[Dixielandjazz] Obit for Narvin Kimball

[David Richoux]

Narvin was playing banjo the night I got to sit in with Pres Hall -  
he told me afterwards that "You West Coast guys get the chords all  
wrong..."

Dave Richoux



Narvin Kimball, 97, New Orleans musician

By Katrina A. Jackson
Associated Press
CHARLESTON, S.C. - Narvin Kimball, the last founding member of the  
New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band, who was known for his vocal  
stylings and banjo playing, has died. He was 97.

Kimball died Friday at his daughters' home, where he and his wife,  
Lillian, had been staying since shortly after Hurricane Katrina,  
according to the band's publicist and the local coroner.

Kimball's vocal renditions of ``Georgia on My Mind'' always brought  
standing ovations, said hall director Ben Jaffe, whose parents  
founded the Preservation Hall in 1961.

``He was really our last connection to a bygone time in the history  
of New Orleans,'' Jaffe said by telephone from the city.

Kimball was the son of bassist Henry Kimball, and he made his first  
banjo with a cigar box, stick and string. He began playing  
professionally in the 1920s on Mississippi riverboats with the Fate  
Marable Band. He made his first Columbia Records recording in 1928.

Kimball formed his own band, Narvin Kimball's Gentlemen of Jazz, and  
played around New Orleans for 40 years.