Leslie Johnakins

A big band player for more than a half a century with a surname that looks like a head-on collision, Leslie Johnakins played alongside Lester Young and was in the Machito band more than three decades, just to mention two important credits in a lifetime of hauling around alto and baritone saxophone cases. Like many reed players, it all began with clarinet in high school, Johnakins doing his first professional gigs not much later and continuing to perform in Dave Taylor's Band while in college in North Carolina. As far back as the late '20s and early '30s there are credits for this performer in bands that worked around the Virginia and North Carolina territory, including Jimmy Gunn's Serenaders, a group that developed out of the earlier Taylor outfit. Johnakins is credited on about 50 jazz albums recorded between 1931 and 1982. Listeners who enjoy great singers such as Big Maybelle and Billie Holiday will have experienced his playing in the context of rhythm and blues and swing arrangements, respectively, although he would have been doing his job all wrong if he had attracted too much attention to himself. Thus largely unnoticed, the saxophonist also did arranging and composing work throughout his career. His most famous piece is "Wednesday Night Hop," recorded several times by pianist George Shearing. One of the richest parts of Johnakins' career was in the late '30s, his collaborations including a superb Claude Hopkins orchestra stacked with great players, accompaniment to wonderful singer Blanche Calloway, and hot jazz groups with Hot Lips Page and Earl Bostic. During the second World War, Johnakins was kept busy with industrial work in a defense plant, but was still active at gigs. A long affiliation with Machito began in 1945, guns of war still blazing; recordings over the years with the band involved sessions with saxophonists Charlie Parker and Flip Phillips, and the well-received Live at North Sea '82, by which time Johnakins had been in the group for 37 years. ~ Eugene Chadbourne