[Dixielandjazz] Chelsea Quealey

[Stephen G Barbone]

> "Hal Vickery" <hvickery_80 at msn.com> wrote
>
> The trumpet player you're thinking of was Chelsea Quealey, not  
> Quigley.
>
> Hal Vickery

Here's a remembrance of Chelsea Quealey by Dick Hyman as told on the  
Riverwalk Jazz Show, this past June, about Nick's joint in Greenwich  
Village NYC. Took place in the late 1930s or early 40s.


"Some of the first people I remember hearing included the trumpeter  
named Chelsea Qualey (sic) . He’d been around since the '20s and he  
had played with bands led by Isham Jones and Ben Pollack. He was the  
fellow we got to talk with in between while he was taking a break over  
at the bar. There were three of us from college. And we were thrilled  
to be talking with one of the players who’d finished some magnificent  
stuff up on the bandstand. And here he was at the bar with us."

"One of us asked, “How’s the music business?” And for want of anything  
better that we could say it must have seemed a pretty foolish  
question. And we were saying this to a fellow who was working at a  
place every night, probably from 9 o’clock to about 3 in the morning.  
And Chelsea Qualey (sic) turned to us and he spat on the floor and we  
were thrilled. We thought this was just the way a hard-bitten old-time  
jazz guy should behave. We didn’t think he was doing it for the money,  
but devotion to his art which kept him playing all week at these  
terrible hours all night. At least that’s the way we saw it as college  
freshman."



Quealey did play with the California Ramblers after leaving Jan Garber  
in the late 1920s, then at Nick's in the late 30s, early 40s, then  
moved to the West Coast, gigging in California and Las Vegas. He  
passed away in 1950 or so.

Cheers,


Steve Barbone

www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband