The record changer (Jan-Dec 1950)

43 CONGRATULATIONS LOUIS ABRAHAM GORDON editorial (Continued from Page 6) handkerchief tied most ingeniously around his head. The gravel-voiced greeting was most gracious, and it took us about a minute to discover that this was possibly the most warm and cordial Big Name we ever hope to encounter. Louis quickly volunteered to spend as much time with us as we would need, and immediately invited us to spend an evening at his home any time we pleased. An evening with the Armstrongs, we soon discovered, commences at about midnight (after the last stage show lets out) and ends at about 6 A.M. Exhausted, but loaded with enough material to fill three issues of the Record Changer, we called it quits at dawn — to be told then, for the first time, that we had literally taken all of Louis' night. He was due to arise at 9 A.M. that morning! Another bouquet is due to Lucille Armstrong for the wonderful dinner she prepared at about 4 A.M., and also for the terrific recipe for . authentic New Orleans-style red beans and rice, which she painstakingly gave us in every detail. It's a dish we recommend to all moldy figs, but Louis' own suggestion is to eat the stuff "real early in the day, so you have lots of time to work it off." One note of sadness went into the preparation of this issue. We had set up several dates with Baby Dodds, to get his story of Louis' days with King Oliver, and with Fate Marable's band on the old Mississippi river boats. The day before our first scheduled meeting, he fell victim to his second stroke. He is recovering now, but still in the hospital. Our best wishes to Baby, a game guy and a great jazzman. Last but not least, let us note what may be our greatest tribute to the great Armstrong. Editor Keepnews will become a father in the next week or so. If it happens to be of the male gender, the middle name will be Louis. How about that ? . . . the waifs home (Continued from Page 8) of innocent kids,' adding that he had come to take a liking to me. Then, he said : 'How about me starting you out on some kind of musical instrument?' "I being just a punk kid, I said, thrilled to death : 'Yass Suh !' Then right away, he started me to playing the bugle for the boys to drill to. Then from one instrument to another, which would take too long a time CONGRATULATIONS LOUIS BILL WILSON to tell about, until one day, he had me try to "play Home Sweet Home on one of the cornets. From the first day that Mr. Davis gave me a cornet to play, I've always been very serious about my cornet-playing. Today, of course, it's a trumpet, but the seriousness is the same." I was curious about the identity of some of the other youngsters appearing in the picture of the Waif's Band. One of the other kids playing cornet, it occurred to me, bore a definite resemblance to Kid Rena. "That's right," Louis replied, "that is Kid Rena sitting there in the band." Asked for some further tales about his side-kick, Louis answered : "In those days, Rena was a powerful youngster on his cornet. We both came up under Mr. Peter Davis. In fact, we both pretty near got out of the Home together. When we did, Rena, who was a Creole, went downtown, and since I was not a Creole, I went uptown. Sometimes, we would play together, but often we would blow against each other. He would be playing for some dance downtown, and I would be playing for some dance uptown, and when the two bands met in a street parade to advertise the dance, we would have a contest right there, and the best band would get the crowd. Kid Rena and I used to have some awful battles ! "When I was young, I always had my tone and a good sense of phrasing, so that alone would protect me in all of my battles, and I seldom lost. Like myself, Rena had a very high range on his horn, and today these youngsters think they're making high notes, but I tell them, they'll never hit the high notes that Kid Rena and I used to, when we were in our teens. Rena could all but whistle through that cornet of his, but then my chops were always pretty strong too." Moved by this flow of recollection, Louis continued : "My learning days didn't end when I left the Waif's Home, and I reaped all the benefits that a young musician could get. Instead of playing with a lot of simple, pimply-faced boys, I was somewhere where either Joe Oliver, or someone, was playing something decent on the trumpet. Of course, I Was just a kid listening to all of this good music, and I was all ears at all times. "I heard a whole lot of Scott Joplin's music, too. I wanted so badly to have met him in person, but I didn't get up North soon enough. If someone asked me Today, how in the world do I remember Scott Joplin's music when they played it so long ago, I would tell them, I started listening young. Scott Joplin was really wonderful. Joe CONGRATULATIONS LOUIS Hot Damn Jug Band of New York "Skiffle Experts" Oliver, Bunk Johnson, Freddie Keppard, Emanuel Perez, and lots of good old-timers used to play his music from the soul and with lots of expression." By way of summing up these impressions, Louis concluded : "This is just to give you a rough idea of all the wonderful memories I have of the finest days of my early life, which I'll treasure as long as I live. Those were real days with real people. Every one of the gentlemen I've mentioned lived a charmed life, and they were wonderful characters besides." on the riverboats (Continued from Page 9) the last set was played. And, too, there were occasional whole days between ports to simply laze around the decks. Meanwhile, Louis was learning to read music under the tutelage of Dave Jones and, occasionally, Joe Howard. From these two he learned "the value of a note and how to divide and how to phrase and the rest." Not that Fate demanded anything more than that a man could really play. "Lots of those jazz musicians couldn't read music — never mind an arrangement," Fate later said. "But when they started improvising," he added, "the foundation was still there." From New Orleans to St. Louis on the Sidney was two weeks or more, with a tour every night except for big towns where the boat would base for two days. Like a panorama, the sleepy levees and cottonwood and willow-covered riverbanks, the sleepy quays and the shady towns floated by : Donaldsonville, Plaquemine, Baton Rouge, Natchez, Vicksburg, Helena, Cape Girardeau, Memphis, Cairo, and all the rest. Captain Streckfus aimed to hit the big towns on a weekend, for afternoon and evening double header excursions on Saturday and Sunday. As the Sidney would near the dock on arriving at a new town, the band would be playing like mad on the theory that the wind, carrying Tiger Rag at full heat ahead of the boat, beat all the advance advertising the Streckfus money could buy. It always worked. As they docked, the bandsmen repaired hastily to the dining saloon to stoke up for the long program ahead. As the crowd began to file up the gangplank, Fate would climb to the upper deck and get to work on the steam calliope in the best tradition of the ragtime professors. On an evening excursion, this would be around 7 P.M., and for a half hour the pipes would shrill excitingly through Oh! You Beautiful Doll, Clarinet CONGRATULATIONS LOUIS SIMEON LOCKE " The Queensberry Kid "