What I appreciated most about being able to go into Storyville without being bothered by the cops, was Pete Lala's cabaret where Joe Oliver had his band and where he was blowing up a storm on his cornet. Nobody could touch him. Harry Zeno, the best known drummer in New Orleans, was playing with him at the time. What I admired most about Zeno was that no matter how hard he played the sporting racket he never let it interfere with his profession. And that's something the modern day musician has to learn. Nothing ever came between Harry Zeno and his drums.
There were other members of Joe Oliver's band whose names have become legendary in music. The world will never be able to replace them, and I say that from the bottom of my heart. These musicians were Buddy Christian, guitar (he doubled on piano also); Zue Robertson, trombone; Jimmy Noone, clarinet; Bob Lyons, bass violin; and last but not least Joe Oliver on the cornet. That was the hottest jazz band ever heard in New Orleans between the years 1910 and 1917.
Harry Zeno died in the early part of 1917 and his funeral was the largest ever held for any musician. Sweet Child, by the way, was at this funeral too, singing away as though he was a member of Zeno's lodge. The Onward Brass Band put him away with those fine, soothing funeral marches.
Not long after Zeno died talk started about closing down Storyville. Some sailors on leave got mixed up in a fight and two of them were killed. The Navy started a war on Storyville, and even as a boy I could see that the end was near. The police began to raid all the houses and cabarets. All the pimps and gamblers who hung around a place called Twenty-Five while their chicks were working were locked up.
It sure was a sad scene to watch the law run all those people out of Storyville. They reminded me of a gang of refugees. Some of them had spent the best part of their lives there. Others had never known any other kind of life. I have never seen such weeping and carrying-on. Most of the pimps had to go to work or go to jail, except a privileged few.
A new generation was about to take over in Storyville. My little crowd had begun to look forward to other kicks, like our jazz band, our quartet and other musical activities.
Joe Lindsey and I formed a little orchestra. Joe was a very good drummer, and Morris French was a good man on the trombone. He was a little shy at first, but we soon helped him to get over that. Another shy lad was Louis Prevost who played the clarinet, but how he could play once he got started! We did not use a piano in those days. There were only six pieces: cornet, clarinet, trombone, drums, bass violin and guitar, and when those six kids started to swing, you would swear it was Ory and Oliver's jazz band.
Kid Ory and Joe Oliver got together and made one of the hottest jazz bands that ever hit New Orleans. They often played in a tail gate wagon to advertise a ball or other entertainments. When they found themselves on a street corner next to another band in another wagon, Joe and Kid Ory would shoot the works. They would give with all that good mad music they had under their belts and the crowd would go wild. When the other band decided it was best to cut the competition and start out for another corner, Kid Ory played a little tune on his trombone that made the crowd go wild again. But this time they were wild with laughter. If you ever run into Kid Ory, maybe he will tell you the name of that tune. I don't dare write it here. It was a cute little tune to celebrate the defeat of the enemy. I thought it screamingly funny and I think you would too.
Kid knew how much Joe Oliver cared for me. He also knew that, great as he was, Joe Oliver would never do anything that would make me look small in the eyes of the public. Oftentimes when our band was on the street advertising a lawn party or some other entertainment, our tail wagon would run into the Ory-Oliver's band. When this happened Joe had told me to stand up so that he would be sure to see me and not do any carving. After he saw me he would stand up in his wagon, play a few short pieces and set out in another direction.
One day when we were advertising for a ball we ran into Oliver and his band. I was not feeling very well that day and I forgot to stand up. What a licking those guys gave us. Sure enough when our wagon started to leave, Kid Ory started to play that get-away tune at us. The crowd went mad. We felt terrible about it, but we took it like good sports because there was not any other band that could do that to us. We youngsters were the closest rivals the Ory band had.
I saw Joe Oliver the night of the day he had cut in on us.
"Why in hell," he said before I could open my mouth, "didn't you stand up?"
"Papa Joe, it was all my fault. I promise I won't ever do that again."
We laughed it all off, and Joe brought me a bottle of beer. This was a feather in my cap because Papa Joe was a safe man, and he did not waste a lot of money buying anybody drinks. But for me he would do anything he thought would make me happy.
At that time I did not know the other great musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton, Freddy Keppard, Jimmy Powlow, Bab Frank, Bill Johnson, Sugar Johnny, Tony Jackson, George Fields and Eddy Atkins. All of them had left New Orleans long before the red-light district was closed by the Navy and the law. Of course I met most of them in later years, but Papa Joe Oliver, God bless him, was my man. I often did errands for Stella Oliver, his wife, and Joe would give me lessons for my pay. I could not have asked for anything I wanted more. It was my ambition to play as he did. I still think that if it had not been for Joe Oliver jazz would not be what it is today. He was a creator in his own right.
Mrs. Oliver also became attached to me, and treated me as if I were her own son. She had a little girl by her first marriage named Ruby, whom I knew when she was just a little shaver. She is married now and has a daughter who will be married soon.
One of the nicest things Joe Oliver did for me when I was a youngster was to give me a beat-up old cornet of his which he had blown for years. I prized that horn and guarded it with my life. I blew on it for a long, long time before I was fortunate enough to get another one.
Cornets were much cheaper then than they are today, but at that they cost sixty-five dollars. You had to be a big shot musician making plenty of money to pay that price for a horn. I remember how such first rate musicians as Hamp Benson, Kid Ory, Zoo French, George Brashere, Joe Petit and lots of other fellows I played with beamed all over when they got new horns. They acted just as though they had received a brand new Cadillac.
I got my first brand new cornet on the installment plan with "a little bit down" and a "little bit now and then." Whenever my collector would catch up with me and start talking about a "little bit now" I would tell him:
"I'll give you-all a little bit then, but I'm damned if I can give you-all a little bit now."
Cornet players used to pawn their instruments when there was a lull in funerals, parades, dances, gigs and picnics. Several times I went to the pawnshop and picked up some loot on my horn. Once it was to play cotch and be around the good old hustlers and gamblers.
I can never stop loving Joe Oliver. He was always ready to come to my rescue when I needed someone to tell me about life and its little intricate things, and help me out of difficult situations. That is what happened when I met a gal named Irene, who had just arrived from Memphis, Tennessee, and did not know a soul in New Orleans. She got mixed up with a gambler in my neighborhood named Cheeky Black who gave her a real hard time. She used to come into a honky-tonk where I was playing with a three piece combo. I played the cornet; Boogus, the piano; and Sonny Garbie, the drums. After their night's work was over, all the hustling gals used to come into the joint around four or five o'clock in the morning. They would ask us to beat out those fine blues for them and buy us drinks, cigarettes, or anything we wanted.