Keeping the Beat on the Street (22 page)

When we got back to New Orleans, I attended Bell Junior High. The musical director was Mr. Richardson; he started me out on trumpet with the school band. After I'd been
playing for a couple of years, I went over by
the Tambourine and Fan Club. That's a social club for young people, over on Claiborne, run by Mr. Jerome Smith. As well as sports activities, they had a little brass band, and I started playing trumpet with them. Later on, the Tambourine and Fan band went out on their own—they were working under the name of the Young Men Brass Band. We were all still at high school
.

Remember I said that the young kids playing on the street was my first inspiration? It was around this time that I came across my second—Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen. I never learned anything about formal harmony—as far as I'm concerned, if Tuba does it, it's right, and if he doesn't, it's probably wrong
.

He is the MAN! I heard him in Jackson Square, and I couldn't believe it—he is just so good. Tuba says
his
inspiration on bass was Wilbert Tillman. Of course, he plays a little more modern than Tillman, and I play a little more modern than Tuba. That was the cause of me taking up bass horn. He plays with such passion and feeling, and that's the way I play too. How you going to play what's in you if you don't give it 100 percent of yourself? Ninety percent isn't enough. I say to other musicians, “If yon don't give the music everything you've got, why should an audience give you anything at all? I mean, why should they hire you?”

To me, playing music isn't about money. Obviously, you have to take care of business, but when I go on a gig, I like to do that first. It only takes five minutes, and then my mind is free to concentrate on the reason I'm there in the first place—playing music
.

Anyway, to get back to the story—I had a little part-time job when I was in high school, and I was coming home from work one night when I heard the sound of a band coming from a house. I went in there, and it was Philip Frazier, Keith Frazier, Kermit Rujfins—what later became the Rebirth. They were playing sort of high school music, from charts they had got at school. I said to them, “Man, y'all sound good. You should play jazz, make yourself some money.” They all laughed at me! What they didn't know was that I was a musician. What they also didn't know was that I always used to like to mess with other guy's horns, at high school and in the Tambourine and Fan band
.

So I had some experience of playing trombone, bass drum, snare drum—I couldn't play them well, but I knew what to do. And of course I already played trumpet and bass horn. That's how I was able to help the other guys and show them what to do. Of course, Philip Frazier was the tuba player, so I had to switch horns again—this time to trombone. I love it—you have to be so precise, and I love a challenge. But when you got that right, the trombone is the most expressive of instruments. My favorite trombone player is Wendell Eugene
.

So we started to get it together and work in the French Quarter every day—the full eight-piece band, which is what it had become. Sure, we made a few dollars, but more important, we improved a lot by playing together so much, and it gave us exposure. At that time, it wasn't called the Rebirth. Those guys called it the Group
.

There was a guy, a rehabilitated convict, who was trying to help the community. He wasn't a rich man, but he had a job, and he used his earnings to fund a meetingplace for ex-convicts, to counsel them from his own experience and help them get their lives back together. He heard us in the Quarter, and he used to hire us to play at this meetinghouse, to raise funds and gain publicity. Now, the name of this place was Re Birth, and that's where the band got its name
.

Speaking of names, those guys gave me my nickname, which as you know is “Wolf.” Man, I really did not like that at first. It was because of how I had my hair at that time. Often guys had like naturals, but my hair hung straight down the back, like an Indian or something. And I had a lot of facial hair, sideburns, moustache, everything. So they called me “Wolf.” I hated the name, but it stuck, and I'm used to it now
.

A guy called “Ice Cube” [Dan Untermyer] first brought us over to Europe—I don't know his right name. He just heard us on the street in the Quarter and thought we might be popular overseas. We went to England, Germany, and Austria. That trip changed everything for me, for all of us. As a black man, as a musician, every way: we were so well treated, and the people were so enthusiastic. They really appreciated us
.

Meanwhile, the band got hooked up with Allison Miner for representation. I think she was a little bit unused to the ways of business. Kermit Ruffins, Philip Frazier, and I had come up with a song called “Do Watcha Wanna.” Allison Miner got Philip Frazier on his own and got him to put her name on the song. The thing is, the song did really well. We got our money eventually—we didn't really have to fight for it, but we didn't get it until just before Allison Miner died, so it was a long wait. By this time we were working all the time, with foreign trips every year, record dates, local jobs, etc
.

Then Kirk Joseph left the Dirty Dozen, and they asked me to join on tuba. I've always loved playing bass horn, and I was probably the only one in New Orleans who could have done that job
.

I stayed with them about a year and a half. I only recorded with them once—that was the
Jelly Roll Morton
album. It was the record company's idea to do those tunes. Roger Lewis and Greg Davis more or less ran things between them in that band. They commissioned Wardell Quezergue to write the charts. I remember the bass score was just a simple “oom-pah” part. They said, “Don't play it like that. Spice it up a little.” So that's what I did
.

After a while, there was a big reshuffle and I went back with the Rebirth. We were doing some recording at Milton Batiste's house, and he hired me for the Olympia when Edgar Smith couldn't make it. Harold Dejan was still singing with the band at this point, but he wasn't playing anymore. That makes me the only musician in New Orleans to play with the city's three top bands, the Rebirth, the Dirty Dozen, and Dejan's Olympia
.

