This is the first poster used to promote the Bunk Johnson Jazz, Art & Heritage Festival now in its 20th year.

He called it home — now city carries on Bunk’s legacy

How does a festival get to be 20 years old? Better yet, how does a man become the inspiration for the festival named for him?

Who is Bunk Johnson?

Through the years the festival itself has been enough reason to bring attention to the event and organizers. Curiosity about the man, Willie “Bunk” Johnson brought research and many stories about the musician who lived and is buried in New Iberia. His legend is not without merit, but greater insight into his reality makes the achievements of today an even greater beacon of light for future generations.

Born in New Orleans, the date of his birth has not been resolved, according to the book “Bunk Johnson: Song of the Wanderer” compiled by Mike Hazeldine and Barry Martyn, copyright 2000. The limited edition contains a comprehensive collection of remembrances and research that did not draw a conclusion as to the ten year debatable difference between his birth December 27, 1879, or 1889. Evidence on either side is inconclusive. Later in life musicians talked about his obvious look of older age but his wife Maude’s sister said he “always looked very old.” The matter becomes mute with a look into his music.

His career basically spanned two time periods. Although there may be comparative evidence as to the reasons for the separation, articles and stories found in the Bunk Johnson permanent display and music research library at the Iberia Parish Main Library agree that one reason was his loss of teeth. Many of the stories of Johnson living in New Iberia happened during that period.

Struggling in the Dark

In the “Song of the Wanderer,” John Casimir tells a story about the years 1934-35 when Johnson was playing with the Banner Band and in another with his Uncle Henry Jefferson most Saturday nights in nightclubs around New Iberia. During that time Johnson lost his teeth, actually he dropped a bridge out of his mouth. He tried tying up the plate but eventually gave up music and went to work in the rice fields or hauling cane, depending on the season.

Hard times fall on every man and a musician born with a song in his heart without an instrument often falls into a bottle. Such was the case for many of the stories in the book including how during one period of time while performing with the Banner Band in Lake Charles, the club owner had come to book double bands — just in case Johnson didn’t show up.

Leander Wiltz, a co-worker at the Conrad Rice Mill where Johnson worked intermittently during the mid to late 1930s, also knew the trumpeter from the dances he attended with his wife in Charenton. The Banner Band was frequently booked there with Johnson playing trumpet.

“… every good musician we had around here, they was drunks,” Wiltz said in Song of Wanderer. “Only ever hurt himself. He was teaching quite a few of those boys around here. He was always friendly as a man. Always telling jokes. He’d have made a good relations man. All the time I knew him he never was trouble. Always happy. Joking.”

During the same years Wooden Joe Nicholas tells in the same chapter of meeting with Bunk Johnson and the Banner Band.

“Finally came out that the reason two bands were hired was that Bunk didn’t show up half the time when he took a job,” Nicholas said. “Never was a loud trumpet player, played soft and sweet. Had good fingers. Beautiful tone, would take you off your feet. In my teens I took about ten lessons from Bunk. Never could find him at home. That’s why they called him ‘Bunk,’ he’d ‘bunk’ down anywhere drunk as a fool.”

For the next few years, Johnson didn’t play at all but when he got his first new set of teeth, he played a bass horn borrowed from the school so he started playing again. Although playing in bands was back on the agenda, Johnson must have realized the need to maintain some form of home life and would keep odd jobs around New Iberia like night watchman and general hand at Dauterive’s furniture store or as a handy man and lawn man.

“I never knew him in his early great days,” said Weeks Hall on a recording intended for Dr. Edmon Souchon II, a New Orleans surgeon, musician, author and jazz authority. Those Hall recordings were later meticulously transcribed ny Morris Raphael into a book called The Weeks Hall Tapes.

“He (Johnson) came to me in his early 30s as a yardman. His own terms. The whole thing turned out very satisfactorily all around.”

Johnson enjoyed working at the Shadows where famous people frequented the owner. He even played privately for Hall on occasion or was found fishing on the river bank.

“Shortly after all this, Bunk had to leave,” Hall said. “He was given a position to teach music at some of the schools here. When he worked for me, he came only occasionally when I needed him or when I could find him. In absences from this place he evidently resorted to the cup to relieve the drabness and the monotony of life in a small town.”

To put life into context for Bunk Johnson and others at the time, during the 1927 flood, he and wife Maude Balque Johnson, were forced to move to Lake Charles and Texas due to high water. When Johnson played with bands, they traveled from town to town first by wagon, only later by bus or car. Wages were $1.25 or up to $2.50 per player after World War I. When he wasn’t playing trumpet, Johnson was whistling.

“I was about 12 when he worked for us,” said Paul Veasey Jr. whose father ran the local ice-cream parlor on Main Street. “He always was whistling the whole time, whistling songs. Later I realized they were songs of Louis or King Oliver. Bunk gave me several lessons on the horn. He always made me start with a ‘Closer Walk With Thee.’ He said he always made his students begin with that, as it was an easy number. He was a good teacher. Just taught me licks and leads. Not any theory. He never lost patience with me.”

Matthew Polk, Johnson’s immediate superior in his teaching job with Iberia Parish schools said, “he must have been a good teacher, the students loved him. Teaching was his state of survival and he did it well.”

