Branley - New Orleans Jazz

IMAGES
of America

NEW ORLEANS JAZZ

ON THE COVER: Members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band pose for a publicity photograph in front of the hall in 1967. They are, from left to right, De De Pierce (cornet), Billie Pierce (piano), Cie Frazer (drums), Louis Nelson (trombone), Narvin Kimball (banjo), and Chester Zardis (bass). (Courtesy of Louisiana State Museum.)

IMAGES
of America

NEW ORLEANS JAZZ

Edward J. Branley

Copyright 2014 by Edward J. Branley
ISBN 978-1-4671-1171-3
Ebook ISBN 9781439642665

Published by Arcadia Publishing
Charleston, South Carolina

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013951875

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This book is dedicated to the late Marty Hurley, master percussionist and longtime band director at Brother Martin High School in Gentilly, along with Dominick Caronna and Chris Bailey, who succeeded Mr. Hurley as band directors at BMHS. Thanks to you all for nurturing my sons skills on the trombone.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my editors at Arcadia, Jason Humphrey, for helping me get the ball rolling on the book, and Lydia Rollins, for seeing me through the process, which was always a challenge. My deepest appreciation to Irene Wainwright and the special collections staff of the New Orleans Public Library. Thanks to all the photographers and sources who contributed in making this project successful: Carlos Froggy May, Stephanie Schoyer, Robert Avery, JonGunnar Gylfason, Netherlands National Archives, Louisiana State Museum, Library of Congress, Darlene Susco, Derek Bridges, Mark Ghstol, US Marine Corps, and the White House Office of Communications.

Once again, all my love to my wife, Helen, and my boys, Kevin Branley and LTJG Justin Branley, US Navy, who put up with me being distracted while working. Thanks to my friends who encouraged the project, particularly those who joined the books Facebook page and offered suggestions. All the best to Jenifer Hill, my most wonderful friend, and Melissa Case, for her unique brand of motivation and inspiration. Heartfelt thanks to the staff of P.J.s Coffee at Clearview Mall for putting up with me while I was writing and researching.

The names of organizations are abbreviated in the courtesy of lines as follows:

Library of Congress (LOC)
Louisiana State Museum (LSM)
National Health Service Corps (NHSC)
National Park Service (NPS)
Netherlands National Archives (NNA)
New Orleans Public Library (NOPL)
State Library of Louisiana (SLL)
University of New Orleans (UNO)
US Marine Corps (USMC)

INTRODUCTION

In New Orleans, we love to say that things are a gumbo, referring to the wonderful soup that somehow manages to combine many different flavors into the perfect food. It is a clich, but it often is an excellent metaphor. New Orleansstyle jazz is also a blend of many different ingredients, but it does one thing that soup does not normally do for you: it makes you move.

New Orleans music is all about movement. In the French-Spanish Colonial period, soldiers would march in time with bugles and drums. Slaves danced in time with their drums and songs. Sailors would make port in New Orleans, bringing with them chanteys and shipboard instruments. By the middle of the 19th century, the city was a major hub for music and entertainment in North America. Music never left the city through the horrors of the Civil War and the Reconstruction that followed, but once those had passed, the city returned to its status of an entertainment destination.

Music was an important accompaniment to food, wine, and sex as New Orleans approached the 20th century. People wantedno, they neededmusic to help them through many aspects of life, from the dance halls on Saturday night to churches on Sunday morning. Orchestras enabled dancing, and brass bands picked up the tempo in the 1890s.

When Charles Buddy Bolden and his contemporaries picked up their horns, though, the music made people move rather than the other way around. That is when jazz was born. Military-style brass music became something else when Bolden added his big four syncopation. Feet stomped and hands clapped when piano players and drummers improvised along with the cornets. Suddenly, the tunes on the sheet music did not sound the same twice in a row, as musicians now had license to change things, expand the music, and make people move. Bolden made other musicians want to stop being legitimate, to let go and explore the sound. His bands were popular in the parks, saloons, and dance halls.

The demand for music that made one move was incredible. Boldens combo spawned others like Joseph King Oliver, John Robichaux, Freddie Keppard, and more to pick up the beat. Teens like Edward Kid Ory, known as Dutt to family and friends, came in on a train from out in the country to hear these bands at the parks and after baseball games. They took the sounds they heard back with them to the farms and rural communities up the Mississippi River, changing them and making them their own. They would then return on subsequent weekends with their instruments, hoping to get noticed by the bandleaders, joining them for gigs.

There was money to be made playing jass and ragtime in New Orleans at the turn of the century. (The change in spelling from jass to jazz is one of the genres big mysteries, but the word was standardized as jazz in print by 1918.) While the new stylings created by Bolden and his contemporaries had not reached the ears of the majority of white folks, there were enough affluent African Americans in the city to nurture musicians along. The sound moved from the bars to a wider audience, one where more white people would hear it. Musicians looking to make the most of their weekend time would parade on the backs of horse-drawn carts, advertising their gigs that evening. White musicians caught the beat, and jazz moved from blacks-only establishments into white bars and onto college campuses. Many whites-only establishments would not even permit African American bands. Segregation presented white musicians with many opportunities, as many whites-only establishments would not even permit black bands.

Life in the segregated South of the early 20th century was tough, not only for musicians but also for all African Americans. As the Great Migration of blacks from the Jim Crow states to northern, industrial cities took place, musicians followed them. Knowing they would find work playing for the black communities in cities like Chicago, bandleaders King Oliver and Kid Ory gave up on hassles of dealing with white saloon owners, police, and patrons who thought they were better than the band in every way. The cream of the crop of New Orleans jazz connected with their counterparts up north and the music spread. Life in Chicago was cold and hard for the men who played Lincoln Park and Storyville, but at least they did not have to sit at the back of the bus on their way home from work.

Improvements in recording technology also spread the gospel of jazz. Instead of the fragile wax cylinders used to record musicians in the 1900s and 1910s, bands were recorded on celluloid and, later, vinyl discs. The advent of electrical recording in the mid-1920s enabled a greater distribution of jazz, as the music industry in New York began to hear players from Chicago without having to get on a train. Jazz might not have been moving mountains, but it was certainly moving millions.