Bill Johnson & His Musical Notes

There's a record on Alert from around mid-1946 by "Bill Johnson and Orchestra," which is the beginning of the Musical Notes. They hooked up with Joe Glaser's Associated Booking Corp., and stayed with them for their entire career. They were not only booked by ABC, but managed by them too. They first recorded for J. Mayo Williams' Harlem label. The two songs that they did were Don't You Think I Oughta Know with Gus in the lead and the instrumental, and Stuff In D Flat ; recorded at an unknown date, they were released in March 1947. Also in March (on the 5th), they held their first session for RCA Victor. It was a double one, with 8 songs recorded. By the late 1950, there was a big shakeup in the group. By the time the dust had settled, guitarist Skeeter Best had left. He'd been drifting more and more into jazz and wanted to go back to Juliard to study. Bassist Jimmy Robinson wandered away for a while, and pianist Lonnie Slappey was gone too. The Musical Notes now consisted of Bill Johnson (vocals and alto sax), Gus Gordon (vocals and drums), soprano Shirley Moore (vocals and piano), and alto Eileen "Bassy" Chance (vocals and bass; she'd been in Tiny Davis' Hell-Divers and her voice sounded a lot like Gus'). A December 1950 ad has them at the Rose Room of the Majestic Hotel in Cleveland. They were back there in May 1951, by which time they'd been all over the country, as well as having had a month-long engagement in Hamilton, Ontario (Canada).

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