I Remember Jazz

Six Decades Among the Great Jazzmen

Al Rose

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 1999
• Print ISBN: 9780807153772
• eBook ISBN: 9780807153765
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Al Rose has known virtually every noteworthy jazz musician of this century. For many of them he has organized concerts, composed songs that they later played or sang, and promoted their acts. He has, when called upon, bailed them out of jail, straightened out their finances, stood up for them at their weddings, and eulogized them at their funerals. He has caroused with them in bars and clubs from New Orleans to New York, from Paris to Singapore -- and survived to tell the story. The result has been a lifetime of friendship with some of the music world's most engaging and rambunctious personalities. In I Remember Jazz, Rose draws on this unparallelled experience to recall, through brief but poignant vignettes, the greats and the near-greats of jazz. In a style that is always entertaining, unabashedly idiosyncratic, and frequently irreverent, he writes about Jelly Roll Morton and Bunny Berigan, Eubie Blake and Bobby Hackett, Earl Hines and Louis Armstrong, and more than fifty others.
Rose was only twenty-two when he was first introduced to Jelly Roll Morton. He quickly discovered that they had more in common than a love of music. Something of a peacock at that age, Rose was dressed in a "polychromatic, green-striped suit, pink shirt with a detachable white collar, dubonnet tie, buttonhole, and handkerchief" -- and so was Jelly Roll. About Eubie Blake, Rose notes that he was not only a superb musician but also a notorious ladies' man. Rose recalls asking the noted pianist when he was ninety-seven, "How old do you have to be before the sex drive goes?" Blake's reply: "You'll have to ask someone older than me." Once in 1947, Rose was asked to assemble a group of musicians to play at a reception to be hosted by President Truman at Blair House in Washington, D.C. The musicians included Muggsy Spanier, George Brunies, Pee Wee Russell, Pops Foster, and Baby DOdds. But the hit of the evening was President Truman himself, who joined the group on the piano to play "Kansas City Kitty" and the "Missouri Waltz."
I Remember Jazz is replete with such amusing and affectionate anecdotes -- vignettes that will delight all fans of the music. Al Rose does indeed remember jazz. And for that we can all be grateful.

Index

Aaronson, Irving, 243

ABC-Paramount, 239

Abraham, Martin, 81, 89, 91, 93, 97, 153, 170–72

Abraham, Martin, Jr., 14, 81, 181, 182

Adams, Dolly Douroux, 232

Adams, Gerald, 232

Adams, Justin, 232

Adams, Placide, 232

Adler, Larry, 208

Adrian’s Tap Room Gang, 55

“Ain’t Misbehavin’,” 158

“Air Conditioned Nightmare,” 11

Albert, Don, 244

Albright, William, 105

Alcorn, Alvin, 38, 52, 75, 76, 77, 177, 188, 191

Alexis, Ricard, 244

Algonquin Hotel (New York), 214

Allen, Henry “Red,” 124, 126, 189

Allen, Richard B., 125, 136

Allen, Woody, 140

“Alley Cat,” 234

“All You Need Is Love,” 170

Almcrico, Tony, 120, 121, 175, 181

Alter, Louis, 77, 194

Amackcr, Frank, 232

American Music Records, 16

Ammons, 5, 47

Amsterdam News, 47, 48, 158

Anderson, Eddie “Rochester,” 2

Anderson, Tom, 227

Andrus, Merwyn “Dutch,” 97

Apex Club Orchestra, The, 49

Archey, Jimmy, 40, 47, 61, 62, 92, 114

Arkansas Cultural Center, The, 233

Armstrong All-Stars, Louis, 127, 186

Armstrong, Lil Hardin, 179, 244

Armstrong, Louis, 86, 96, 99, 110, 114, 126, 127–30, 185, 194, 196, 202, 219, 222, 223, 228, 238, 240

