Bunk Johnson - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Bunk suffered from a stroke in late 1948 and died in New Iberia the following year.

Jazz fans and historians still debate Bunk's legacy, and the extent to which his colorful reminiscences of his early career were accurate, misremembered, exaggerated, or untrue.

The majority of his recordings remain in print on CD reissues, and his playing is an important influence on many contemporary traditional jazz musicians. Johnson plays a small, but significant, role in Alan Schroeder's picture book "Satchmo's Blues." In that book, Johnson serves as a source of musical inspiration to the young Louis Armstrong.

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