Guyanese creative artistes have been and continue to be important ambassadors on the international stage. Their world-class works have helped to keep the flag of Guyana flying high and undermined the notion that Guyanese were unsophisticated mudheads. An outstanding example of that tradition is Kenrick Reginald Hymans Johnson.
Kenrick Reginald Hymans Johnson was born in Georgetown, British Guiana, on September 10, 1914. He attended Queens College and grew up at a time when the colony had a vibrant music scene.
Radio, which had established a presence as early as 1915, was making American popular music accessible. By 1918, students were sitting the examinations of the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, and Trinity College of Music. In 1919, the Demerara Symphony Orchestra was performing at Assembly Rooms, and the newly formed B.G. Musicians’ Band held a moonlight concert in the Promenade Gardens to “raise funds to procure up-to-date instruments.”
An advertisement from Pradasco Cycle Store in the Daily Argosy of Sunday, July 6, 1924 announced the arrival of new dance music from Gennett Records, an American recording company that specialized in popular dance and Black American music. Dance Halls were sprouting up across Georgetown.
The program for the British Guiana Militia Band Sea Wall concert on January 2, 1926 included Dowell’s March Little Drummer Boy; the Overture from Suppe’s Poet and Peasant; and Gershwin’s Tell me more. The Colonial Transportation Department promoted a “morning cruise” on the S.S. Queriman for New Year’s Day 1929 featuring piano and jazz music.
By the time Johnson left B.G. in 1929 to study at the prestigious William Borlase School in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, he had been exposed to a wide range of musical styles and was a pianist and a violinist.
Instead of following his father and studying medicine, he followed the Muses. He studied dance under the innovative American choreographer Buddy Bradley. As a result of his height, 6’4”, and his “fluid and flexible style,” Johnson earned the nickname “Snakehips.”
By 1934, Johnson was in the United States appearing in movies and starring in Hollywood cabaret. His visit exposed him to swing music as popularized by Cab Calloway and Fletcher Henderson. He returned to England and formed a number of swing/jazz bands. His most successful was The West Indian Orchestra, which has been described as the “first regular black band of any size in Britain.” The band became London’s leading swing band in the late 1930s and 1940s.
Johnson and his band were the toast of London’s café society. He died at the age of 26, performing at London’s exclusive Café de Paris when it was bombed during a German air raid on March 8, 1941.
To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the bombing of the Café de Paris, Britain’s National Sound Archives and Topic Records released a CD celebrating the history of swing music in England. The CD features two recordings by The West Indian Orchestra. Ken “Snakehips” Johnson, a Guyanese who pioneered jazz in the United Kingdom, fostered West Indian unity and left a legacy to be proud of.