Dave Hinton
CHAMPAIGN — Countless former Champaign schoolchildren know Carlyle Johnson as the instrumental music teacher from their formative years.
An older generation has also gotten to know the man who loves to play traditional jazz at birthday parties, weddings and other functions around the area.
“On Friday, I’ve got to play for a lady’s 90th birthday. A couple of weeks ago, I played for an 80th birthday,” Johnson said recently from the Champaign home he shares with his wife of 60 years, Judy — herself a retired Champaign district guidance counselor and music teacher.
At the time, Johnson was in the midst of trying out reeds for his clarinet for that birthday performance.
“I’m practicing right now,” he said. “I need to get reeds lined up for Friday. You have to try them out. It used to be you could buy a box of 25 and they were 25 or 50 cents. Now, you buy a box of 10 for $25. You maybe get a half-dozen reeds that will respond.”
Johnson said he still plays “the old stuff,” as in traditional jazz. A clarinet player first, Johnson also plays the saxophone.
“The newer stuff is OK for the younger people, if that’s what they want to dance to and have fun with,” he said.
“I like it all,” he added, with a qualifier: “I’m not into the country thing.”
He can also play high-brow music, having performed with symphony orchestras in Champaign, Danville and Springfield.
The Johnsons’ children, Angie and Kent, who live with their families in North Carolina and Wisconsin, respectively, played instruments in school but never pursued it as a vocation. What Kent inherited was his father’s love of model trains.
“My son keeps up with it more than I do,” Johnson said, noting that Kent alerts his father to new train equipment out on the market. “I have an engine my son sent me maybe two months ago. I really haven’t oiled it yet. From the time I was probably 3 or 4, there was some kind of train beneath the Christmas tree.”
He has one room devoted to his model-railroad layout.
“I asked my wife for 10 more feet,” he said. “She said we’d have to buy the house next door.”
A native of Quincy, Johnson lives in this area because of the University of Illinois, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education. It was at the university where he met his future bride.
Johnson said Judy doesn’t really like jazz, but he’s glad she liked him. He was too shy to speak to her in class; she spoke to him first on the Quad.
His first teaching job was in Flint, Mich., “when they had water,” he said.
“It was a good place because music in Michigan ... was phenomenal,” he said. “Not only was jazz big up there, but Motown started in the ‘60s. I was up there before it really got to be known as Motown.”
The Johnsons remained in Flint until 1969, when his wife said they needed to move back to Illinois to be closer to family: “The kids have to know their grandparents.”
After Johnson spent a year teaching at the Eastern Illinois University lab school, he and his family moved back to Champaign.
Johnson’s mentor, Dan Perrino, who taught him in Quincy and later at the UI, asked him to play for the Medicare 7, 8 or 9 band, “which was basically a faculty jazz group.”
In addition to playing solo, Johnson has his own group, New Orleans Jazz Machine.
Johnson, who taught in Champaign schools from 1971 until his retirement in 1994, said many of his former students recognize him around town, but he can’t always say the same.
“I still get kids who have to tell me who they are,” Johnson said. “One girl said, ‘Tell me who I am.’ I said, ‘How old are you?’ She said, ‘65.’”
“I would have them anywhere from 11 or 12 to 13-14,” Johnson said, so recognizing them 50 years later isn’t easy.
Johnson enjoyed teaching. He said he wasn’t hard-nosed. He didn’t yell a lot, but when he had to, he would raise his voice — “and the students knew Mr. Johnson is mad today.”
“It’s been 30 years since I retired,” he said. “I haven’t had to use my teacher voice for 30 years.”
Johnson plays at birthday parties three to five times a month and used to play for functions at the UI, “but since COVID, things have slowed down.”
He also plays at retirement parties and other events.
Johnson said he will continue to play the music he loves as long as he can.
“As long as my fingers don’t slow down,” he said. ”My mind has slowed down. My wife will tell you that.”
He said he and his wife enjoy traveling. They recently returned from a Disney cruise with their family.
“Church is also an important part of our life,” Johnson said. “We attend First United Methodist Church in Champaign.”