by Mick Burns
Interviewed by Kevin Herridge in July 2002
Photo by Marcel Joly
My name is Ruddley Thibodeaux, leader of the Algiers Brass Band and one of the original members. I’m from 449 LeBoeuf Street, corner of LeBoeuf and Eliza. I just made fifty-four years old, and I’ve been in Algiers all my life.
Now, when we started the Algiers Brass Band was about July of ’87. We kinda all got together back in the days when I was coming up, when everything was segregated. Behrman School, right there, was a white-only high school, and L. B. Landry was the only black high school on this side of the river. So that meant that almost all the black people that come up over here went to L. B. Landry school, which also happened to be from junior high to senior high, so you got a chance to know everyone.
So that’s how most of the members got acquainted. A lot of us were in the high school band but not necessarily at the same time. Mr. Othello Batiste—who was a gospel singer—was actually one of the founders of the band, and Frank Hooper, who was the trumpet player, got together and organized the band. They thought it would be nice to have a brass band based right here in Algiers, whereas Algiers was no stranger to second lines and brass bands. They had second lines here, but they hadn’t had a brass band since Red Allen’s father, who was last heard of with a brass band around 1947 or ’46, somewhere round there.
As a matter of fact, Red Allen’s house in the 400 block of Newton Street is still in the family name. The reason I know that is because of my day job. See, being a musician in New Orleans, a lot of time you need a day job. I work for the city, and I work in housing. So therefore I have occasion to look up different records. I spend a lot of time in the Notarial Archives, not necessarily researching history but just to see who owns what so we can get out and get them to get it fixed up. But nonetheless, that’s Henry Allen’s family house still over there. They were the last people to have a brass band before we started over here.
So I guess how it kinda started was when Mr. Batiste, who I was speaking of, and Frank Hooper got together, picking the people they wanted to get for the band. So since Frank had been in the high school band in Landry, he knew that some of the guys that had been in the band were still playing music professionally. But I wasn’t too much into this kinda music. As a matter of fact, I didn’t think too much of it—jou know, I’m gonna tell you all the truth.
But when he called up, I said I knew all the guys and we’ll give it a shot, you know. So we get together in July of ’87 and picked a name, and somebody said it’s gotta be Algiers Brass Band, as we’re all from Algiers. So they did that, and we started practicing, and I got to be one of the leaders of the band. I wasn’t too much into being a leader. I was just into music, but I wanted to offer my assistance to help the band musically, and so I was like a coleader, and we moved on from there. So we started practicing, and as we started practicing as a group, we probably knew about two songs: “Bourbon Street Parade” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
That’s all we knew when we started. I imagine that other people knew songs, but as a group that’s all we knew. So we built on that and built up our repertoire, and things started to move rather fast. Like, we started in July—probably about in August. Let me go back, just briefly. I guess around the latter part of July, first part of August, we had like a debut. Blaine Kern, who had the Mardi Gras World over on the West Bank and who’s interested in anything and everything from Algiers, became like one of our mentors, one of our sponsors, and he offered up the den for a press conference to announce the formation of the new band. So we came out and played and everything.
Anyway, we did that, and we were playing here and there. Sometime around the latter part of August (I think Blaine had something to do with that, too), on Royal Street they got a lot of antique shops, and they were having some kinda block party. So we got a chance to go up there and perform for some self-promotion, you know, so people would know all about us. We were playing on the steps of the Wildlife and Fisheries building, and so this man walked up to us and said, “Y’all sound good.” I said, “Thankyou.” He say, “Y’all interested in going to Japan?” So I said, “Yeah,” you know, “I’m interested.” But now I was a bit skeptical in my mind because, keep in mind, I had been playing a long time but just hadn’t been playing in the brass band genre. People tell you all kinds of things, but I knew better than to say, “No, I’m not interested.” But I didn’t think nothing was going to come of it, and lo and behold, about two weeks later I started getting some correspondence.
