Jazz: New Orleans 1885-1957

BY SAMUEL B. CHARTERS JAZZ: NEW ORLEANS 1885-1957 An Index to the NEGRO MUSICIANS OF NEW ORLEANS by SAMUEL BARCLAY CHARTERS IV JAZZ MONOGRAPHS No. 2 February, 1958 © 1958 Walter C. Allen Belleville, N. J. All rights reserved. To the musicians of New Orleans, and to Richard B. Allen. I met Dick Allen when I first came to New Orleans in December, 1950. He was three or four years older than I, and had been in New Orleans since 1948, studying New Orleans music. Dick introduced me to the music and the musicians of the city, and shared with me all he had learned from them. He was gathering material for a bi- ographical index to the Negro musicians of New Orleans. In 1954 both of us realized that for a number of reasons he would not complete it. We talked of collaborating; finally Dick turned over to me the thirty or so pages of notes he had gathered, and since that time has done almost no extended research in the city. Dick, we are no longer friends, but it is to an extent your work which I have car- ried on and finally completed. S.B.C. "Now, music was different in New Orleans because they taught you to play your in- strument just like a good songster. You had to get out what was inside you.” Hyppolite Charles, in an interview in 19 57, TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface i Publisher’s Foreword iii - 1885 1899 1 Introduction 2 The Downtown Musicians 5 The Uptown Musicians 11 The Brass Bands and Orchestral Groups 14 1899 - 1919 17 Introduction 18 Biographies of the Musicians 20 The Brass Bands and Orchestral Groups 53 1919 - 1931 57 Introduction 58 Biographies of the Musicians 60 The Brass Bands and Orchestral Groups 105 - 1931 1942 1 09 Introduction 110 Biographies of the Musicians 111 The Brass Bands and Orchestral Groups 127 1957 129 DISCOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX . .131 Introduction : First period. 133 Discography : First period 136 Introduction : Revival period 140 Discography : Revival period 144 Label abbreviations 152 Index To Names Of Musicians . 153 Index To Names Of Bands 162 Index To Halls, Cabarets, Theatres, Etc. In New Orleans 1 64 Index To Cities and Towns In The Delta Region 165 Index Of Tune Titles 165 Glossary 167 i PREFACE The music of New Orleans was so distinctly the product of the musicians whose entire life was spent playing in the city that no effort has been made to follow the career of a musician after he left the city permanently. He was no longer a New Orleans musician and his activities in another musical environment are beyond the scope of this work. The younger musicians have not continued in the New Orleans tradition, and no effort has been made to discuss the musicians who have begun playing in the years since World War II. Many & of them are superb musicians, but there is nothing distinctive in their musical style. Two groups of musicians have been excluded. The first district, and the second are * are the house pianists of the restricted the band vocalists. Neither group participated to any great extent in the development of the New Orleans band style. The pianists stayed pretty much to themselves, and most of the vocalists worked with pi- ano accompaniment. There would have been considerable justifica- tion for some mention of Jelly Roll Morton, but it could not be proved that he ever played professionally in the city. He seems to have left too young. The pronunciation of the names of many New Orleans musicians is very irregular. In general the pronunciation is characteris- tically French, but it varies from section to section within the city. accented. Rena is usually pronounced ray* -nay* , with both syllables the on the last sylla- Baby is usually pronounced be-bay' , with accent ble. Evan Thomas 1 first name is pronounced ee'-van, with the first syllable accented. Arnold Metoyer's last name is pronounced me- twi* -ya, with the second syllable accented. The names of the older Creole musicians like Alcibiades Jeanjaque, or Punkie Valentin, are pure French, and should be pronounced as such. There are no rules, and it will be necessary to record many of the names to preserve the pronunciation. The spelling of many of the names is conjecture, and prob- ably the question of alternate spellings will never be entirely answered. The terms alto and baritone refer to the brass horns, and saxophones are always referred to as saxophones. There has been some effort made to distinguish between cornet and trumpet, but the distinction is not important. The distinction between valve and slide trombone is fairly important, and this has been closely checked. It would have been almost