Public Media from Michigan State University

The 'Lost' Opera of Jazzman Johnson, Poet Hughes

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Jazz pianist James P. Johnson -- the "father of stride" -- once collaborated with poet Langston Hughes on De Organizer, an opera describing union organizing among blacks in the 1920s. For 60 years, the work was forgotten. But a production of the opera opens Tuesday in Detroit. Celeste Headlee of member station WDET reports.

Copyright 2002 NPR

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