[Dixielandjazz] Mexican, Sicilian and Creole Reedmen was Alphonse Picou clarinet solo

[Steve Barbone]

on 8/3/07 8:26 PM, D and R Hardie at darnhard at ozemail.com.au wrote:

> Hi All.
> As Steve suggests    there is an alternative to the
> traditional   account retailed by Wikipedia.
> Sam Charters  stated that the solo was created by piccolo
> player Bab Frank then playing in John Robichaux's orchestra. Frank
> passed it to George Baquet who made it into a clarinet feature.  (See p
> 253 of Exploring Early Jazz)
> Picou claimed he wrote it when playing in Manuel Perez
> Imperial Orchestra around 1903. I had not heard the Tuxedo Brass Band
> story, perhaps it was the Tuxedo Orchestra. Bab Frank too appears to
> have played in the Tuxedo Orchestra ca 1910.
> The Dodds version, published in a number of fakebooks,
> differs from all the Picou recordings I have heard. Picou's version
> also differs significantly from the  piccolo score (in D presumably
> written for clarinet in A)
> The earliest recording of I have heard of High Society ca
> 1909/10 does not include the obbligato in the piccolo part supporting
> the view put forward  in a previous post that it was a later addition.
> regards

Funny about how Baquet, Picou and others get so little press in the
development of new Orleans Jazz and Dixieland. Couple of things about them.

The Baquet family, (Creoles) was legendary. For example, Achille Baquet,
George's brother was a "passant blanc" (creole expression for one who lives
as a white) and played in one version of ODJB, Jimmy Durante's Dixieland
Jazz Band, and Johnny Stein's Band from Dixieland. Yes indeed, integration
came early with jazz bands and jazz musicians. Well before 1920. Someday the
jazz scholars may even figure out who the guys were in the "Whiteway" Jazz
band and how many of them were passing for white. Rumored to have been the
Durante Band, with Baquet and other Creoles.

George played with Bessie Smith as well as Jelly Roll Morton. Both, who were
clarinet stars in the New Orleans bands of 1905-10 are reputed to have
influenced Sidney Bechet.

They should be much more famous than they are.

Best of all . . . They both, and Bechet too, studied clarinet under Lorenzo
Tio, a legendary clarinet player and teacher who was OF MEXICAN LINEAGE. How
about that for the "Spanish Tinge"? I guess we weren't so uptight about
Mexicans coming to the USA in those days.

I suspect Dan Hardie could tell us all a lot more about some of the early
Creole, Mexican, (and Italian) Clarinet Players in New Orleans. Like who,
besides him, knows about New Orleans clarinetist Nuncio Scaglione and the
Famed Sicilian School of Clarinet, which influenced some Creoles? <grin>

I guess history is, indeed, written by the winners. <grin>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone