James Booker

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James Booker on cover of Aves 69031

James Carroll Booker III (December 17, 1939 – November 8, 1983) was an eccentric and flamboyant piano player and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana.

James Booker was the son and grandson of Baptist preachers. He spent most of his childhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where his father pastored a church. After returning to New Orleans in his early adolescence he attended the prestigious Xavier Academy prep school. He first played organ in his father's churches. He was classically trained as a youth and developed an ability to imitate other player's styles. In 1958, James had a major hit song on the R&B ("race music" in those days) charts. His own style combined elements of blues, boogie woogie, latin-Caribbean, and classical piano. Professor Longhair was among Booker's important influences.

In 1958, Arthur Rubinstein gave a concert in New Orleans. Afterwards, 18 year old James was introduced to the maestro and played several tunes for him. Rubinstein was astonished, saying "I could never play that . . . never at that tempo." (New Orleans Times Picayune, 1958). Many other classical and jazz pianists have attempted to duplicate Booker's solos note for note; none have been convincingly successful. Among the betters were those made by Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner, and (recently) New Orleans' prodigy, Henry Butler. Transcriptions of Booker's playing are available in The James Booker Collection and New Orleans Piano Legends, both published by Hal Leonard Corporation.

This effigy caricature head of James Booker is paraded through the streets on a float by the Krewe of OAK each year during the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebrations.

Booker toured Europe in 1976 and 1977. New Orleans Piano Wizard: Live! is a recording of his performance at the Boogie Woogie and Ragtime Piano Contest in Zurich, Switzerland in 1977. This album won the Grand Prix du Disque for best live jazz album (1977). He played at the 1978 Nice and Montreux Jazz Festivals. 14 years later a recording in Leipzig from this tour would become the last ever record to be produced in the former GDR. It was entitled Let's Make A Better World!. He also performed with the Jerry Garcia Band in January of 1976.

He was the house piano player at the Maple Leaf Bar in the Carrollton neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans between 1977 and 1982. Resurrection of the Bayou Maharajah and Spiders on the Keys are recordings from this period.

He struggled with drugs most of his life, at one point serving a prison sentence at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Louisiana for heroin possession.

His problems with drug use held back his career; places that hired him regularly understood that it could not be known if the unreliable Booker would be giving a brilliant virtuoso performance or show up in an incoherent distracted state. One night at the Maple Leaf he devoted the evening to playing compositions by Frédéric Chopin in unusual Latin American music rhythms; another night he hardly played, mumbled obscenities, and ultimately urinated on the audience from the stage.

Booker died while sitting in a wheel chair, waiting to be seen at the emergency room at New Orleans Charity Hospital. The cause of death, per autopsy, was liver failure. (Orleans Parish Coroner's Death Certificate). His death was widely mourned by music lovers, but was unsurprising to those who were aware of his life-long history of serious drug abuse and chronic alcoholism.