Keeping the Beat on the Street (28 page)

From then on we did parades and, like, in New Orleans it's kinda nice, if you want work and you happen to be in a brass band, you always got elections! You got elections coming up now, you know what I'm saying? You playing for the politicians. You got parties, weddings, all kind of stuff. You always find something to do. We were doing things like that and we did more traveling. Went back to Japan again, and from then on we traveled all around, did a lot of things
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Now that was going on fifteen years ago. The band is still going on. There's a barbershop on Teche Street in the ten hundred block. We just call it Teche Street barbershop. But the gentleman's name is Joseph Smith. They call him “Toot” for short because his daddy was a musician and his name was “Toot,” and he just inherited the nickname. Anyway, that was our headquarters, and that's where we practice and do everything. I had never been in a band this long continuously, and I'm beginning to see what happened with the Olympia and a lot of other long-standing organizations: that as time passes things change in your life and everybody else's life. So a couple of guys have resigned—you know, they had enough of the music—and about three or four people died
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Mr. Sutton, our alto player, who, when we started, he was in his sixties—Norbert Sutton—he had played with Shirley and Lee and a bunch of others back then in the fifties. He played with Tommy Ridgley and all of them. I had met Sutton over here because before the Algiers Brass Band, Sutton and I and another guy was in a band—name of Edgar Johnson—we had a little progressive jazz band. I didn't play trumpet in that. I played piano. Mr. Sutton took sick and died after we made the first trip to Japan. He lasted about a year, and he eventually died of pneumonia. Naturally we played at his funeral. He played alto saxophone. It turned out, like he was a spirit and an influence, 'cause you need somebody experienced and somebody kinda settled. He turned out to be one of my best right-hand men. Doing things we needed to do—I could call him for his experience and to mediate disputes sometimes, all kinda things like that. But, anyway, Mr. Sutton was the first person that died
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As I say, Mr. Othello Batiste, who wasn't a musician in the band, was actually the founder of the band, and he really helped us to get things together. He died and we played at his funeral
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Then, next, well, not too long ago, our original bass drummer, Donald Harrison—we all call him “Chauncey,”—he died
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And then I had another guy I was thinking about—he died about a week after Frankie Badell. 'Cause he was calling me up to find out when the funeral was 'cause he was gonna play. His name was Thaddeus Ford. Thaddeus had joined the band as a trumpet player. Thaddeus was a little younger than me, but he had gray hair like me, so I said, “OK, so I got somebody look like me gonna be in the band.” Unfortunately, Frank died, then Thaddeus dies. That's some of the changes that went on in the band over the course of about fifteen years
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All of these things happen, but, you know, suffice it to say I still got it going on. Some of you are kind of familiar with the New Orleans music scene, and there's a fantastic little trumpet player by the name of Irwin Mayfield, plays with a band called Los Hombres Calientes, the “hot boys.” I always tell him, I say, “I knew you was a hot boy!” Anyway, he came up in the band, him and his brother—they were about eleven. He's always been short, but being eleven he was even shorter, you know. Got some pictures of him playing at a funeral
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So that kinda helped perpetuate things and put some vitality back in things. Matter of fact, Irwin was in the band. He had started, but then after a while he went to NOCCA [New Orleans Center for Creative Arts], but then (I think when Frank Hooper moved) I got Irwin again. I asked his momma, “Can he come play with us again?” He was about sixteen, and he was probably a better trumpet player than me almost then. It was great! I'd get him in the band, and he'd be playing, so I had to play more. I couldn't sit back, you know. This is a youngster with fire. So I gotta get on my horses and do it
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The band now is basically the same instrumentation. We play mostly two trumpets, tenor sax, clarinet, trombone and a rhythm section made up of tuba, bass drum, and snare drum. I also didn't mention that my son came through too. He plays trumpet. He plays with me sometimes. But I don't think he's probably cut out to be a musician, like for life, you know. To be a musician for life, that's gotta be part of your makeup, you know. I used to tell the guys in the band that I hope this keeps going on, but if it didn't, I would still be playing—playing what I was playing before
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We started out with a grand marshal; then we had some disputes, so we got another grand marshal. I'm telling you, you're dealing with a bunch of personalities—all kinds of things happening. Yeah, everybody was from Algiers. And that lasted awhile, and as it stands now, I don't have a regular grand marshal. From time to time there's people I use. Going back to the days when the band was newer, you'd be doing all kinda stuff. You'd be doing parades, and you mostly only need a grand marshal for a parade. If you plan a party or a wedding or something like that, you don't need him. I got someone I use from time to time. Unfortunately he's not from Algiers
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We don't have a regular gig—not anymore. We kinda got into the convention thing, so we do a lot of things for conventions 'cause this is a tourism city. You got a lot of companies—Blaine Kern and them, too, you know we do things for them. People come into town. The entertainment directors put together things for them to do that's “New Orleans.” So they might all be at a hotel, and they going to eat down at Pat O'Brien's, say, for instance. So what they gonna do that's “New Orleans”? They have a parade. That's where we come in. Parade 'em down or parade 'em to the boat. Things like that, you know, so that comes in pretty nice. So, no, we don't play at no club—not regularly anymore
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We used to play at a place round the corner at Valette and Homer. There was this guy Rainey who was vice president of Zulu that got us that first parade. He does, like, lunch and stuff and catering, and we hooked something up there. We used to play there every Thursday night. When we went to Japan, we had a lot of friends, and this lady—we call her “Mama San,” everybody call her “Mama San”—she's rich. So anyway, she came to New Orleans. She came to the United States, but you know, she passed through New Orleans. She looked us up where we were playing, right there at Rainey's. Got a whole tour bus—you know, the bigger ones with all her people in it. Parked right there by Rainey's and had them a good time while we played
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Matter of fact, I was trying to get “Toot” Smith to come here 'cause he actually remembers Old Man Allen. Toot is sixty-six. He's been around! He used to be here when his daddy used to play. His daddy knew some of those older guys—Mr. [Manuel] Manetta and all of them, you know. Matter of fact, Mr. Manetta was my neighbor; he lived just across the street. I knew he was a musician, but I had no idea of his stature in music history in New Orleans. All I knew was, you know, he had this little house on the side where he give lessons at, and every evening he be going on his gig and stuff. I wasn't too interested in this kind of music, but it was a funny thing: once I got into it I had to kinda study it, build up our repertoire and know what we was doing. The more I got into it, the more I liked it. I used to call him Mr. Manetta, but I didn't know he was that great person, you know. How you say … you can't see the forest for the trees? He was right there, you know
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He is the uncle of Placide and Gerald [and Justin] Adams. He lived right in the middle of the four hundred block of LeBoeuf, and I lived right on the corner of LeBoeuf and Eliza at number 449. Mr. Manetta lived in a double house, and right on the side of the house was a little building, like a little miniature house, like a doll's house. Actually, that was his studio, and that's where he would give lessons. I guess even after he died it stayed there awhile, but then his wife died (his wife lasted longer than him), and they didn't have any children. They had relatives like Gerald and Placide and them. This is the story. I wasn't there, but they was all people from the neighborhood. My understanding is that Mrs. Manetta left the money that she did have to another lady—a neighbor, a lady in the block—and I don't know how it went. I guess they must have sold the house, and the house kinda got into bad shape, and the little building was in even worse shape, and it got demolished by the city. Ironically, let me tell y' all something: that's the business that I'm in. That's part of what I do for the city. I'm not sure whether I had a hand in it or not, but I could have
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I had met George Lewis. As a matter of fact, when I was in high school I had a little taste of this music. We used to play in the American Legion Band, and the American Legion Band would sometimes play for, like, the Jolly Bunch over there in Carrollton. I'd never met Mr. Lewis over here—I met him over there. But still, being young and coming up, I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know who I was with
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I used to read about Red Allen, but that was before I was in the business, and then I didn't know that he was from right off of Newton Street. It's just funny how things go, you know. Things was happening, and you didn't know they were happening right under your nose
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Before I formed the Algiers Brass Band, I used to play rhythm and blues and straight-ahead jazz. As I mentioned, me and this guy Mr. Sutton, we were in a band. Like, trumpet is my major instrument, but I write music and I like to play the piano, so when I started playing all that kind of jazz, I was playing piano. We played Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, that kind of stuff
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Algiers Brass Band
Marcel Joly

