In Paul Dominguez' little four piece orchestra Albert Frances played the drums, his wife Edna the piano, and I the cornet. Later on Wilhelmina Bert Wynn replaced Edna when she became pregnant. Both of these girls were much better than a number of the men I have heard through the years.
I might have made – or lost – a lot of dough if I had been interested in the horses. Several of the big-shot jockey and race track betters used to try to stet on the horses after I had played a request for them. But I was too wrapped up in music to try my luck on the race track. I would thank them very, very much and forget the whole business in a good jam session.
Among the other cabarets in New Orleans while I was working for Tom Anderson were The Cadillac, The Pup and Butsy Fernandez' place. All were jumping good music. When Anderson closed down for repairs, Zutty Singleton, who worked at Butsy's with the fine piano man Udell Wilson, hired me to play with them. We were a red hot trio and musicians would come in to our place every night after they had finished work. Most of them would sit in with us.
I will never forget the night Baby Dodds dropped in to see us after he had come off the road. We introduced him to our boss Butsy. Butsy, by the way, was the sharpest dressed man in New Orleans. He was also a great dancer. The night Rudolph Valentino was in New Orleans during a tour of the United States Butsy won the Rudolph Valentino prize for dancing. He was so sharp that night that all the women made a charge for him. I do believe Butsy was one of the nicest fellows alive. Except for Joe Glaser who was, and still is, the nicest boss man I've ever worked for.
To return to Baby Dodds, he decided to sit in with us that night and play on Zutty's drums. Zutty had struggled hard to pay for those drums. When Baby sat down to do his stuff he romped and played so loud and hard that before we realized it he had busted a hole clean through one of the drums. I never saw Zutty so mad in all my life. All Baby said was: "I'm sorry."
By closing time Baby and Zutty were about to come to blows. Much as I hate to interfere in fights, I had to step between them. They were both my boys, particularly Zutty, and I did not want anything to happen to him. Not that he could not have taken care of himself, but I just did not want those boys to fight.
After that night Zutty and Baby never felt the same about each other. Zutty and all the rest of us felt that Baby had acted badly. There was no reason why a musician with his big reputation could not have played the drums with a little more finesse.
Zutty and I stayed with Butsy until business began to get bad. Then it was the usual thing: no biz, no pay. We stood as many salary cuts as we could, and then we cut out.
Things were rather slow all during the year 1921. My last season on the excursion boats gave me a few dollars to skate along on until something decent turned up. What with playing parades, funerals and picnics for white folks, I did pretty well financially.
Toward the end of 1921 I became a permanent, full-fledged member of the Tuxedo Brass Band under the leadership of the trumpet player Celestin. I really felt that I was somebody. I also realized one of my greatest ambitions: to play second cornet to the one and only Joe Oliver, who had been named "King" Oliver after making such a wonderful reputation in Chicago in 1918.
That Tuxedo Brass Band was really something, both to see and to hear, and it is too bad that in those days we did not have tape recorders and movie cameras to record those boys in action. Still we could not have bought those gadgets. We needed all the dough we could get to eat with.
When I played with the Tuxedo Brass Band I felt just as proud as though I had been hired by John Philip Sousa or Arthur Pryor. It was a great thrill when they passed out the brass band music on stiff cards that could be read as you walked along. I took great pains to play my pan right and not miss a note. If I made a mistake I was brought down the whole day, but Celestin quickly saw how interested I was in my music. He appreciated that. When he thought some thing in the music might stump me he would come over to me and say:
"Son, are you all right? Can you manage that?"
That was a good deal of encouragement for a young fellow without too much brass band experience, I am still grateful to Papa Celestin as well as to all the members of his band who were always very pleasant to me.
The Tuxedo Brass Band had the same kind of summer uniform as the Onward Brass Band: white band caps with black trimmings, blue shirts, white pants and tan shoes. Since the Onward Brass Band had broken up, we came into power. Fine as they were, the other brass bands took their hats off to us.
The fact that I belonged to the best brass band in town put me in touch with all the top musicians. One of them was Picou, the finest clarinetist in New Orleans. He adapted the piccolo part in High Society to the clarinet, and whenever that piece is played the clarinetist uses Picou's solo. There were a number of other masters on the clarinet such as Tio, Bechet, Sidney Desvigne, Sam Dutrey, Wade Whaley and young Jim Williams, Jr. Williams died young and the world really lost a great musician. The same thing is true about Rappolo, who also died young. Other clarinet greats were Bill Humphrey, Johnny Dodds, Jimmy Noone and Albert Nicholas. Barney Bigard came along later, but he was equal to the best of them in my estimation. Since I am talking about old-timers I must not fail to mention Lawrence Dewey, who was a good man in his day. He has retired to Lafayette, Louisiana, but he still plays occasional odd jobs. He did a lot of work with the one and only Bunk Johnson. Louis Warner and Charlie McCurtis were also very good clarinet men.
No matter how long I live and no matter how many other musicians I play with I won't meet any better men than those I mention here. I had a chance to really dig them. The older and the younger men all put their souls into their work. The youngsters of those days, like me, took their music far more seriously than the present day ones. They were so superior to the beginners now that no comparison is possible. Take for example George Backet who used to play a little E-flat cornet in the Excelsior Brass Band. Backet could be heard blocks away above the whole band. When he played his soulful lead with the other cornets, but an octave higher, he would actually bring tears to your eyes.
There are many other good clarinet men I could praise, but after all this time I cannot remember their names. I was real young when I played with them, and we did not bother much about correct names in those days. We used such nicknames as Gate, Face and Gizzard when we said hello or good-bye. As a rule we would meet on a gig, or one night stand, and we would play so well together that one would swear we had been working in the same outfit for months.
In the same year of 1921 Daisy adopted a little girl called Wila Mae Wilson. At this time we had moved out to the white neighborhood at Saint Charles and Clio Streets in the rear of the white folk's home where Daisy worked. To get to our place we had to go through a rear alley, and I was rather afraid when I came home in the wee hours of the night that I might be taken for a burglar. And as a matter of fact, that is what did happen. I had finished working about four o'clock in the morning. When I got off the streetcar to go toward my alley I noticed an old white fellow coming toward me about half a block away. He came closer to me as I neared the alley. Something told me not to enter. The fellow seemed suspicious of me so I waited at the entrance to the alley. When he reached me and was about to pass by I spoke to him. He stopped.
"Listen here," I said, "you may think I am up to something. But I want you to know that I live in this alley. My wife works for some white folks and we're staying on the premises. I thought I'd mention this so's you won't start no stuff."
"I'm sure glad you told me," the old geezer said, "because I am the watchman around here and I don't recall ever seeing you. O.K., go ahead. I'll watch out for you from now on."