Keeping the Beat on the Street (5 page)

Courtesy Leroy Lones

I started playing music at the age of ten in the school band at St. Leo the Great School. I took the cornet, and the flute as my second choice, in case I didn't like the cornet
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My first teacher was Sister Mary Hillary, who was a trumpet player and a bandmaster at the school, a parochial school here in New Orleans. I started in the band in the fifth grade. I learned music from a conservatory method. I had lessons. I learned to read at the same time as I learned to play the horn. My parents had rented a used one because there was no point in buying a brand new one; if I hadn't been interested, they'd have wasted their money. Anyway, within three months, I had developed an embouchure, and my teacher had noticed I had a very good ear and a higher musical aptitude than a lot of the other kids who were my contemporaries. So my teacher suggested that my parents should buy me a new horn at the end of the year. The teacher noticed that when I was warming up, and when I was in the fifth grade, I was reading music at an eighth-grade level, so she knew I had some musical talent. My parents weren't musicians, so they couldn't determine that for themselves. The only other musician in my family was a cousin of mine who played trombone, not professionally but in the Fairview band, but we'll get to that later
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I also had a girl cousin who played the clarinet all through college; she was more classically trained. To this day, she can't play by ear to save her soul, and she can't understand how I do it. I don't understand it either. It's not something you think about, you know? But fortunately, I read as well, so I'm not limited to just one situation
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At twelve years old, my family moved from our old address on Buchanan Street to 1316 St. Denis Street. It was approximately sixty yards from the Fairview Baptist Church. I was raised Catholic, but I was influenced heavily by the Baptist tradition and hearing gospel and so forth because of the music at Fairview Church. Eventually, I met Danny Barker, who lived just around the corner from my house. Also, Ernie Cagnolatti, and Dave “Fat Man” Williams lived just nearby. I grew up with Cag's grandkids. And the neighborhood was full of youngsters that played in school bands, unlike today, when the music programs are a bit slack
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It was much better in the late sixties and into the seventies. It's like, the bands that played Dixieland and the traditional jazz on Bourbon Street sort of diminished going into the eighties, long before I ever went there. I've spoken to some of the older musicians, and they told me how vibrant the street was with bands in those days. I even caught the tail end of that, playing at a club that had three bands a night—in fact, most of the clubs had three bands a night. Anyway, I first met Danny Barker in
1971.

I used to practice in my garage for five hours in the evening when I came home from school. At ten, I had to close it. So I'd do my homework and start practicing about five. I'd maybe take a break when my mom would call me in around seven. Otherwise, I'd play until ten. My dog used to howl in the alley when I played my horn—I don't know if it's because I sounded good or if I annoyed the hell out of him
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It didn't seem hard work: I just loved it so much. I don't practice that hard today, because I've developed a technique that means I don't have to practice that much to keep my endurance up. But for the first five to ten years of my development, I never practiced less than four hours every day. I would practice out of the Arban method book. I had private lessons at the weekend with Sister Mary Hillary and with a local trumpet player called Dalton Rousseau, also Laurence Winchester, who was one of the instructors at St. Augustine High School, where I went to in 1972
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I got to meet some local trumpet players through knowing Danny Barker. Some of my favorites were Jack Willis and Teddy Riley and our neighbor Ernie Cagnolatti. And I always loved Louis Cottrell's clarinet playing. They were all early influences on me, as well as the recordings that I had, or that my parents had—they played a lot of music in the house; they loved it, even though they weren't musicians
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They had some Louis Armstrong records, so I heard Louis before I even picked up a musical instrument. I'd been fooling with guitar before I started playing a wind instrument—I played the guitar for maybe ten years, which overlapped with the time I was playing cornet. I'm pretty much a self-taught guitarist—I never worked as a guitar player. I'd practice fingering and chord charts; then I'd do things on the horn. So I developed an understanding of harmony. I studied harmony a bit more, much later
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That neighborhood I grew up in was just so rich with music, just in that one-block radius. I never heard Jack Willis before he had his stroke, but I can imagine how great he was when he had all his faculties, because he still sounded great when I heard him. He remembered me as a little fellow, because we did things with Danny and the Fairview band when we traveled out of town and we were the youngsters
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The Fairview band was the brainchild of Reverend Andrew Darby and Danny Barker. Reverend Darby wanted to start a youth group for the Fairview Church. Danny and Blue Lou were members of the church. Of course, the pastor and congregation knew that Danny was a musician and Lou was a singer. So the pastor asked if they could involve some young musicians. Danny used to drive around the neighborhood—I'd often see him. I'd have the garage door open when I would be practicing. Or I'd have some friends with me that played in the school band
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There was a young man called Ronald Evans who played baritone. He's the nephew of Chuck Carbo, the singer. They lived nearby. Ronald used to practice with me and a drummer by the name of Raymond Johnson—we called him “Puppy.” We used to get in there and jam. My parent's old stereo was in the garage, and we had LPs and 45s—even the odd 78. I used to buy them on the corner from Miss Wheeler, who was a friend of the family. We'd play along with the records. When I'd come back from my lesson, I'd go through the book—lesson 1, lesson 2—which I hated. I much more enjoyed sitting trying to emulate Louis Armstrong or Freddie Hubbard or Jack Willis or Shorty Rodgers—any instrumentalist. It didn't have to be trumpet players; I was trying to play everything I heard
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Anyway, Danny got out of his car one day and came up and introduced himself. I was pleased to meet him and quite flattered as well. He told me they had a plan to start a brass band. It was referred to as a youth group, and it was something to keep the neighborhood kids off the street. Because some of my peers were, I'd have to say, “bad boys”—through no fault of their own, they just weren't as fortunate as I was to have parents who really cared for them. So the Fairview band started, with mainly neighborhood kids. There were the Mimms brothers, Thomas and Gene. Thomas is a doctor now; I don't know what Gene's doing. I haven't seen those guys in years. They don't play music anymore
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Derek Cagnolatti, Ernie's grandson, was a member. He played alto saxophone. And there was Daryl Wilkinson on alto saxophone who lived next door. He was a little older than the rest of us, in his mid teens. And Raymond Johnson, “Puppy,” was four years older than I. My cousin Isaac Banks, trombone player, we pulled him into the band. Harry Sterling—he's now the guitar player with Big Al Carson—back then, he played sousaphone as well as guitar and banjo. There was another trumpet player by the name of Morris Carmbs; he was a member of the church. There was also a young man by the name of Gary Proctor. He played trumpet. There was a kid called Nasser Adams. A tuba player called Stephen Parker was there in the beginning. Also Gregg Stafford, who came in on trumpet not long after, maybe a month after the band was formed. Mr. Barker had been working with Gregg. He's a little older than I am, so he was already on the scene in the French Quarter and so forth. When Danny pulled Gregg, Gregg pulled Tuba Fats. Joe Torregano joined us, and Herlin Riley played trumpet in those days. His mom used to drop him off at my house for rehearsals
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We had a guy called Ray Paisant—he's a Creole guy—he was kin to the Barbarins. That's how I met Lucien and Charles Barbarin. When Mr. Barker brought them into the band, Lucien was playing snare drum in those days. Greg Davis came in later, just before the band broke up
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At one point the Fairview band was almost thirty members. We had enough musicians to do three gigs on the same day in different places, and sometimes that's just what we did. Big Al Carson came into the band, as well as Stephen Parker and Tuba Fats, so we had three tuba players. We had maybe six trumpets. We had clarinets. There was a guy called “Dusty.” I can't remember his right name—he was at school with Lucien—he played E-flat clarinet. Daryl Adams played alto sax. So we'd split the band up, because it was just too much sound. Work mainly came through word of mouth. Gregg Stafford would pull people in, like Michael Myers on trombone. He's dead now; he committed suicide in the eighties. He was from uptown, like Gregg. The rest of us were from downtown
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We were rolling—I mean, we had a trip up to Washington, D.C., round about 1972. We went up there with Fats Houston and the Olympia. The Onward Brass Band went. We all went up to play at the Kennedy Center for some function that was in honor of New Orleans music. My mother and Charles Barbarin Sr. would chaperone us, and of course Danny would come to keep us in line—we were all juveniles. It wasn't any problem: we were always basically just interested in playing
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We had a chance to appear in a movie with Tim Rooney, who's Mickey Rooney's son; he's kind of an amateur trombone player. They filmed that in the Quarter, all due to Danny's connections. He bent over backwards for us, and he really had a great affection for kids. He and his wife loved children
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The band was like a pet project for him, and that's why I couldn't understand when people started accusing him of exploiting us. The union accused him, and that was how the Hurricane Brass Band came about in 1974. By then I was sixteen; Danny had taught me how to deal with business, like “Make sure you get your contract straight, always count your money, make sure you get a deposit.”

We played every weekend. We were the hottest thing on the second line circuit. All of the social and pleasure clubs wanted the Fairview band and then, later, the Hurricane Brass Band. We created such a stir that the Olympia Brass Band, in particular, were getting jealous of us. Danny had to stop being associated with us because of the flak from the union. A false rumor was generated by some musicians who were jealous of what was going on, and it made the scene difficult for Danny. We weren't all in the union, but some of the older guys were. At that time the AFM [American Federation of Musicians] was very strict about nonunion labor, or “scabs,” as they called us
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Hurricane Brass Band at George “Kid Sheik” Cola's birthday party, September 1973 (Anthony Lacen, Kid Sheik, Daryl Adams, Leroy Jones, Greg Stafford)
Photo by Bill Dickens

Danny gave us the name [for the Hurricane Brass Band]. He said, “Y'all come down the street blowing like a hurricane.” That's what gave us the name. I was the leader of the Fairview. Danny saw leadership qualities in me when I was thirteen years old. He saw I was a serious young man, and very focused, which is probably how I could practice four or five hours a day. So when the Hurricane band formed, I did the business for that, in conjunction with Gregg Stafford, who would cover for me if I wasn't available
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Gregg and I were very tight with that. We were the commanders of that group. We're very different musically, but at that time we were playing brass band music. We had people like Henry Freeman, a saxophone player who had been on the road with Ray Charles. He was a professional, man. He had been up to Baton Rouge, played in that [Southern University] Jaguar band; he knew Alvin Batiste—I mean, he could play, you know. So he was like a big influence. Magic Johnson, he came with the Hurricane. We had people like that coming in. I learned a lot from them. I mean, they knew music, not only just playing, but from a theoretical standpoint as well. I kept my mouth shut and my ears open, because I was absorbing a lot of information from these people
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Then Greg Davis and the Joseph brothers, Kirk and Charles, joined the Hurricane. Then Kevin Harris came along. So part of the core of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band were in the Hurricane at one time. We started to play original stuff, juxtaposing the funk and pop music with the traditional stuff. Later on, the Dirty Dozen took it to the next level
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In 1976, I branched off from the brass band thing and started playing rhythm and blues. The Hurricane still did gigs up to 1980, but then I got so involved with Bourbon Street, and I had a music scholarship to Loyola. I went there for a semester and dropped out because I didn't like the program and wanted to make some money. My parents were going through changes. They eventually busted up when I was nineteen, so I wanted to get out of the house. So I got my first jazz gig in the Quarter at the age of twenty at the Maison Bourbon in 1978. It was Dixieland and swing
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