By the way, I still like stuff like that, it's just that I appreciate this too. Do I like that stuff better? I couldn't say that. I've had this discussion with people before. Everything that I liked before, I still like. But this is something new, I mean new to me. It was there already. But I got into it and started learning about what it was. So I think I like it as well, put it like that. I got into the revival sort of round the end of it
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But Mr. Barker was instrumental in reviving the brass band scene, and we happen to run into Mr. Barker at a good time, too. The youngsters, all they had coming up was rhythm and blues and stuff they heard on the radio. So people like the Dirty Dozen and the Rebirth, they'd play a new kind of stuff, and it started bringing in more people, and that kinda helped the revival too. Like, when we started the band, I was aware of all that stuff, but my position was, the stuff that they was playing, I had played already. I liked it but wasn't too interested in playing it in a brass band. I can still go back and play it if I want, but I had taken my model for the brass band, just like the Olympia. Later on I started getting records of the Young Tuxedo and the Eureka, and that was my models, you know
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It's a funny thing, but when people talk about stuff like that, like the Dirty Dozen and maybe the Rebirth playing all that kinda new stuff, if you really look at it—even some of the records I got here … back in the early fifties and late forties—well, one of the things they play is “Feel So Good,” which I mentioned was Shirley and Lee, who Mr. Sutton had played with. It was strictly rhythm and blues. Now, believe it or not, that wasn't an old song; that was a modern song. So people calling themselves purists and trying to say how jazz is traditional and how things go—things have always been evolving. They tried to nail Louis Armstrong down to the times of the Hot 5 and Hot 7, and Louis Armstrong didn't stay there. Pops moved on. He moved on and played other kind of stuff, too. I still like stuff like that, but I like other kinda stuff, too. To me, everything's got its place
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We were talking how some of these older musicians played and stuff like that, and I said, “I got a degree in music from college, and so I try not to play out of tune 'cause when you learn music and they teach classes for music, you can't make your self play out of tune. I can't do stuff like that 'cause that's my makeup.” That's my background, and I gotta be true to that. I don't play the music like somebody that was self-taught. Some of the things they were playing out of tune. I don't think that's a tribute
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The early bands I used to play with were just rhythm and blues. The most popular band? We had a band called the Soul Brass and had a fantastic singer named Sonny. We probably lasted a year or something. I guess we burned out. I used to play with a guy called Rocky Charles, and sometimes they do some of his stuff on WWOZ. Charles was actually who I started out with. Charles is my boy!

Actually, I started playing music professionally going down on a gig. It was Charles who I went out there with. Charles is from across the river although he lives over this side now. Matter of fact, I was out on a gig with Charles and Huey Smith and them in Meridian, Mississippi. My mom and them had to come back and get us 'cause we got stranded out there with no money. And I was in school! This is a true story!