It's not every weekend that you get to hear the music of James P. Johnson in two entirely different contexts.

 

Johnson was one of the early greats of jazz, the composer of that big hit of the 1920s "Charleston"; one of the classic early jazz piano tunes "Carolina Shout"; and perhaps the first ever to record a jazz solo (albeit on a piano roll). He is mentioned in every jazz history book as a progenitor of the stride style of playing, which involves a repetitive left hand, and a mentor to Fats Waller.

 

Johnson as prelude to Waller is such a familiar trope, in fact, that looking him up the other day I was convinced the writer of an important jazz history had plagiarized phrasing from another one. But who is there to sue?

 

Johnson tunes were included in an excellent recital of music from the 1920s performed at the Kennedy Center by Dick Hyman, as part of the center's "Jazz in Our Time" series. Apparently, the twenties are still part of "our time."

 

Hyman, who turned 80 last week and thus has some claim to the twenties being part of his time, is an undersung great. He's just so good at playing practically any style of music, with an assured rhythm and an easy, swinging melodic manner. He seems to know every tune in this idiom; other professional players routinely use his fake books.

 

It's fitting, somehow, that Hyman is best known for work that is largely anonymous -- programming concerts at the 92nd Street Y and scoring films for Woody Allen. He looks like a retired banker. I don't think I've ever seen him not wearing a blazer and tie.

 

He has concentrated in recent years on this early music and his short, free concert was filled with gems, gently stomping blues and lovely renditions of pretty tunes such as Jelly Roll Morton's "Froggy Moore."

 

James P. Johnson was a natural choice for this type of show, but was more of a surprise at a Baltimore Symphony concert at Strathmore. Johnson wrote much so-called serious music. Whitney Balliett, the great jazz writer (perhaps the greatest) noted years ago that Johnson was like a comedian wanting to play Hamlet.

 

His symphonic music has been championed, pretty much exclusively, by Marin Alsop, the BSO's new conductor. She opened the concert with a pair of Johnson pieces that sounded much like Gershwin, the same sort of open melody that added a little bit of wah-wah to the symphonic sound.

 

It worked better, to my mind, than the orchestra's rendition of the dances from "West Side Story." There's music that seems more naturally to bridge the differences between pop and dance traditions and the grand scope of a symphony. In this case, it was an example of how symphonies can fail to swing. Their playing was fluid but they didn't have quite the right feel for the beat. I would except in this the brass section.

 

After intermission, there was nothing but beat. The orchestra was joined by Savion Glover, easily the most celebrated tap dancer of his generation -- perhaps the only celebrated tap dancer of his generation, come to think of it. He's enormously gifted -- no other feet can move so fast -- and he has an appealing style, lanky arms and emphatic back heel pronunciations and a huge grin.

 

Glover has choreographed commercials and provided the steps for an animated penguin in "Happy Feet" but mainly he has kept on dancing. Over the past couple of years, he has been searching for new musical contexts in which to dance, tapping with gospel groups and orchestras. Next year, he'll appear here in DC with jazz pianist McCoy Tyner.

 

Glover and the Baltimore Symphony took some getting used to each other. Glover's miked tap stage overwhelmed the orchestra and while they played portions of Ellington's "The River" Glover seemed to be dancing to some entirely different music of their own. They found some common ground, however, as things progressed. When Glover tapped to a big martial drum solo, two thousand people were as happy as they've ever been. He blew the orchestra and the room away when he danced to one last James P. Johnson tune.