In the Limelight

Life for the famed musician had not always been so grim. Born and raised in New Orleans, whether 1879 or 1889, Johnson was strategically placed in the neighborhoods that birthed the soul of Jazz. He not only played with the best of them, he was one of them.

“My father, William Johnson, a slave, … was paired with Theresa Jefferson. They married before the war. My grandmother was a descendent of the Black Creek Indians. They were chased out (of St. James Parish) by the Cajuns. My mother operated three restaurants (in New Orleans). I always carried a tin bucket to school filled with red beans, rice, cabbage and a glass of syrup,” said Johnson in Song of a Wanderer, compiled from his own letters.

“Everyday at 11:45 we had 15 minutes at the chapel with Professor Wallace Cutchey … who played the chapel organ and gave us our music lessons. I learned the rudiments of music first and then singing. I sang four years before I touched an instrument,” Johnson said in archived letters. “Now if I was to teach anyone to play an instrument, I would have him learn the rudiments of music first and how to sing. Then I would teach him the delivery of wind thru an instrument, how to produce tone, then to execute on that instrument and start on the first scale in C and go on from there. That’s the way I learned.”

Tone from Johnson’s horn is often the selling point for his talents, and one often associated with his most famous protégé, whether intentional or self-realized. Yet another point of contention was whether or not Louis “Satchamo” Armstrong was actually a student of Johnson’s. Indications are that at a young age, a boy named Louis was underfoot. Without question, each was an admirer of the other and helped shape the other’s life.

As an up and coming musician, Armstrong pointed others to the older Johnson for stories and gigs, sharing the stage on occasion. He even helped provide the much-needed teeth so Johnson could again become a viable cornet player.

“Bunk was a man that really knocked me out and the first time I heard him I got in my head that I wanted to play cornet just like Bunk did. I was about ten years old at that time. I noticed Louis had a similar touch of Bunk too. He was playing on the order of Bunk,” said Lee Collins, a trumpet player that saw Johnson when he was playing with the Eagle Band.

“I was inspired to play trumpet by hearing Bunk, the first trumpet player I ever heard,” said Ernest Cagnolatti, a trumpet player.

“The first number I remember Bunk playing was Wang Wang Blues. I was 5-8 years old in this era and spent hours daily listening,” said Jazz historian Al Rose remembering Bunk in the early days when Johnson played with the Rose family carnival. It was 1921-23.

Traveling tent shows, circus bands, minstrel shows, dance halls, nightclubs, and hotel ballrooms, private and ticketed events. Johnson played them all throughout the South, in New York City, San Francisco and ports around the world. He was featured in Life magazine, Ebony in its first year of publication and his influence is even remembered in a song called “Trumpet Man” written and recorded by Grammy-nominated instrumental legend and artist Norman Blake.

The fact that Johnson returned home to New Iberia in hard times and good, gives credence to the festival and ensemble that bears his name. His fame among Jazz historians remains legendary.

Leading the Band

As a young musician in New Orleans, Bunk Johnson was part of the world that honored history makers from the Battle of Chalmette/New Orleans. On May 30 every year they took bugle, clarinet, bass drum and snare drum — the “field-drum band” — adding others later, to march up and down the streets for Memorial Day Services.

Today the Bunk Johnson Brazz Band leads processions for private parties, spring Jazz in the Gardens at the Shadows-on-the-Teche where they also start Beneath the Balconies in the fall and for the Books Along the Teche Literary Festival opening reception. They play anytime, wedding receptions and so much more.

The musicians that form the modern day namesake are not just musicians, but also teachers at heart. As reported in an earlier 2018 story about the band, from the leader Dwalyn Jackson to the members, school principal to band instructor, the Buck Johnson Brazz Band seeks to lead young men and women into their musical futures.

The organization to perpetuate that cause has already been established and plans are in the making for a school that will bear the legend’s name, The Bunk Johnson Creative Arts Academy Inc. Like the days when the man himself taught students in Iberia Parish schools, instruments must be provided. Funds to build the legacy are being collected. Most importantly is the annual remembrance and celebration of the Bunk Johnson Jazz, Arts and Heritage Festival and the outdoor multi-band concert, Bunkin’ on the Bayou.

The “Jazz Night Out on the Teche” gala was last night; the outdoor music festival in Johnson’s honor is May 26 starting at 3 p.m. and continues until midnight. It is held at Bouligny Plaza and Steamboat Pavilion in New Iberia. Thanks to the fundraising gala and sponsors, the community is invited free of charge.

Then Sunday morning at 10 a.m. the Bunk Johnson Brazz Band plays tribute during Jazz Mass at the musician’s home church, St. Edward Catholic Church. Following the service a second-line leads the way to Johnson’s burial place in the adjacent cemetery.

It has just been announced The National Trust for Historic Preservation seeks to commission a playwright to write a dramatic work “Bunk Johnson at The Shadows: Historic Interpretation through Dramatic Presentation.”

Funded by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the deadline for submission is May 24. The one-act must be completed by October. Anyone interested in the grant should contact The Shadows for qualifications and an application.