[Dixielandjazz] WPA music

[Fred Spencer]

This is an excerpt from the WHERE? section of my almost completed manuscript, "Jazz Reference Books"--
"In this book (Rose and Souchon's "New Orleans Jazz. A Family Album"), and in Charters's "Jazz New Orleans", there are pictures of the New Orleans ERA (Emergency Relief Organization) Orchestra, dressed in street clothes. This band of about 100 black musicians, not all of whom were "professional musicians", was supported by federal funds to the states durng the Great Depression. A similar WPA (Works Progress Administration) Band, about half the size of the ERA Orchestra and dressed in smart uniforms, is also pictured in Rose and Souchon's book (the WPA was an offshoot of the ERA).The caption under the band's picture has it as "The WPA Band" but in the "Index" it is the "WPA Brass Band". Pinchback Touro, a prominent New Orleans musician and educator, was the musical director of the WPA Band and, in the absence of Louis Dumaine, the ERA Orchestra. An entry in "Jazz New Orleans" says that Pinchback played "Violin,.banjo, guitar, almost anything." The name Touro suggests an association with Joseph Touro, the philanthropic founder of the Touro Infirmary. Muggsy Spanier celebrated his long stay there, while being treated for a ruptured peptic ulcer, by writing and playing "Relaxin' At The Touro."
Best regards.
Fred