The record changer (Jan-Dec 1950)

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SNW rudi blesh ON THE RIVERBOATS ■**»N«i<'**«<«i**«W«« Louis Armstrong can look forward from his first half-century to many years of hot music making, for music is in his very being and that iron lip seems as strong as ever. But he can look back, too, to a third of a century of active playing, during most of which the world of jazz has centered around his horn. And out of these many years of his career in jazz, his days as a youth on a Mississippi riverboat will"' be among those that he can recall most fondly. New Orleans jazz was already on the excursion steamers when, in April 1914, Louis joined Fate Marable's band on the Streckfus boat, the 6". S. Sidney. It was the late Marable who was responsible for the Delta music being there. The ragtime pianist from Paducah went on the steamboat /. S. No. 1 in 1907. On the riverboat steamer "S. S. St. Paul," in 1919. This is the Jaz-E-Saz Band; in the front row are George (?) Cooper, Fate Marable, and Armstrong. Standing behind them: Baby Dodds, Joe Howard, Pops Foster, Johnny St. Cyr, David Jones, and Sam Dutrey. (Photo from the author's book, Shining Trumpets.) "It sailed to New Orleans that year with me at the piano and a white fellow playing violin," he once recalled. "Each year we added one more piece until we had a great big band — we thought. Four pieces — piano, violin, trumpet and drums. All were white boys but me, and playing strictly ragtime." In 1910, Marable moved to the Sidney and something happened. "We were going in and out of New Orleans all the time and the music they were playing there got under my skin," he said. By 1918, Fate had put together an eight piece New Orleans band that ran Gene Rodemich's St. Louis band off the boat, and no wonder, for Fate's was a crew of Crescent City greats. Johnny St. Cyr's six string guitar-banjo, Pops Foster's patched up bass and his huge tuba, Baby Dodds' drums and Fate's own ragtime piano — what a beat they laid down ! And the horns were like parade day on Rampart Street. There was Dave Jones' mellophone ; the trombone would be that of August Rousseau or else Baby Ridgely, head of the old Tuxedo Band ; the clarinet belonged to Sam Dutrey, brother of Honore. Fate's band, like King Oliver's i I ^ III 1 \\\ 8 later band, had two cornets. Before Louis came on, there were, at different times, the following : Peter Bocage, Andrew Kimball, Manuel Perez and Joe Howard. When Louis joined, Joe Howard went to second trumpet and Bocage shifted to violin, an instrument that he plays equally as well as the trumpet. Louis left Kid Ory's band to go on the river. This was the band that Joe Oliver had left in New Orleans when he went to Chicago. As Louis remembers (in his autobiography Swing That Music), he came up the gangplank with a brand new trumpet. Pops, Johnny and Baby remember otherwise, and the photos show him holding a shortkeeled, broad-beamed cornet of far earlier vintage. "He borrowed the horn from Vern Streckfus," Pop says. "The Streckfus boys was all musical. Captain Joe, Johnny and Roy pounded the piano and Vern played trumpet and violin— or tried to, anyway." Whether or not his horn was new or old, owned or borrowed, made little difference, for nineteen year old Satchmo had more music in his heart and head than anyone had ever dreamed of. "He all but set the boat on fire," Fate recalled. The life of a musician on a riverboat was strenuous but healthful. In Swing That Music, Louis recalled, "It was a very hard routine. Hot musicians throw a pack of energy into their work and it takes a lot out of them. When we ran those all-day excursions, and we did that at most all the ports we touched at, it only left about two hours to rest up and get dressed and ready for the evening excursions." But the men got sleep they never had ashore, for there were no "after hours" joints to go to when (Continued on Page 43)