I immediately dropped that shovel, slowly put on my jacket, looked at Lady and said: "So long, my dear. I don't think I'll ever see you again." And I cut out, leaving mule cart, load of coal and everything connected with it. I haven't seen them since.
I ran straight home. Mayann, noticing I was home much earlier than usual, asked me what was the matter, trouble?
"No, mother," I said. "The war is over, and I quit the coal yard job for the last time. Now I can play my music the way I want to. And when I want to."
The very next day all the lights went on again. And all the places commenced opening up in droves. Oh, the city sure did look good again, with all those beautiful lights along Canal Street, and all the rest. Matranga called me to come back to play in his honky-tonk, but he was too late. I was looking forward to bigger things, especially since Kid Ory had given me the chance to play the music I really wanted to play. And that was all kinds of music, from jazz to waltzes.
Then Kid Ory really did get a log of gigs. He even started giving his own dances, Monday nights downtown at the Economy Hall. Monday night was a slow night in New Orleans at that time, and we didn't get much work other places. But Kid Ory did so well at the Economy Hall that he kept it up for months and made a lot of dough for himself. He paid us well too.
A lot of Saturday nights we didn't work either, so on those nights I would play over in Gretna, across the river, at the Brick House, another honky-tonk. This was a little town near Algiers, Red Allen's home, which paid pretty well, including the tips from the drunken customers, the whores, the pimps and the gamblers.
There also were some real bad characters who hung around the joint, and you could get your head cut off, or blown off, if you weren't careful.
We had a three-piece band, and we had to play a lot of blues to satisfy those hustling women who made quite a bit of money selling themselves very cheap.
The Brick House was located right by the levee and the Jackson Avenue ferry. Going back home to New Orleans on the Jackson Avenue streetcar after we finished work at the Brick House used to frighten me a lot because there weren't many people out that time of the morning. Just a few drunks, white and colored. Lots of times the two races looked as if they were going to get into a scrap over just nothing at all. And down there, with something like that happening and only a few Spades (colored folks) around, it wasn't so good. Even if we colored ones were right, when the cops arrived they'd whip our heads first and ask questions later.
One night when just a few colored people, including me, were coming back from Gretna in the wee hours of the morning, a middle-aged colored woman was sitting on a bench by the railing of the boat, lushed to the gills. The deckhands were washing the floor and it was very slippery. Just before the boat pulled off an elderly white lady came running up the gangplank and just managed to make the ferry. Not knowing the floor was wet, she slipped and almost fell. Immediately the colored woman raised up and looked at the white one and said; "Thank God!"
Talk about your tense moments!
My, my, the Lord was with us colored people that night, because nothing happened. I'm still wondering why. I have seen trouble start down there from less than that.
Louis Armstrong met his first wife at the Brick House. But before I tell you how I got to know Daisy Parker, I want to take one last look again at the good old days of Storyville.
For instance, I haven't said anything yet about Lulu White. Poor Lulu White! What a woman!
I admired her even when I was a kid, not because of the great business she was in, but because of the great business she made of her Mahogany Hall. That was the name of the house she ran at Storyville. It was a pleasure house, where those rich ofay (white) business men and planters would come from all over the South and spend some awful large amounts of loot.
Lulu had some of the biggest diamonds anyone would want to look at. Some of the finest furs. … And some of the finest yellow gals working for her. …
Champagne would flow like water at Lulu's. If anyone walked in and ordered a bottle of beer, why, they'd look at him twice and then – maybe – they'd serve it. And if they did, you'd be plenty sorry you didn't order champagne.
Jelly Roll Morton made a lot of money playing the piano for Lulu White, playing in one of her rooms.
Of course when the drop came and the Navy and the law started clamping down on Storyville, Lulu had to close down too. She had enough salted away to retire for life and forget all about the business. But no, she was like a lot of sporting house landladies I've known through life – they were never satisfied and would not let well enough alone, and would try to make that big fast money regardless of the law showering down on them.
Mayor Martin Behrman made them cut out from Storyville within days. Lulu White moved from 325 North Basin Street to 1200 Bienville Street, and tried her luck at another house. That's where she did the wrong thing, to try to continue running her house with the law on her like white on rice, taking all the loot she'd made over the years along with her diamonds and jewelry and all.
I remember Detective Harry Gregson gave her a real tough time. He was a tough man, and he's still living. All the dicks in Storyville – Hessel, Fast Mail, Gregson, the others – I got to know when as a kid I delivered hard coal to all of those cribs where the girls used to stand in their doorways and work as the men went by.
There were all kinds of thrills for me in Storyville. On every corner I could hear music. And such good music! The music I wanted to hear. It was worth my salary – the little I did get – just to go into Storyville. It seemed as though all the bands were shooting at each other with those hot riffs. And that man Joe Oliver! My, my, that man kept me spellbound with that horn of his. …
Storyville! With all those glorious trumpets – Joe Oliver, Bunk Johnson – he was in his prime then – Emmanuel Perez, Buddy Petit, Joe Johnson – who was real great, and it's too bad he didn't make some records. …
It struck me that Joe Johnson and Buddy Petit had the same identical styles. Which was great! In fact all the trumpet and cornet players who were playing in my young days in New Orleans were hellions – that's the biggest word I can say for them. They could play those horns for hours on end.
But Joe Oliver, a fat man, was the strongest and the most creative. And Bunk Johnson was the sweetest. Bunk cut everybody for tone, though they all had good tones. That was the first thing Mr. Peter Davis taught me – out in the Colored Waifs' Home for Boys. "Tone," he said. "A musician with a tone can play any kind of music, whether it's classical or ragtime."
It seemed like everyone was pulling for Lulu White to give up and lead a decent life. But she just wouldn't. She held on to her horses and her carriage and her Negro driver as long as she could. But the law she defied dragged her down like a dog until they broke her completely. It was a shame the way they snatched her mansion – furniture, diamonds galore, things worth a fortune.
Oh well, although Lulu's gone, the name of Mahogany Hall on Basin Street will live forever. And so will Basin Street.
chapter 10
The Brick House, in Gretna, Louisiana …
In all my whole career the Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in. It was the honky-tonk where levee workers would congregate every Saturday night and trade with the gals who'd stroll up and down the floor and into the bar. Those guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy, and there was lots of just plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all of that jive didn't faze me at all, I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn.