I Remember Jazz

by Rose, Al;

  Although I’d often been a customer of his during my growing-up years, I didn’t really get to know him until about 1952 when he began to appear as a bugle soloist with Tony Almeceo’s jazz band. It’s not easy, if you haven’t heard it, to imagine a role for a bugle in an authentic jazz band. But this one managed an impressive repertoire. Sam had the uninhibited, vulgar comedy style common to a certain class of New Orleans musicians that would be exemplified by Wingy Mannone and George Brunies. Still, he could be funny, and much of his following was based on that fact. Like so many other jazzmen of the city, he had a “day job.” He was a juvenile probation officer with headquarters in the courthouse, a half-block from Joe Mares’s place. When I interviewed him for a publicity handout when he went to California with other New Orleans luminaries to appear at Disneyland, I asked him for his full name. He blushed and asked me, “Whaddya wanna know dat for?”

  I explained that to prepare his résumé it was important to know such facts about an artist. He insisted he was no artist, but at last I persuaded him that people would want to know what his full name was. Eventually, I elicited it—Matthew Antoine Desire Dekemel.

  Dekemel wasn’t one of the town’s brighter intellectual lights, and as a result he was frequently the butt of the practical jokery and humor of his musical confreres, who often were a mere half-step above him in cerebral evolution. One day, Johnny Wiggs and I were standing in front of the Austin Inn after a particularly successful seafood gumbo when the drummer Monk Hazel approached us. He told us that if we happened to be near Bayou St. John at the head of St. Philip Street at 11 P.M. we might be witnesses to an amusing spectacle.

  That night we drove to the designated location at the time indicated, turned out the lights, and awaited developments. In a very little while a car slowed down and stopped. A veiled figure got out slowly. She was dressed in flowing robes that were impressive in the light of the full moon, for which this event had clearly been timed. Despite the costume, Wiggs and I recognized her instantly as she took the few steps to the bank of the Bayou. You couldn’t fail to recognize that walk and those movements; the veiled figure was Lizzie Miles, an early recording star who developed a large following singing Creole songs and popular jazz numbers in Creole patois.

  Directly after she took up her position, we saw three figures walking slowly from Dumaine Street along the bank of the bayou. The middle one was a blindfolded Buglin’ Sam. Guiding him were Monk and the trombonist Julian “Digger” Laine. All three had obviously been into the sauce. When they had confronted the “priestess,” Monk said something in Sam’s ear, and Digger removed the blindfold.

  Lizzie managed some portentous tones as she pointed her finger into Sam’s face and accused him of having masturbated on four successive Sundays. She explained that the voodoo law required that he take off all of his clothes and wade into the bayou playing “Basin Street Blues” on his bugle. He would be required, she explained, in order to avoid eternal damnation which might be scheduled to begin at that very moment, to play four complete choruses. He would then have to take an oath that he would never again masturbate on more than three successive Sundays.

  So Sam took all his clothes off, cavilling at removing his jockey shorts, but Lizzie commanded him to take them off, too. Quaking and embarrassed, he followed orders, then marched into the shallow bayou, which wasn’t more than three feet deep, and began to play “Basin Street Blues.” Almost immediately, a squad car appeared (by pre-arrangement, as we later learned) and arrested him for indecent exposure. As they dragged him off, he was screaming, “Fellas! I still gotta make three-and-a-half more choruses!”

  Harry Shields

  There’s as much technique involved in listening to jazz as there is in playing it. Superficial performers attract hordes of superficial listeners. There are so many more of them. As one learns to really hear the jazz, one’s interest in the ingeniousness and beauty of ensemble play burgeons as one’s response to virtuosic solos ebbs. And as one’s emotional and aesthetic satisfaction develop into a genuine understanding and appreciation of the original elements that qualify jazz as an art form, one’s favorites are gradually replaced by others. The effect of all of this process, logically, is that the very greatest of the jazzmen are frequently among the least known.

  All of that is a prelude to explaining why Harry Shields has always been my personal clarinet choice for most record sessions and concerts. In the matter of improvising complex and satisfying—and hot—harmonies to a great lead horn, he was without equal. He was the clarinet in the best jazz ensembles I ever recorded or listened to. He knew the secrets of where the excitement is hidden in every melody. He understood better than anyone I ever knew that it was the sound of the band that counted. There was no room for stars in his world—not even himself. The roster of clarinetists I’ve worked with is jazz’s Who’s Who on that instrument. Nicholas, Pee Wee, Omer Simeon, Baquet, Faz, Ray Burke, Bechet, George Lewis, Edmond Hall were each, in context, superb. But Harry Shields was in a class by himself. His horn was closer to the core of genuine jazz than any other clarinet. I have seen tears well up in the eyes of lead horn players like Sharkey, Alvin Alcorn, Wiggs, even as they played, when Harry’s supporting web of harmony raised their own work to greater levels of intensity and beauty. Wiggs always said that “any cornet player is a genius with that behind him. I don’t need to go to heaven if I’ve got that guy next to me.”

  Harry had his problems, but they weren’t musical ones. Something about him attracted women of unrestrained passion, and he had a jealous wife. It’s true, too, that though he never had much to say and could never have been described as jovial or convivial, a pretty girl could always rivet his attention.

  His wife had him thoroughly trained to bring all his pay checks home. Then she’d dole out to him trivial amounts—never enough to keep him in cigars, let alone paramours. So he worked out a deal with me whereby I’d pay him half of his money in cash and give him the rest in the check he’d bring back to Mrs. Shields. So far as I know, she never caught him at this game.

  It seemed that every time Harry got through playing a job, there was always a pretty lady with a fancy automobile waiting for him. If it was my job, he’d say to me, “Al, I’ve got some important business to take care of but I don’t want to be carrying a lot of money around. How about giving me twenty when I’m finished and I’ll pick up the rest tomorrow.”

  This meant, obviously, that his young lady was expected to provide the entertainment one way or another, because he always had the same twenty on him the next day when I paid him off. Even today I wonder how he did it. The ladies would be maybe twenty-five or, at the most, thirty years old when Harry was in his sixties. I remember him in his twenties, and even then I can’t believe anyone thought he was handsome. He had no wit or personal charisma. If he could have merchandised his secret he’d have made a lot more money than he ever made playing jazz. From time to time I watched ladies in his audiences as he played and I took note of the fact that when he played his solos, many of the girls would get the look in their eyes that I’d seen on the faces of women in the presence of Frank Sinatra. Now that was when Harry was an underweight, elderly gentleman with steel-rimmed utility eyeglasses and white hair. It had to be the music. How he managed to live a relatively normal married life and raise children under these conditions will always remain a mystery to me.

  His musically distinguished brothers had already passed on. Eddie had been slated to be the piano player in the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, but died suddenly in his youth. The eldest, Pat, was reported to be an excellent guitar player, but that was in a time when musicians couldn’t make a living in New Orleans. Larry, as is well known, was in the ODJB and composed “The Original Dixieland Jazz Band One-Step,” “Clarinet Marmalade,” and “At the Jazz Band Ball.”

  With Harry in his advancing years I was saddened by the fact that this particular family tradition had little time to go. Then one day I walked into Joe Mares’s studio where the
re was a youngster of thirteen or so practicing by himself. His tone was of that superior New Orleans timbre, the one all jazz fans recognize. He was playing the old Albert system, just like Harry Shields, and was quite the best youngster I had heard. I asked him his name, and he said he was Harry Shields.

  Johnny St. Cyr

  I always saved the business cards of jazz musicians. Most of them are now in the Tulane University Jazz Archive Collection. Among New Orleans jazzmen, though, many of the cards advertised their “day jobs” and made no mention of their music. That’s how it came to be that I went through my card file to find one that read, “John A. St. Cyr, Plasterer.” I called him on the phone, not because I needed a banjo player, but because I needed to install a room partition. Musicians have done my stationery (Tom Brown), painted a house for me (Julian Laine and pianist Emile Guerin), made me a vest (Sidney Bechet), filled a cavity (Dr. Leonard Bechet), tailored a suit (Santo Pecora), termite-proofed my house (Mike Lala, Pete Fountain, Al Hirt), delivered lumber (Sing Miller) where I was making repairs. It was therefore perfectly logical that I should have called St. Cyr to plaster a wall.

