Francis Johnson, also known as Frank Johnson, was among the first noteworthy American composers of instrumental music. He was the first black composer to have his music published. His band was among the first to achieve a nationwide reputation and tour extensively. And it was the first to go on a foreign tour. Johnson was also among the first musicians to participate in interracial performances.

Although there was some speculation that Johnson was born in Martinique, historians have determined that he was born in Philadelphia as a free black on June 16, 1792. And it’s certainly in Philadelphia where he made his first mark.

Johnson’s childhood, early musical training, and personal life are little known, but he was playing music professionally in Philadelphia by 1812. He probably first gained attention as a fiddler for dances. He later became known for performances on multiple instruments, especially violin and keyed bugle.

The beginning of Johnson’s career

The War of 1812 sparked a wave of patriotism and a love of military display. In this spirit, one Matthew Black organized an all-black military band in 1818 in Philadelphia. Johnson may have been a member of it but soon started his own dance band.

On October 6, 1818, he took out an advertisement in Poulson’s American Daily Advisor, Philadelphia’s first newspaper to promote both his band and the sale of his compositions. That same year, the important Philadelphia music publisher George Willig issued A collection of new cotillions by F. Johnson.

It seems a rare thing for the leader of any brand-new band to have a collection of music published. And especially for a black composer. He must have already developed an excellent local reputation.

Johnson composed more than 300 pieces and had more than 200 of them published. It could be that his band played the same compositions in different styles, depending on whether the audience was black or white. Unfortunately, we can never know.

Early publications of band music do not preserve the original instrumentation. Most often, as was the case with Johnson’s music, it was arranged for piano solo. Amateur musicians bought it to play the most popular new music at home. Matters of instrumentation, let alone performance practice, remain unknown.

Francis Johnson and the keyed bugle

The invention of the keyed bugle revolutionized performance on brass instruments. It was the first widely available brass instrument in the soprano register capable of playing an entire scale. Before then, only the trombone was not limited to the notes in the overtone series. The overtone series has a lot of gaps. It provides a scale only in the very highest notes.

Several sources claim that Francis Johnson became a self-taught virtuoso on keyed bugle by 1813. That is impossible. The earliest advertisements for the instrument appeared in 1815. So it is unlikely that any of them were even available in the US until then. Most likely, Johnson learned to play it from Richard Willis.

Willis was not the first person in America to play keyed bugle, but he was the first professional soloist on the instrument. His first documented performance on keyed bugle in the US occurred in May 1816, a year before his appointment as bandmaster at West Point. He evidently began to teach keyed bugle there immediately.

Johnson and Willis probably met for the first time in 1820. That summer, cadets from the academy, along with the band under Willis, marched from West Point to Philadelphia. Johnson was the leader of a militia band that escorted the West Point musicians to their camp.

The two bands collaborated on at least one public concert. The cadets, by the way, were all white and Johnson’s band was all black. It’s probably the first time black and white musicians performed on the same program.

Once Johnson learned to play the keyed bugle, he, too became a well-known virtuoso.

The early years of Johnson’s career

When Johnson started his band, few Americans could make a living as a professional musician. He was one of the exceptions. He not only composed and performed but taught music to both black and white musicians, And he continued to teach long after his touring bands made him nationally famous.  It appears that his income from music was as much as anyone’s in Philadelphia’s upper middle class.

Johnson’s success resulted from his hard work, thorough training in all aspects of music, and his ability to instruct. He was both well liked as a person and a good disciplinarian. Not only that, he had good business sense, a rare combination.

His band started playing only for the black community. He recruited several musicians who already had excellent local reputations in their own right. Philadelphia had a deep supply of highly skilled black musicians for Johnson to recruit.

Francis Johnson was not the only composer in his band. William Brady composed a Christmas anthem and an Episcopal musical service. The Roman Catholic church in Philadelphia likewise appreciated Brady’s sacred music. Aaron Connor and Joseph C. Anderson composed both instrumental and vocal music.

After a few years, the band’s reputation for excellence won it gigs at some of the most prestigious social events in Philadelphia’s white society. After that, the band started to become associated with white militia units and played summer concerts at Sarasota Springs. These occasions gave Johnson’s band a national reputation.

Johnson’s personal fame was enhanced in 1824 when he composed much of the music played at ceremonies for Lafayette, the Revolutionary War hero, when he returned to the US for a tour. Subsequently, he composed music to honor Charles Dickens’ visit to the US and for celebrations honoring the 100th birthday of George Washington.

Johnson’s military bands

The US had no standing army in the early 19th century. It relied on local volunteer militias, ancestors of today’s National Guard.

Francis Johnson formed relationships with several Philadelphia militias, including the Washington Guards Third Company (which changed its name to Washington Greys), the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, and especially a civilian military unit called the State Fencibles.

In 1821, he was head of the band of the State Fencibles. At first, it had only four members: Johnson on keyed bugle, one fife, and two drums. Eventually, it grew. It was with this band that Johnson toured the nation and visited England.

Don’t think of the modern American concert band, however. When the Fencibles band performed on the Fourth of July in Detroit (1839) it had somewhere between 7 and 16 performers. When Willis took over leadership of the West Point band, it apparently had only a dozen or so members. Bigger American bands did exist that early.

Johnson’s band on tour

Johnson’s tours took the band as far north as Toronto, as far south as Louisville, and as far west as St. Louis. Besides Johnson’s own compositions, the band’s repertoire ranged from European composers such as Mozart and Rossini to American popular songs. Band members played brass instruments or stringed instruments, depending on what was appropriate for each piece.

It seems amazing that Johnson traveled with his band so often and to so many places. He had to contend both with very primitive transportation and virulent racism.

