George V. Johnson keeps a recording close at hand. It’s a 16-second clip of Eddie Jefferson, the jazz vocalist who invented “vocalese,” from 1977. In the clip, Jefferson counts off a 4/4 beat; as a trio gets going behind him, he announces, “One of my students, George Johnson, come out from Washington, D.C. He’s next in line, next in line.”
It’s the defining moment of Johnson’s musical career, and perhaps of his life: His teacher, one of jazz’s best-known male singers and innovators (and a dear friend before his 1979 murder), naming the younger singer as heir apparent. Not surprisingly, the tape became his calling card. He used it to introduce himself to musicians, and sometimes played it as a