Now just to show you how being in the right place at the right time … you know, I guess it might have been fate. The man turned out to be Bob Leblanc, and he was in charge of tourism for the State of Louisiana. More than that, he was a former Al-gerene! So I said, “What made you pick us?” And he said, “Well, I just try to help the boys—y’ all’s from Algiers and I’m from Algiers.” It was just as simple as that, and from then on we did a tour of Japan in October.
We worked hard. We practiced two or three times a week, but, you know, I guess when you’re trying to do something and people know you’re sincere, they volunteer to help you, you know, and so things started moving. The gentleman that owns the restaurant and catering service right on the corner of Valette and Homer— George Rainey—he was the vice president of Zulu. So that next year, he put us in the parade—sight unseen. So that was our first year in the Zulu parade, and we moved on from then.
I know you’ve heard of Mr. Danny Barker. Matter of fact, in that same year, 1988, we were over at WWOZ playing on the radio, promoting our first anniversary. We were also selling raffle tickets. What we were doing, we were having a parade and a big party at the Elks Hall, right over there on Elmira Street, which is a historic place in Algiers—lot of famous musicians and stuff have played over there. So that was like a fund-raiser, and we were getting people to come out and help us celebrate our anniversary. But also, we going to make some money, too, by selling raffle tickets and having a party.
So anyway, we were playing, probably something like “Didn’t He Ramble” and a couple of things on the radio. After a while, this old man come in the radio station and he said, “I was riding in my car and I heard the music. I just had to come over. I was going home but I decided to come to the radio station.” I didn’t know him, so he introduced himself. This was Danny Barker and he congratulated us on the way we sounded, and from then on we had made a very important friend who helped us further our career. We didn’t know it at the time.
So I guess after that we probably went on and had our anniversary and did different other little gigs. Just things you do, you know, on your way through. I got a call from Mr. Barker, could have been seven or eight months later. He said this guy was in town doing a documentary on brass bands and liked the way we sound—we sound more traditional than the Olympia, which was a great compliment ’cause the Olympia go way back. That was one of my goals for the band, to try get at least an equal footing with them or at least somewhere close.
So anyway, the guy, whose name was Sinclair Bourne, came out, and as things would have it, one of the younger, like, auxiliary members of the band, his grandmother had died, so we just playing the funeral ’cause he’s a friend, you know. So this guy that Mr. Barker had sent come out, and he asked would he have permission from them to come out and film it. And the guy put it on a documentary that they put on the National Geographic Explorer series. So you know, all these things just happening, you know.
Ruddley Thibodeaux and Danny Barker
Photo by Marcel Joly
From then on we did parades and, like, in New Orleans it’s kinda nice, if you want work and you happen to be in a brass band, you always got elections! You got elections coming up now, you know what I’m saying? You playing for the politicians. You got parties, weddings, all kind of stuff. You always find something to do. We were doing things like that and we did more traveling. Went back to Japan again, and from then on we traveled all around, did a lot of thing
s.
Now that was going on fifteen years ago. The band is still going on. There’s a barbershop on Teche Street in the ten hundred block. We just call it Teche Street barbershop. But the gentleman’s name is Joseph Smith. They call him “Toot” for short because his daddy was a musician and his name was “Toot,” and he just inherited the nickname. Anyway, that was our headquarters, and that’s where we practice and do everything. I had never been in a band this long continuously, and I’m beginning to see what happened with the Olympia and a lot of other long-standing organizations: that as time passes things change in your life and everybody else’s life. So a couple of guys have resigned—you know, they had enough of the music—and about three or four people died.
Mr. Sutton, our alto player, who, when we started, he was in his sixties—Norbert Sutton—he had played with Shirley and Lee and a bunch of others back then in the fifties. He played with Tommy Ridgley and all of them. I had met Sutton over here because before the Algiers Brass Band, Sutton and I and another guy was in a band—name of Edgar Johnson—we had a little progressive jazz band. I didn’t play trumpet in that. I played piano. Mr. Sutton took sick and died after we made the first trip to Japan. He lasted about a year, and he eventually died of pneumonia. Naturally we played at his funeral. He played alto saxophone. It turned out, like he was a spirit and an influence, ’cause you need somebody experienced and somebody kinda settled. He turned out to be one of my best right-hand men. Doing things we needed to do—I could call him for his experience and to mediate disputes sometimes, all kinda things like that. But, anyway, Mr. Sutton was the first person that died.