Johnson’s tours predated the railroads, so the primary mode of long-distance transportation was the stage coach.

The presence of free blacks was illegal in Missouri. When his band visited St. Louis, the city government had him arrested and expelled. At the time of Johnson’s visit to Detroit, Michigan’s state constitution excluded blacks from most rights of citizenship. His presence in Pittsburgh resulted in violence.

Audiences always greeted Johnson’s band with enthusiasm, but sometimes doubted that a stage full of black musicians could actually read music. Johnson offered proof that they hadn’t simply learned music by rote by having them sight read in the concerts.

No record survives of how Johnson reacted to the steady stream of racism he encountered. He made his sentiments known through titles of some of his compositions, however. These include “The Grave of the Slave” and “Recognition March on the Independence of Haiti.” He continued to play for the black community even after he started earning more money from white society.

The English tour

Sometime in the spring of 1837, Johnson decided to take his band to England and secured financial backing. An editorial in the Public Ledger on August 24, 1837 lamented that Philadelphia would be “deprived of the services of ‘Old Frank,’” but thoroughly approved of the upcoming tour. It promised that Johnson would return in a year with even greater musical knowledge for even greater gratification of the public.

But Johnson did not entirely deprive Philadelphia of his music. He left musicians behind under the direction of Edward Augustus to maintain his ordinary performance schedule.

Steamship travel on the Atlantic did not start until 1838. Johnson took his band to England in 1837 on sailing ships that took three times as long to make the trip. The band played in several major British cities. In London, it played consecutive weeks at the Strand and also at the Argyle Room and Regent Square.

Some London reviews

A reviewer of one of Johnson’s London concerts noted,

A selection from De Berriott [sic] was most singularly, but cleverly executed by three violins and a violoncello, and the “sang frond” with which the performers went from one instrument to another was most remarkable; for having laid down the fiddles, they took up the key’d bugles and other wind instruments. They performed our national anthem in good style, and with much enthusiasm, as though it had been their native Yankee Doodle. The leader is an expert musician, and a few good lessons would place him infinitely beyond comparison with many of our pseudo-practitioners.

Another proclaimed,

Good news for the Saints! Who will say that niggers cannot be cultivated? At the Argyll Rooms there are several black men giving concerts; and they select pieces from Mozart, Rossini, and all the chief composers.

Johnson’s band also gave a command performance in the presence of Queen Victoria and her mother.  It probably took place in April 1838 at Windsor or May 1838 in London, after Johnson’s band had made a public splash and very likely performed for other nobility. The queen was so impressed with it that she gave Johnson a silver cornet.

What Johnson learned in England

In addition to performing concerts in England, Johnson had ample opportunity to listen to them. He must have heard the Distin Family brass ensemble and some of Johann Strauss I’s concerts among many others.

Perhaps the ones that made the deepest impression were the promenade concerts. Phillippe Musard invented the promenade concert and first presented them in Paris in 1833. The first English promenade concerts, led by a Mr. Pilati, did not occur until 1838, so Johnson encountered the beginning of an important tradition.

Introducing waltzes and promenade concerts to the US

Francis Johnson returned to Philadelphia by August 1838 and immediately set out on a tour. It started at Saratoga Springs and continued until December. At that time, he started to compose and perform waltzes.

On December 24, 1838, he took out newspaper advertisements to announce a “concert à la Musard” during Christmas Week in Philadelphia. Although his band was well known for dance music and military music, it had never given a formal concert before. He organized his concerts a little differently. Unlike Musard’s and Pilati’s promenade concerts, Johnson’s included vocal music.

Johnson’s concerts à la Musard attracted audiences of up to 3,500 people. Twice, it was necessary to close the doors long before the performances began, simply because there was no room to admit more people. He followed his success with similar series during the Christmas weeks of 1839, 1840 (which were advertised for the first time as promenade concerts), and 1843.

On March 14, 1841, a hundred-voice chorus of black singers, accompanied by Johnson’s band, mounted a complete performance of Haydn’s Creation at the First African Presbyterian Church.

The novelty of black musicians attempting such a masterpiece assured a large audience. Perhaps many were surprised at the level of artistry they displayed. The artistic success enabled them to repeat the concert at the white Church of the Second Advent soon afterwards.

The 1843 promenades represented the first time white musicians joined Johnson’s group on stage. These integrated concerts continued into February 1844.

Johnson’s band after Johnson’s death

Unfortunately, Johnson died at age 52 after a long illness on April 6, 1844. He had stepped down from leadership two weeks earlier and assigned Joseph C. Anderson to succeed him.  The band operated for 20 years after his death under Anderson’s leadership, dispersing only in the turmoil of the Civil War.

An influx of foreign, mostly German musicians and the organization of other black bands meant that Anderson had to deal with more competition than Johnson had. Nevertheless, he maintained Johnson’s high artistic standards and continued to tour with the band.

Sources:

The first published African-American composer / Alexandra Brassard, Clements Library, University of Michigan. January 17, 2019
Francis (Frank) Johnson, musician, and teacher born / African American Registry
Francis Johnson 1792 – 1844 / Penn Connection, Penn University Archives; Records Center
Francis Johnson and Richard Willis / Jonathan L. Crane, West Point Band. January 12, 2021
Frank Johnson of Philadelphia and his promenade concerts / Eileen Southern, The Black Perspective in Music 5 (1977): 3-29
Frank Johnson’s military band / John W. Cromwell, Southern Workman 29 (1900):532-35, reprinted in The Black Perspective in Music 4 (July 1976): 208-12
New light on the early history of the keyed bugle. Part II: More on England and Ireland; the United States / David Lasocki, Historic Brass Society Journal 22 (2010): 19-54