Word: pavageau
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Slow Drag Pavageau had been the regular bassist with the George Lewis band and with Bunk Johnson before that. He had worked with George for almost 30 years, and had toured all over Europe with him. He had been the grand dad of the 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...
...ranks of the old musicians are thinning out. Four musicians died last year. Slow Drag Pavageau died a week after George Lewis. Of the Lewis band that I heard in 1962, only two are still alive. Twenty or more have died since Preservation Hall opened. With each new death, it seems that the dirges played by the remaining old men are dirges for themselves. When they are gone--as they surely will be in ten years--the show will be over. There will be no one left to play at their funerals...
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