[Dixielandjazz] Banjo player Johnny St Cyr reminiscences

[Ulf Jagfors]

Dear OKOM friends

Here is a link to banjo player Johnny St Cyr reminiscences. Don´t worry, the
banjo content is not much part of it but more about how the music life
worked out in early New Orleans and Chicago.
 
http://www.doctorjazz.co.uk/jstcyrjj.html


I think Johnny’s memories are highly interesting to read. At least for me,
who has been struggling with the birth of the banjo issue in N.O jazz for
many years. It further strengthen my ideas that the African-Americans use of
banjos came in from the guitar side and in many cases stayed as guitar-banjo
playing. The white musicians brought in the four string plectrum/G-banjo
from “classic” (ragtime) banjo playing or the newly (around 1907-1908)
invented shorter scale tenor banjos from dance (tango) orchestras. Johnny’s´
remarks that he made his first guitar banjo 1914 out of a manufactured head
and a homemade neck is also very interesting. That banjo can be seen on a
photo with member of the Tuxedo band from 1914-1915. There is also present a
melody banjo player, Tom Benton. He is also listed in my books as a guitar
player. A Melody banjo or Banjolin (UK name) is a mandolin-banjo all over
but with four strings only. They could easily be played by a violin player
as they share a common tuning GDAE. Smaller head Banjo-uke´s did not appear
until around 1919, at first mainly marketed and manufactured by Alvin Keech
of L.A. and London.

Here are two links to this historical interesting studio photo of the
members of the Tuxedo band from 1914-1915. 

You need first to log in on Yahoo.

and then Banjo Collectors list;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BanjoCollectors/photos/album/0/list

or Fourstringbanjo list;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fourstringbanjo/photos/album/1609146986/pic/li
st


If you are not a member of the above lists and therefore not can’t access
the photo I can send it to you. Mail me, ulf.jagfors at telia.com . It has been
published before in different publications.

Comment by me for the attached photo
The 1914-15 Tuxedo Band members, a group portrait: Clarence Williams (piano,
seated in front). Front row; Ernest "Ninesse" Trepagnier (drums), Armand J
Piron (violin), Tom Benton (guitar/melody-banjo/vocals), Johnny St. Cyr
(guitarbanjo). Standing row; Jimmy Noone(clarinet), William "Bebe" Ridgley
(trombone), Oscar "Papa" Celestin (cornet), Johnny Lindsay (bas). I think
the instrumentation is interesting with the blend of both the melody banjo/
alt guitar and 6-string banjo, as well as a clarinet and a violin. The later
was not to uncommon in early N.O bands. This was by many accounts (Jelly
Roll, Clarence Williams) one of the hottest N.O. dance bands before WWI. The
question is of course how much they were a jazz band in sound and rhythm. 

Here is a nice example of Johnny´s playing with New Orleans Wanderers 1927
http://www.20sjazz.com/videos/new-orleans/papa-dip.html

I also note that such a popular band like Fate Marable´s had no banjo or
guitar player in the band until Johnny joined them around 1918. It is
interesting to see that on a picture of the Fate Marable´s Capital Revue
Dance band from 1918-19 Johnny is sitting with two guitar banjos, one in his
lap and the other in front of him plus a horn. I guess one banjo is the
first homemade variant and the other is the one he bought at that time and
then kept his whole life. I wonder were that banjo is now. I have heard
rumors that pieces of it ended up in Japan, but not in the Tsumora´s now
dispersed collection. 
See photo at; http://www.redhotjazz.com/fateinfo.html (if it is working.)


I was also surprised to learn to what large extent the musicians were using
written arrangements both in early New Orleans and Chicago. I have for many
years had the idea that most N.O musicians just played by ear. That seems
not to have been the case in general. Early New Orleans music did not use
much free solo playing if any. That has been a well-known fact but the very
strict use of written arrangements was indeed a surprise for me. Could it
really have sounded like jazz or was it a kind of one-step ragtime music
after all?  I guess that the use of written arrangements could come from the
fact that many musicians came from brass bands which most probably used a
lot of written arrangements.

Another interesting remark from Johnny is that they very often could not
tune up pianos (how about grand pianos?) to concert pitch, as that could
break the string frame. That could be one reason why they mostly only had
solo piano players in the Storeville district. If the bands played in the
district, perhaps without the piano, they were also paid low probably
because the enterprise owners were used to only pay for a piano player.
Apparently most of the playing were done in the more decent N.O areas and on
different social events. Louis Armstrong ones said ” --in early N.O jazz we
had no pianos but guitars”. Much of Johnny’s recollections, specially the
band playing in the parks during the Buddy Bolden era, are rather consistent
with what N.O born Danny Barker, another  guitar-banjo player, has told in
his autobiography “A life in Jazz”. It is a pity that the fifth part of
Johnny´s reminiscences, after he returned to N.O around 1930, has not been
located.  

Ulf Jaegfors
Stockholm