Some tragic deaths here in New Orleans lately.

I didn't know Dinerral Shavers, drummer with the Hot 8 and educator, but I enjoyed hearing him play a number of times. I first heard him while he was still in his early teens at most, the youngest of the band-- my friends and I predicted he'd go far. He was shot by a teen who had an argument with his stepson.


Tad Jones died without violence but with no more sense, falling and hitting his head in a chance accident. He'd been doing important music interviews since his teens, and was nearly done with his book on Louis Armstrong which fellow music historians eagarly anticipated, sure it would far eclypse everything previously published on the subject. I had him on my radio show for the centeniary of Armstrong's birth-- which he discovered the real date of. I won't get to have his erudite presence on a followup show after publication. At least the publisher, family, and friends have made a commitment to see it into print.

I went to his funeral and played with the band on his final trip to the tomb in Metairie Cemetery today.

For a while I wasn't sure I'd be emotionally up to it, as I got news of the shooting of two old friends. Times-Picayune: "Killings bring city to its bloodied knees."

Helen Hill and Paul Gailiunas were, as pretty much everyone who knew them observes, as nice a pair of people as anyone could care to meet. They were shot at their home in Bywater. Last I heard, Paul is in the hospital expected to live; Helen was pronounced dead on the site. They have a 2 year old son.

CartoonBrew tribute to Helen Hill.
Obit in S. Carolina newspaper.
YoniYum post

Tragedy.
Lots of people are shocked and sickened.


At present it is little consolation to note that we all die, but at least these people avoided the even greater tragedy, and LIVED first.

Banjos and Trouble Makers

Last Thursday night through Saturday night was the New Orleans Banjo Rendez-vous out in the suburb of Metairie.

Mostly banjo players from around the country come to this. Some other instruments and jams as well.

Friday a group of us played for the kids at Metarie Grammer School. We had a pick-up band with several differet banjos, clarinet, me on trombone, and tuba. A pianist came with us too, but the school piano was so out of tune he decided not to play it, so he instead sort of MC'ed and "conducted" the kids to sing along. I think everyone else in the band was at least 15-20 years older than me. The students were told we had never played together as a band, but could play together by announcing the name of the tune and the key it would be played in just before we started (curiously, there no trouble with anyone asking what that key is for a differnet instrument, unlike my experince with a very different band the following night). We played simple tunes, mostly that some of the kids might know. The children LOVED it, apparently more than just from getting out of class. They sang along with "You Are My Sunshine", "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" and such, and didn't just applaud, but cheered and screamed; it sounded like the audience at footage of a Beatles concert raised up an octave. One couldn't ask for a more enthusiastic audience; what a kick. We evidently caught them a bit before they reach the age where they think they have to sneer at all music enjoyed by anyone of an older generation.

Later we did a pleasant jam-party ride on the St. Charles Streetcar.

Friday night a series of performances, including by some of the top banjoists in the world such as Buddy Wachter and Jack Convery. Wachter, the Paganini of the banjo, closed the show and then invited the rest of the best up to jam; they were trading amazing beautiful intricate super rapid figures that perhaps only 2 or 3 musicians in the world who weren't on the stage at the moment could duplicate. Then all the performers and musicans were invited up together. Most of the other wind players weren't there. A clarinetist with a local band I've sometimes sat in with and I were the only wind instruments; we were both a bit nervous being in that company and sat beside eachother and took occasional choruses playing together rather than strict solos. I really do think I'm better improvising tailgate parts than lead line solos anyway.

Saturday Night I played the wedding (actually, it was a reception) with the Trouble Makers, a fun band led by an old friend, mentioned in my May 12th entry..

I went over 4 songs with the leader at K-Doe's Lounge the previous Thursday, and learned (or tried to learn) 8 more off their cd. I fear learning 12 new songs in my spare time over 2 and a half days is a bit much for me. I hoped to be able to nail at least 4 or 5 of the numbers and muddle through the rest, but I fear muddling through was all I did, not to my own satisfaction. Practicing along with the cd I realize in retrospect that I was pitching myself off the trumpet lead, which wasn't there in the live performance. Except for one sax, the band's usual brass couldn't make it, which is why I was called in as a sub.

The Trouble Makers have lots of great original songs, like "Opposite Machine", and a love song to turn of the century Anarchist Emma Goldman. I need to get the lyrics to "Naked Town" (not on the cd) from Paul; maybe I can get the Riverbend Radio Ramblers to do a Trad Jazz cover version. IIRC, we never played "We're All Clones", but he did call some tunes not on the cd that I'd never heard. The majority of the repertory is original material. By advance request we did covers of two Ernie K-Doe numbers. The first was "Certain Girl", one of his big hits from the early '60s. (After we played it, someone requested K-Doe's other big hit from that time, "Mother In Law", but Paul wisely decided that was not an appropriate one to play at a happy wedding; "The worst person I know.../Sent from down below/ Mother-In-Law".) The other was one of K-Doe's later tunes, "White Boy, Black Boy", which is a bit obscure but rather nice; "White Boy, play that Black Boy music/Black Boy, play that White Boy music/It sounds so good/It sounds so good /When you play it together...". We got K-Doe's widow Antoinette and her friend T-Eva to sing background on those two numbers. The second one wound up being a highlight. The groom had once been given a chance to do the responce of the call & responce part by K-Doe himself back when he was still around, hence his request for the number. The groom sang some of it, then his friends wanted to get in on it too, so it wound up being an extended version.

At the end as we were packing up our instruments we were informed that the newlyweds wanted a Second Line to parade out on. Paul turned to me; I suggested the obvious "Saints" (I dunno what if any other trad tunes the musicians of the Troublemakers know). "What key?" "B-flat" I said. Blank looks. "Or F", I said to no improved reaction, "...C would be okay too." "What key would that be for me?" the guitarist asked (hence my asking here what my responce should have been). I suggested the sax or keyboard player answer, without luck. I tried playing a few bars of it in B-flat, but the guitar lead would up being in something else, some non-horn key, D perhaps. The sax player just stepped away from the mike to play softly to herself. Not the best version, but enough of something to let the principles parade out. In retrospect I should have called "Joe Avery's Second Line", as it has a distinct trombone lead, and even if some of the others don't know it, it's a 12 bar blues so I'm sure they could have caught on with something appropriate.

Leader Pauly is one of the nicest fellows you'd ever care to meet, and was full of praise afterwards. I have no idea if he actually though I did okay under the circumstances or that having me fill in was the Worst Substitute Ever.

Either way, though it was a fun event, I wasn't happy with what I'd played. I drove back out to Metarie hoping to catch a late jam at the Banjo Convenion. It was a good one, with 5 or 6 banjos, string bass, tuba, piano (who called off a continuous string of excellent tunes, common and obscure), trumpet, and clarinet. On the second tune after I arrived c. 10:30, "Some of These Days", I did a tailgate part to the trumpet followed by a solo that I think chanced to be among my best, so I felt better about myself. The jam continued to about 2:30.