Photo: William P. Gottlieb / Public domain (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Pete Johnson makes my foot tap before I can think. Born in Kansas City in 1904, he was a master of boogie-woogie, and that rolling, locomotive left hand still electrifies me every time. As part of the Boogie Woogie Trio he paired technical virtuosity with real melodic richness, yet he rarely gets the headline space he deserves in jazz history. To me, anyone who could make a piano dance that hard belongs higher in the canon. He died in 1967, but the joy in his keyboard work hasn't aged a day. This is the kind of earthy, unpretentious musician I love most, and I'm simply grateful the recordings survive.
Overview
Kermit Holden "Pete" Johnson (March 25, 1904 – March 23, 1967) was an American boogie-woogie and jazz pianist. Tony Russell stated in his book The Blues – From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray that "Johnson shared with the other members of the 'Boogie Woogie Trio' the technical virtuosity and melodic fertility that can make this the most exciting of all piano music styles, but he was more comfortable than Meade Lux Lewi…
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Pete Johnson
- Name (Japanese)
- ピート・ジョンソン
- Reading
- ぴーと・じょんそん
- Born
- March 25, 1904 – March 23, 1967
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Aries / Dragon
- Origin
- Kansas City, Missouri, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- pianist / jazz musician / songwriter / recording artist / musician
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Private
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Pianist — see all → · Jazz musician — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.