Milton fired me from the Olympia for missing a job. I had lent my horn to a friend to do an afternoon parade, and he didn't bring it back until midnight. So that's how I missed the Sunday night job at Preservation Hall
.

After a while, the Rebirth and I parted company for the second time. I was working with a lot of different bands, and they said, “You're supposed to be with us. If people see you with all these bands, it makes us look cheap. It makes it look as though you need the money.” I said, “I do need the money.” So that was the end of that
.

Vaughan's Bar and Grill
Photo by Barry Martyn

It's Halloween, and a distinctive pickup truck, easily recognizable by the barbecue hardware in the back, is parked on the corner of Dauphine and Lesseps, deep in the Ninth Ward, just by Vaughan's Bar and Grill. Kermit's habit of spontaneously cooking up for anyone who feels hungry has brought hot sausage to many people, and consternation to a few. A friend of mine from out of town once looked through the windows of Cafe Brazil, saw what he thought was a car on fire, and took off down Frenchmen before the gas tank blew.

Vaughan's is featuring Kermit Ruffins and his Barbecue Swingers, as it has done most Thursday nights for a number of years. The band is Emile Vinet, piano; Kevin Morris, bass; Corey Henry, trombone; and Shannon Powell, drums. The musical menu is described by the leader as “traditional swing”—basically, nice old songs from decades ago, played with equal amounts of sincerity and musicianship. It's an unlikely formula for commercial success in the current musical climate of the city, but it certainly has worked for Kermit Ruffins. He's not the most technically complex player—there are plenty of those in New Orleans—but he has great stage presence and charisma. And a sense of fun. Tonight being Halloween, Kermit has come as a convict, in a white shirt and trousers with broad black horizontal stripes. The penitentiary effect is alleviated by his boisterous geniality and fedora hat.

The atmosphere inside the bar is the usual New Orleans combination of soul and sleaze, and the fifty or so habitues in the place obviously like it that way. Behind the bar, the usual lady is dressed as a fairy, with netting wings and a black tutu. Each beer is delivered with a few dance steps and a kind of fairy flutter, although the plies might have been more elegant without the black Doc Marten boots.

The music is advertised for 10:00
P.M
., so promptly at 11:20 the band kicks off with “Please Don't Talk about Me.” It's the kind of music that welcomes people in, straightforward and warmhearted and unquestionably in the New Orleans tradition. Kermit has identified a niche for himself, that of Louis Armstrong-type trumpet-playing singer/entertainer—like a latter-day black Louis Prima. A party of bearded gentlemen revelers wearing wigs, false bosoms, and fishnet tights comes in as the band launches into “Tiger Rag.” First in the solo order is trombonist Corey Henry, who tears off four immaculate choruses before wandering off for a beer. He's wearing white gloves, a full-length red robe with white trim, and a large golden crown studded with imitation jewelry.

Trumpet players Gregg Stafford and James Andrews arrive within minutes of each other, just as the band winds up “World on a String” to close the set. Kermit picks up the mike: “And now, y'all, we gonna take a reefer break—OH NO! Why did I say that? I made a mistake.” The band files through the fire exit in the corner behind the drum kit to chill out on the Dauphine Street sidewalk. It's really not the time or place for any kind of interview, but we do manage a few minutes' chat.

Kermit's playing career began with a ten-year stint fronting the Rebirth Brass Band, which ended in 1993. He combined his interest in older styles of jazz (sparked by sitting in at the Palm Court Café) with his extrovert presentational style to form the Barbecue Swingers. He has the ability to deliver old-time hip nonsense with complete sincerity: “We gonna bring you back to one of those good old tunes, so flip your fedoras, and swing out like the rest of us!”

The band started with a Monday night residency at the Little People's Place, a bar in the Tremé owned by Kermit's in-laws. At the time, Kermit had no thought of wider success; he was just happy to have somewhere to play his favorite music. But a one-time appearance at Jazz Fest led to a recording contract with Justice Records. The band's first CD,
World on a String,
recorded at Ultrasonic Studios, got good reviews and did well.

He's confronted by the problem that faces all bands that win approval in the wider music scene: either spend long periods on the road to bring home lots of money, or stay home and maximize on the opportunities New Orleans can offer. Musicians from the city get homesick when they're out for a long time and are apt to spend a fortune on foreign pay phones, just to catch up on neighborhood gossip. (When Fats Domino was due to tour at the height of his career, he used kermit at vaughan's, october 31, 2002 121 to disappear to try to avoid leaving the city. Dave Bartholomew would have to threaten legal action to get him onto the tour bus.)

“Don't plead pity, feed that kitty”: Kermit Ruffins, Jackson Square, 1992
Photo by Peter Nissen

Kermit muses,

Life's so short, it's not a rehearsal, you know? Ten years with the Rebirth, eight years at Vaughan's—time's going by, all the time. Sure, I have to leave New Orleans sometimes—selling records and making money is real important, but to me it's just as important to be home, where my roots are. Even before I had the family, when I didn't really know what I was missing, I always liked to be able to just go home. It would be a lot easier if I could take the family with me when I go on the road, like the real big-timers do. But you know how long it takes to get into that league.