As I say, Mr. Othello Batiste, who wasn’t a musician in the band, was actually the founder of the band, and he really helped us to get things together. He died and we played at his funeral.
Then, next, well, not too long ago, our original bass drummer, Donald Harrison—we all call him “Chauncey,”—he died.
And then I had another guy I was thinking about—he died about a week after Frankie Badell. ’Cause he was calling me up to find out when the funeral was ’cause he was gonna play. His name was Thaddeus Ford. Thaddeus had joined the band as a trumpet player. Thaddeus was a little younger than me, but he had gray hair like me, so I said, “OK, so I got somebody look like me gonna be in the band.” Unfortunately, Frank died, then Thaddeus dies. That’s some of the changes that went on in the band over the course of about fifteen years.
All of these things happen, but, you know, suffice it to say I still got it going on. Some of you are kind of familiar with the New Orleans music scene, and there’s a fantastic little trumpet player by the name of Irwin Mayfield, plays with a band called Los Hombres Calientes, the “hot boys.” I always tell him, I say, “I knew you was a hot boy!” Anyway, he came up in the band, him and his brother—they were about eleven. He’s always been short, but being eleven he was even shorter, you know. Got some pictures of him playing at a funeral.
So that kinda helped perpetuate things and put some vitality back in things. Matter of fact, Irwin was in the band. He had started, but then after a while he went to NOCCA [New Orleans Center for Creative Arts], but then (I think when Frank Hooper moved) I got Irwin again. I asked his momma, “Can he come play with us again?” He was about sixteen, and he was probably a better trumpet player than me almost then. It was great! I’d get him in the band, and he’d be playing, so I had to play more. I couldn’t sit back, you know. This is a youngster with fire. So I gotta get on my horses and do it.
The band now is basically the same instrumentation. We play mostly two trumpets, tenor sax, clarinet, trombone and a rhythm section made up of tuba, bass drum, and snare drum. I also didn’t mention that my son came through too. He plays trumpet. He plays with me sometimes. But I don’t think he’s probably cut out to be a musician, like for life, you know. To be a musician for life, that’s gotta be part of your makeup, you know. I used to tell the guys in the band that I hope this keeps going on, but if it didn’t, I would still be playing—playing what I was playing before.
We started out with a grand marshal; then we had some disputes, so we got another grand marshal. I’m telling you, you’re dealing with a bunch of personalities—all kinds of things happening. Yeah, everybody was from Algiers. And that lasted awhile, and as it stands now, I don’t have a regular grand marshal. From time to time there’s people I use. Going back to the days when the band was newer, you’d be doing all kinda stuff. You’d be doing parades, and you mostly only need a grand marshal for a parade. If you plan a party or a wedding or something like that, you don’t need him. I got someone I use from time to time. Unfortunately he’s not from Algiers.
We don’t have a regular gig—not anymore. We kinda got into the convention thing, so we do a lot of things for conventions ’cause this is a tourism city. You got a lot of companies—Blaine Kern and them, too, you know we do things for them. People come into town. The entertainment directors put together things for them to do that’s “New Orleans.” So they might all be at a hotel, and they going to eat down at Pat O’Brien’s, say, for instance. So what they gonna do that’s “New Orleans”? They have a parade. That’s where we come in. Parade ’em down or parade ’em to the boat. Things like that, you know, so that comes in pretty nice. So, no, we don’t play at no club—not regularly anymore.
