[Dixielandjazz] Lu Watters

[Eric Holroyd]

I'm repeating this post in plain text, as I see that the dreaded question 
marks ('queries' to our US cousins) made nonsense of it in various parts.

Also, I've been asked in what form were Lu Watters' 'sketch map' charts.

They were beautifully written in regular music notation, and could be easily 
sight read by any schooled musician.

The idea of a 'sketch map' chart is to give the band the style, voicing and 
register of each instrumentalist's role in the tune, and that they worked so 
beautifully well is a tribute to Lu's expertise.

Incidentally, the clarinet parts were very sparse and Lu allowed Bob Helm 
much leeway in developing his own parts - which he did so beautifully.

Eric Holroyd. Sydney, Australia


I dispute Steve Voce’s claim that Lu Watters was only a moderately talented 
trumpet player.

He certainly didn’t want to have a band that played an ensemble ‘head’ 
followed by a string of improvised solos, then one or two choruses of the 
head to finish the tune.

Instead, his band played mostly in ensemble, with only the occasional short 
solo from one of the band members.

When Lu himself took a hot solo, it wasn’t done in the style of Dizzy 
Gillespie or Howard McGhee, but in the style of the Twenties that he was 
recreating in the Forties.

And he was a good soloist too!

Voce does credit Lu with some good compositions, and I agree whole heartedly 
with that statement, having played many of the Watters tunes many many times 
during my own music career.

Incidentally, Voce at one stage calls Watters a cornet player and Bobby 
Hackett a trumpet player. Not so, it was mostly the other way around.

I have studied the ‘sketch map’ charts that Lu Watters wrote for his band to 
learn from, and it’s my understanding that he never intended for them to be 
played ‘note for note’ either by his own band or later bands that acquired 
those charts for their own use.

Instead, he allowed the band to rehearse from those charts for a limited 
time, then took them away to allow the band to play freely – but within the 
framework that he had laid down.

I consider that an excellent idea, as he trained the brass players, in 
particular, to play in a certain register and thus complement the other 
musicians.

I understand that Turk Murphy later adopted the same idea with his excellent 
band.

Voce also mentions that ‘Watters and Bob Scobey provided a two-cornet lead 
for the band in the way that Louis Armstrong and Joe had done in the King 
Oliver band a couple of decades before.’

In all of the dozens of photographs published of the Yerba Buena Band I have 
yet to see one where Watters and Scobey were playing cornets.

Instead they were playing trumpets, and a large bore Martin at that – with 
which they were able to produce a huge sound.

In fact Bob Helm told me that he’d developed a different clarinet embouchure 
in order to be heard at all, the brass being so loud. And photographs of Bob 
playing into a microphone are the exception rather than the rule in my 
experience.

And by the way, he was a wonderfully inventive clarinet player, totally 
dedicated to the music.

I have it on very very good authority that quite late in his life, Lu 
Watters said that if he was to run a jazz band today it would probably 
include an electric piano and an  electric Fender bass. An interesting 
thought...

Just a couple of personal highlights in my own music career: One night 
playing with an Australian band at the Dawn Club in San Francisco – a big 
buzz in itself – and another session at the Sacramento Jubilee when I sat in 
with the excellent Merseysippi Jazz Band on third trumpet. They said they 
would only allow me to sit in if I could play ‘Potato Head Blues’ a la 
Louis, to which I asked ‘What key?’. It worked very well and we’ve been 
great friends ever since, despite the tyranny of distance, them living in 
Liverpool (UK) and me living in Liverpool (NSW, Australia).

I rarely put pen to paper – or finger tips to keyboard – to respond to 
journalistic spoutings, as in my experience many jazz writers fall into the 
same category as theatre critics ie ‘if you can’t do it yourself, criticise 
those who can and do’. but thought I would make the effort this time.