  When he arrived he handed me a carton of milk to keep in the refrigerator for him, and I showed him the job. I’d already bought all of the materials. He said the job would take him almost all day and that he’d have to get twenty dollars for it.

  “Twenty dollars!” I said, astonished at the low price.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I can’t do a job like this for any less.”

  I explained that I’d have reasonably expected to pay a lot more for the job. In fact, I proceeded, I would pay him more.

  He shook his head. “I’m not rich, Al. You know that. I know you called me for this job because you’re my friend. But you could have called fifty different plasterers, and any one of ’em is gonna do this job for twenty dollars more or less. I’m not gonna take more than that because you’re my friend.”

  I had estimated it would cost me about fifty dollars—but what did I know. Those were bad times in the mid-fifties, for both the music and building trades. I stayed with Johnny while he worked—not to keep an eye on him, but because I wanted to keep him company and talk with him.

  Now, just in case you don’t know who Johnny St. Cyr was, I might mention that he’s the banjo and guitar player of the Louis Armstrong Hot Five, the one who made all the historic recordings. In his later years the Disney organization engaged him to be the regular bandleader on the Mark Twain, the replica of the Mississippi River paddlewheeler that plies the lake in Disneyland. His was a name hallowed in jazz history, a byword among record collectors. He was a superior musician even in his advanced years. (He was still employed on the boat when he died in 1966 at the age of seventy-seven.) Unsurpassed as a rhythm man, he was also expert in his single string work, which he used extensively when he performed with his trio from time to time in New Orleans.

  We talked about the Hot Five days and he had a word or two to say that I hadn’t expected. “That po’ li’l gal—don’t get me wrong—she was a fine piano player [Lil Hardin Armstrong] but, you see, we were tryin’ to play jazz—an’ you know, jazz is a workin’ man’s music and it need to be played by a workin’ man. That li’l gal—she was a sweet li’l gal—but she didn’t know anything about work, y’ see. An’ she played hell of a piano, but she get off the rhythm. You got to have that rhythm. So who that leave? That leave me. We didn’ have no drum, we didn’ have no bass, jus’ me. Them records could have been better. Now when we made them other things—Jelly Roll, y’see an’ th’ Red Hot Peppers—now that was different—that was some rhythm. Lindsay, John Lindsay, whoo! That was some rhythm—that was some bass and the li’l French drummer, too [Andre Hillaire], he made nice rhythm, so y’see all that make it easy for me and nacherly, the records, they better.”

  Somewhere before, I had read an interview with Johnny in which he maintained, “A jazz musician got to be a workin’ class of man,” and I realized this was a basic part of his musical philosophy.

  I reminded him, “Jelly Roll was no working class man. I don’t think he ever worked a day in his life.”

  “Yeah,” Johnny agreed, “but he was Jelly Roll. Only one like that.”

  The wall turned out beautifully, and I complimented him.

  “You got to do good work,” he told me. “If it’s plasterin’ or pickin’, you got to do it right.”

  Johnny, in his entire illustrious career, only had one record album under his name as leader. I’m proud that the album notes are mine.

  Sharkey Bonano

  Sharkey really captured the fancy of the Dixieland fans, but not necessarily for the right reasons. A natural showman, his slight figure was never at rest on stage. His brown derby with the little feather in it was one of the best-known trademarks in jazz. His tiny, raspy, almost soprano voice could never be called pleasant, but he’d sing away with all the assurance of a Luciano Pavarotti. All of those things were cute, but they weren’t jazz.

  What was jazz was his hard-driving, flawlessly syncopated lead horn and his beautifully controlled, full trumpet tone. Audiences found him childlike and lovable, but musicians who worked with him saw him in a different light. Sharkey was self-centered and egotistical, characteristics which are never improved by either ignorance or bad judgment. Sharkey had a surplus of all these elements.