We used to play at a place round the corner at Valette and Homer. There was this guy Rainey who was vice president of Zulu that got us that first parade. He does, like, lunch and stuff and catering, and we hooked something up there. We used to play there every Thursday night. When we went to Japan, we had a lot of friends, and this lady—we call her “Mama San,” everybody call her “Mama San”—she’s rich. So anyway, she came to New Orleans. She came to the United States, but you know, she passed through New Orleans. She looked us up where we were playing, right there at Rainey’s. Got a whole tour bus—you know, the bigger ones with all her people in it. Parked right there by Rainey’s and had them a good time while we played.
Matter of fact, I was trying to get “Toot” Smith to come here ’cause he actually remembers Old Man Allen. Toot is sixty-six. He’s been around! He used to be here when his daddy used to play. His daddy knew some of those older guys—Mr. [Manuel] Manetta and all of them, you know. Matter of fact, Mr. Manetta was my neighbor; he lived just across the street. I knew he was a musician, but I had no idea of his stature in music history in New Orleans. All I knew was, you know, he had this little house on the side where he give lessons at, and every evening he be going on his gig and stuff. I wasn’t too interested in this kind of music, but it was a funny thing: once I got into it I had to kinda study it, build up our repertoire and know what we was doing. The more I got into it, the more I liked it. I used to call him Mr. Manetta, but I didn’t know he was that great person, you know. How you say … you can’t see the forest for the trees? He was right there, you know.
He is the uncle of Placide and Gerald [and Justin] Adams. He lived right in the middle of the four hundred block of LeBoeuf, and I lived right on the corner of LeBoeuf and Eliza at number 449. Mr. Manetta lived in a double house, and right on the side of the house was a little building, like a little miniature house, like a doll’s house. Actually, that was his studio, and that’s where he would give lessons. I guess even after he died it stayed there awhile, but then his wife died (his wife lasted longer than him), and they didn’t have any children. They had relatives like Gerald and Placide and them. This is the story. I wasn’t there, but they was all people from the neighborhood. My understanding is that Mrs. Manetta left the money that she did have to another lady—a neighbor, a lady in the block—and I don’t know how it went. I guess they must have sold the house, and the house kinda got into bad shape, and the little building was in even worse shape, and it got demolished by the city. Ironically, let me tell y’ all something: that’s the business that I’m in. That’s part of what I do for the city. I’m not sure whether I had a hand in it or not, but I could have.
I had met George Lewis. As a matter of fact, when I was in high school I had a little taste of this music. We used to play in the American Legion Band, and the American Legion Band would sometimes play for, like, the Jolly Bunch over there in Carrollton. I’d never met Mr. Lewis over here—I met him over there. But still, being young and coming up, I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know who I was with.
I used to read about Red Allen, but that was before I was in the business, and then I didn’t know that he was from right off of Newton Street. It’s just funny how things go, you know. Things was happening, and you didn’t know they were happening right under your nose.
Before I formed the Algiers Brass Band, I used to play rhythm and blues and straight-ahead jazz. As I mentioned, me and this guy Mr. Sutton, we were in a band. Like, trumpet is my major instrument, but I write music and I like to play the piano, so when I started playing all that kind of jazz, I was playing piano. We played Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, that kind of stuff.
Algiers Brass Band Marcel Joly
By the way, I still like stuff like that, it’s just that I appreciate this too. Do I like that stuff better? I couldn’t say that. I’ve had this discussion with people before. Everything that I liked before, I still like. But this is something new, I mean new to me. It was there already. But I got into it and started learning about what it was. So I think I like it as well, put it like that. I got into the revival sort of round the end of it.
But Mr. Barker was instrumental in reviving the brass band scene, and we happen to run into Mr. Barker at a good time, too. The youngsters, all they had coming up was rhythm and blues and stuff they heard on the radio. So people like the Dirty Dozen and the Rebirth, they’d play a new kind of stuff, and it started bringing in more people, and that kinda helped the revival too. Like, when we started the band, I was aware of all that stuff, but my position was, the stuff that they was playing, I had played already. I liked it but wasn’t too interested in playing it in a brass band. I can still go back and play it if I want, but I had taken my model for the brass band, just like the Olympia. Later on I started getting records of the Young Tuxedo and the Eureka, and that was my models, you know.