eight-piece James Dapogny’s Chicago Jazz Band. He will bring his band to the Milliken Auditorium on December 21.
“Jazz styles after about 1930 emphasize arranged, rather than improvised, ensembles. I wanted a band that could play both,” said Dapogny. “The exciting multi-layered improvised earlier jazz ensemble style and the smooth, powerful, arranged swing ensemble sound is what I was looking for.”
Dapogny, who grew up in Chicago and was a music major at the University of Illinois, (currently he is a music professor at the University of Michigan, jazz scholar and a leading authority on music composition) brought several in former music colleagues from his Chicago days, along with other committed musicians he had known only through their recorded works to form his band.
“These guys are all busy, accomplished musicians, but sense the value in what we are doing, so they make the music and the group a priority, enabling us to perform several shows throughout the year,” said Dapogny.
He likes the commitment from the players and doesn’t feel that just any musician would have worked.
“Not all jazz musicians play these styles convincingly, balancing authenticity and up-to-date excitement. Our guys are skilled at solo improvising, the mainstay of virtually all jazz. They also are able to improvise the ensembles, essential to New Orleans and Chicago jazz, which is something of a lost art.”

A LOST BLACK OPERA
So exactly what is in store for concertgoers when experiencing the music of the first 50 years of jazz?
“We will showcase ragtime, New Orleans jazz, swing and certainly Chicago-style jazz,” said Dapogny. “I think the show lends itself nicely to the jazz aficionado as well as first time listeners to the music. The music we are playing doesn’t require a lot of previous jazz listening or knowledge of jazz to be appreciated.”
While Dapagony’s work as jazz pianist, arranger and bandleader have been recognized throughout jazz circles, it is his expertise in music composition that has put him in the spotlight most recently. In 1997 he accidentally discovered the chorus score of the 1940 one-act opera “De Organizer,” written by jazz pianist and composer James P. Johnson and Langston Hughes, a leading African American poet, novelist, playwright and columnist.
“De Organizer,” was performed once in 1940 at Carnegie Hall in New York; after the performance the original compositions and scores were lost. Jazz scholars and supporters for years searched for the missing work and all but had given up until Dapogny discovered some of it among papers given to U of M by the late Eva Jessye, a choral director whose credits include the original performance of “Porgy and Bess.”
“The score was not complete but what I played was magnificent, so I set out to reconstruct the complete musical composition,” said Dapogny. “I believed that I was the right person for this, because of my music composition background and the fact that I was very familiar with Johnson’s other work.”

HITTING HIS STRIDE
Johnson is considered to be the “father of the stride piano” and instrumental in the transition of ragtime to the jazz sounds of the 1930s. Johnson composed the music for the popular and influential “The Charleston,” and was a soloist and accompanist for the likes of the legendary Besse Smith. His collaboration with Langston Hughes in the 1930s to create the “De Organizer” was subtitled “A Blues Opera,” and was based on the theme of organizing sharecroppers into a union.
Dapogny even received a grant and a one-year leave from U of M to focus his energies on completing the restoration of the “De Organizer.” His hard work and determination paid off with the first public music performance in over 60 years taking place in front of a sold-out crowd December 3, 2002 at Orchestra Hall in Detroit. A second sold-out performance occurred a week later at the Power Center in Ann Arbor. Both performances received positive praise from major music critics.
“I believe that the completed restoration, a collaboration of two important, successful African-American artists, is both aesthetically appealing and historically and socially significant,” said Dapogny. “Further, as a one-act opera using fairly modest forces -- it will be a unique, ‘new‘ item of very usable repertoire for the world.”
There is a lot of interest in Dapgony’s reconstruction and several additional performances will take place in the coming months. There is one goal Dapogny has for “De Organizer“:
“In 1940 it was only the music that was performed,” said Dapogny. “To date a full stage production of the actual opera has never been executed, I would like for the piece to be staged in its entirety, the complete opera, as it was originally intended.”
While “De Organizer” won’t be a part of his Northern Michigan concert, Dapogny and his seven band mates will be “reconstructing” the jazz sounds from years past. Collectively the members of the band have appeared on 150 recordings and as a group have recorded eight albums including “Sippie” the Grammy nominated album that featured blues singer Sippie Wallace and blues rocker Bonnie Raitt.

The James Dapogny’s Chicago Jazz Band will perform, Saturday December 21 at the Milliken Auditorium on the campus of Northwestern Michigan College. Tickets are available by contacting the museum (231) 995-1553.