impossible for me to bring this work to its completion without the critical and financial assistance of my wife, Mary L. Charters. My debt to her is one I can only ac- knowledge - certainly never repay. Walter C. Allen went over the manuscript in its early stages and made available to me much valuable material from his files. A number of individuals have made notes available to me in the course of this work, and I would like to express to them my deepest appreciation. Richard B. Allen has given me material from interviews with Ernest Rogers, Charlie Love, Danny Bar- I 11 ker, Bill Mathews, and many others. Charles McNett interviewed Earl Humphrey at his home in Virginia; Robert Greenwood recorded an extensive interview with Herb Morand; and Ronald Sodeburg interviewed Manuel Manetta and Joe Lindsay. Without their help there would have been gaps in the material which it would have been diffi- cult for me to fill. The musicians of New Orleans have been so generous of their time and hospitality over the years that it would be impossible for me to single out individuals for special thanks. They are some of the finest men I have ever met, and meeting them and spending time with them has been the most valuable reward I could have want- ed for doing the work. When the INDEX was begun, several years ago, I hoped to complete a similar work with the white musicians of New Orleans, finish a social history of the city during the formative years of New Orleans music, and complete the study with an extended paper on the musical characteristics of the various periods of New Orleans music. The INDEX, itself, took more time than I had confidently expected to spend on the whole project. The paper on the musical characteristics will be completed, but I haven ! t the energy, any more, to begin another work of the scope of the INDEX. I hope that someone will continue the work. For another 10 or 15 years it will be possible to do research in New Orleans. There will still be a handful of older men who will know and remember what it was like to first hear a New Orleans ensemble when it was still a raw, half-realized musical style. I hope that someone will find these men, and learn from them what they have remembered. The mistakes in this work will have to be corrected, and there is still so much more to be learned. Samuel B. Charters New Orleans August, 1957. iii PUBLISHER'S FOREWORD Up to now, the best work on the early days of jazz in New Orleans has been the first chapters of JAZZMEN. Subsequent books such as THE JAZZ RECORD BOOK and MR. JELLY ROLL have added to our knowledge of that period, but have perhaps given a wrong im- pression in emphasizing the more sensational and lurid aspects of jazz T s association with Storyville. In the pages that follow, you will find the stories of the Ne- gro musicians who created and developed their own music in New Or- 9 leans from 1885 on; these are grouped according to the periods in which they were most active. Many of these men were not jazz musicians; many had strict classical or legitimate training; yet all con- the city’s rich and unique musical , tributed in one way or another to heritage. The author contends that any musician who comes to New play- Orleans to live, and assimilates some of the local culture in his musician ing, becomes a New Orleans musician; also, that once a leaves New Orleans to play elsewhere, his playing is no longer of interest as New Orleans music. Those of you who may expect to joined read of, for example, Louis Armstrong’s career after he Joe Oliver in Chicago will be disappointed; those of you who think of New Orleans jazz as the recordings of Armstrong, Oliver, Dodds, Morton and Ory will not find them discussed here. You will, however, learn about the pioneers and about the early lives of the men who left and became famous; about the men who stayed in the city and developed a local brand of music which can be heard only on a pitifully few recordings, and is far different from the Chicago and New York recordings usually considered as classic New Orleans jazz. You will learn about men like the Tios, - Buddy Petit, Chris Kelly, the Morgans, the Humphreys, Kid Rena men who were ’’kings" in New Orleans but are unknown outside be- recorded seldom, never, or late in life. You will learn t cause they that jazz in New Orleans did not die when the Secretary of the Navy ordered Storyville closed down; for the first time is documented the wealth of music which could be heard in the city during the "great gap" of twenty years (1918-1938) which JAZZMEN does not miles touch upon at all.

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