  It may be that Sharkey was the only jazzman I ever knew with whom I was not on speaking terms. Even so, I hated to see him unemployed because in the late 1940s and early 1950s, we needed all the great jazz horns we could find. I’d give anything to have that horn back today, even if we had to take Sharkey along with it.

  I guess it was early in the 1950s when I pulled all the strings I could, used whatever influence I had, to get Sharkey and his band a booking in the Blue Room. (That’s one of the big-name spots in New Orleans, in the Roosevelt Hotel.) The band wasn’t too enthusiastic, because working with Sharkey didn’t represent any jazzman’s garden of Eden. The Blue Room’s management always did everything in good taste. It was a real class establishment—and still is, for that matter. When the band arrived to open its engagement, the men saw a well-designed advertising card at the entrance of the room. Stanley Mendelson walked over to try out the piano, and the manager was being pleasant, greeting the musicians. The advertising card had a large photograph of Sharkey in the center and, spaced around it, smaller photos of the members of the band—all top names in Dixieland.

  When Sharkey came in and saw the card, he accosted the manager. “What the hell is this?” he demanded angrily, pointing to the card. All the musicians were standing around observing the scene. Stanley sat at the piano. “This card stinks!” he charged. “Why the hell do you need pictures of all these guys on it? People come in this place to see me, Sharkey, see! These guys don’t make no difference! I could play this job with five Chinamen!”

  A moment of silence ensued and then Stanley, to ease the tension, idly played “Chinatown, My Chinatown” on the piano—whereupon Sharkey fired the band. I need not go into the details of the attendant chaos in the Blue Room, in the Musicians Mutual Protective Association, and among the musicians. Because the bandsmen were as good as they were, they had no difficulty at all getting other jobs. Little Chink and Harry Shields went to the Dukes of Dixieland, Jack Delaney joined Tony Almerico, and so on. I was distressed, because I’d gone to all that trouble to get Sharkey that choice opportunity for exposure only to see him blow it.

  After that, months went by when Sharkey didn’t have any work. Needless to say, the Chinatown story quickly passed into legend on Bourbon Street, and Sharkey’s attempts to put a decent band together proved fruitless. And Sharkey knew a good band when he heard one. His musical ear wasn’t one of the many things that were wrong with him.

  In any case, I was sitting and talking with Joe Mares, as I did on many afternoons, and he told me Sharkey had come in, crying the blues. He didn’t have any work and he was depressed. The whole world, he charged,
had turned against him. That same night—it was in 1954—I talked with Sid Davila who operated the Mardi Gras Lounge on Bourbon Street and persuaded him to abandon his entertainment policy (strip tease, continuous, 9 P.M. to 3 A.M.) in favor of a genuine, quality jazz band with Sharkey at the helm.

  Davila, himself a super clarinet artist, asked me, quite sensibly, “Who in the hell is going to play with Sharkey? He can’t get a band together.”

  I assured Davila I could assemble a band for Sharkey.

  It wasn’t easy. I didn’t make any points with the Dukes for retrieving Little Chink and Shields, though I made it up to them by finding them replacements even more suited to their style. Almerico was livid when I came for Delaney. And as for the musicians, you can imagine it wasn’t easy to get Mendelson to resume working under Sharkey’s leadership. I was selling the idea of putting the best possible music on Bourbon Street. That, I constantly assured everybody, would provide long-term security for everyone. And so I prevailed and Sharkey had a job and a band.

  For Davila, the change in policy represented a substantial investment. He had scrapped a sure-fire, proven format, which was bringing in a substantial profit, purely for principle—that is, because he felt that good jazz was noble and worthwhile whereas strippers and B-drinkers represented a sleazy way to make a living. The musicians had given up good jobs for the chance only to play a higher order of music. I had put in a lot of time, but of course, there was no way for me to benefit financially, since I was not a booking agent or an entrepreneur. I was just trying to contribute to the quality of the environment.