Armstrong, Lucille, 129, 184

Armstrong Park, 162, 194, 221

Arnheim, Gus, 243

Arodin, Sidney, 243, 244

Arpin, John, 183

Artigues, Albert, 244

Associated Artists Gallery, 241

Assunto, Frank, 44, 45, 155

Atlan, Michele, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164

Atlan, Pierre, 138, 143, 159–62, 163, 164

“At the Jazz Band Ball” 178

Augustin, Billy Price, 112

“Aunt Hagar’s Blues,” 111

Austin, Gene, 224

“Austin High Gang, The,” 220

Averty, Jean Christophe, 76, 134, 150–52, 161, 162

Averty, Yvaline, 151

Avery, Joseph “Kid,” 97

Ayres, Mitchell, 92

Aznavour, Charles, 151, 152

“Baby Won’t You Please Come Home,” 158

Bachman, Jack, 83

Bagneris, Vernel, 236

Baker, Josephine, 152

Baquet, Achille, 15, 126

Baquet, George, 116, 126, 127, 177

Baquet, Theogene V., 126

Baquets, The, 221

Barbarin, Isidore, 244

Barbarin, Louis, 108, 153, 224

Barbarin, Paul, 14, 125, 126, 127, 218–20

Barker, Blue Lu, 89, 108, 124, 132

Barker, Danny, 47, 61, 77, 81, 92, 97, 108, 122–25, 132, 136, 148, 153, 229

Barkley, Alben W., 100

Barnes, Emile, 244

Barnes, Paul “Polo,” 38, 244

Barrett, “Sweet Emma,” 190, 239

Basie, Count, 41

“Basin Street Blues, The,” 158, 159, 176, 215, 219

Basin Street Six, The, 66

Bauduc, Jules, 221

Bauduc, Ray, 221, 226, 237

Bayersdorffer, Johnny, 221

Bayou Stampers, Johnny Hyman’s, 148

Beatles, The, 56

Bechet, Dr. Leonard V., 31, 114, 178

Bechet, Sidney, 17, 60–65, 94, 101, 114, 141, 163, 164, 166, 177, 221, 222, 232

Bcchets, The, 22

Beebe, Jim, 193

Beiderbecke, Bix, 55, 57, 147, 148, 151, 237

Belafield, Ted, 136, 214

Bell, Graeme, 194, 244, 245

Belmont Race Track, 42

Berigan, Bunny, 19, 20, 66, 73–75, 202, 203

Bernard, Al, 112

Bigard, Barney, 71, 86, 202

Big 25, The (New Orleans), 213

“Birth of the Blues,” 215

Blackburn, Dr. Henry, 140

Blair House (Washington, D.C.), 98

Blair, Lee, 61, 99

Blake, Avis, 103, 104

Blake, Eubie, 3, 17, 18, 29, 47, 68, 87, 103–106, 122, 147, 151, 165, 166, 167, 199, 202, 208, 210

Blake, Marion, 103, 104, 165

Blanchin, George, 67

Blesh, Rudi, 47, 105, 144

“Blue-Eyed Sally,” 112

Blue Room (New Orleans), 98, 181

Blue, Walter, 21

Blumberg, Jerry, 221

Boatner, Edward, 222

Bob Cats, Bob Crosby’s, 23, 96, 226

Bocage, Peter, 109, 110, 111

Boeddinghaus, David, 245

Bojangles (Bill Robinson), 50

Bolcom, Joanie Monis, 105

Bolcom, William, 105

Bolden, Buddy, 15, 126, 127, 221, 232, 238, 244

Boiling, Claude, 160

Bonano, Sharkey, 14, 66, 81, 96, 177, 181–83, 215, 218

Booker, Beryl, 27

“Borderline,” 226

Borcnstein, Larry, 51, 233, 237, 238, 241, 242

Bornemann, Charlie, 45

Bose, Sterling, 101, 237

Bouchon, Lester, 221, 244

Boudrier, Mme...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• A Note on Vernacular
• Jelly Roll Morton
• John Casimir
• Frankie Newton
• Jack “Papa” Laine
• Bill Russell
• Mezz Mezzrow
• Bobby Hackett
• Alphonse Picou
• Irving Fazola
• Oran “Hot Lips” Page
• Tony Parenti
• Dan Burley
• Allan Jaffe
• Louis Prima
• Adrian Rollini
• Stephane Grappelle
• George Cvetkovich
• Sidney Bechet
• Tom Brown
• George Girard
• James P. Johnson
• Chris Burke
• Eddie Condon
• Bunny Berigan
• Alvin Alcorn
• Muggsy Spanier
• Wild Bill Davison
• Joe Mares
• Harry Truman
• Jack Teagarden
• Eubie Blake
• The Original Dixieland Jazz Band
• Armand J. Piron
• The Candy Man
• Bunk Johnson
• Edmond Souchon
• Pee Wee Spitlera
• Morten Gunnar Larsen
• Danny Barker
• George Baquet
• Louis Armstrong
• Knocky Parker
• Johnny Wiggs
• Jean Christophe Averty
• Eddie Miller
• Raymond Burke
• Spencer Williams
• Pierre Atlan
• Claude Luter
• W.C. Handy
• David Thomas Roberts
• Chink Martin
• Walter Bowe
• “Buglin’ Sam” Dekemel
• Harry Shields
• Johnny St. Cyr
• Sharkey Bonano
• Armand Hug
• Earl “Fatha” Hines
• Gene Krupa
• The Exterminators: Pete Fountain and Al Hirt
• Dizzy Gillespie
• Miffi Mole
• Clarence Williams
• The Dixieland Rhythm Kings
• The Brunies
• Paul Barbarin
• Neighborhoods
• Lagniappe
• Afterword
• Index
• Illustration