Word: jazzmen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
They bought him some teeth and a cornet, and threw together a band of unknown black jazzmen from New Orelans. In the fall, the old men gathered in a piano warehouse to make some home recordings because the professional studios in the city refused to record Negroes. When the crude recording machine was warmed up, Bunk stomped off the first number, "Make Me a Pallet on the Flood," and the "revival" of traditional jazz began...
THERE WERE OTHER great bands playing there, too. In 1961, someone had discovered that there was a whole city full of traditional jazzmen. Some were almost unknown; others had been forgotten, lost, or given up for dead. Some had never played for white audiences before. Some had led proud, full bands before the depression. Nearly all of them had played with the greats of New Orleans jazz in their youths--Armstrong, Edmund Hall, Johnny Dodds, King Oliver, Sidney Bechet. These were just fellow musicians to these old men. There were only a handful of active musicians when Preservation Hall opened...
...money on it." Joe Louis had been a hero of his younger days. Now it was the aging Patterson, struggling for a comeback, that he identified with. George had always followed the fights devoutely, and his own son had been a fine middleweight for a time. Boxers and jazzmen were the great folk heroes of that culture. In George's youth, long before black men were allowed into other fields of sports and entertainment, the fighter and the musician were looked upon with reverence and awe. These men, who could beat the hell out of white men with impunity...
...group, and now--at 80--he was hospitalized with stomach cancer. Drag was a delightful little man, a creole who spoke little English that was intelligible, and a lot of creole French that no one understood but him. He had grown up--like many New Orleans jazzmen--in a French speaking family, and seemed to personify the blend of Latin and African cultures which had made New Orleans and its music so unique...
...ORLEANS still has a good number of organization--"benevolent societies"--which give brass band funerals to their departed brothers. The Olmypia Brass Band is one of the last marching jazz bands remaining in the city. Most of its members are aging black jazzmen who have played in the city's back streets, dives, honky tonks, and dance halls since the early part of this century. The brass band tradition in New Orleans goes back further than the lives of these men. Funerals and parades just like this one had been going on long before the turn of the century, possibly...