Why Willie Humphrey Matters

The word "underrated" shows up fairly frequently in writing about jazz. Musicians as varied as Warne Marsh, Joe Albany, Sonny Clark, Booker Little, and Bobby Stark have been described as underrated by jazz commentators. In my opinion, no musician deserves that description more than Willie Humphrey. I would imagine that no more than one in ten jazz fans would recognize Humphrey's name (although this is admittedly just a guess on my part).

Willie is revered, however, among one segment of jazz fans: aficionados of traditional New Orleans jazz, and especially by followers of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. (I would argue that the PHJB is more of a brand than a band; more about that later, perhaps.) The main Preservation Hall touring band from the early 1970s to the early 1990s was co-led by Willie and his brother, trumpeter Percy Humphrey. During this period Willie played for audiences all over the world and recorded frequently, but remains little known to the jazz world at large.

His talent, musical imagination, and accomplishments far outstrip his limited reputation. In my opinion, he was, at his best, one of the finest and most interesting improvisers jazz has known. Although he was born in 1900, the same year as New Orleans clarinetist George Lewis, Humphrey's playing in some respects reminds me more of Charlie Parker's than of Lewis's. I am not saying that Willie sounds like a bebopper, or that his music is necessarily "better" than Lewis's. But a typical Willie Humphrey solo has the instrumental command, varied phrase lengths and sophisticated construction one might find in a Parker solo, even if Humphrey stays within the dialect of traditional jazz.

And there is a wild, unpredictable quality to Willie's musical imagination. One of his longtime musical partners, banjoist Narvin Kimball, put it this way:

Well, a person like Willie is unpredictable. You never know what he's gonna do. When Willie's playing with me, he'll look over at me, and I know what he means. He wants me to be right there behind him, see? And I'll get behind him, and I'll be playing the rhythm just a little bit heavier. When I said he's unpredictable, some of the things that he's making are incredible.

These musical virtues can be heard in the solo that made me a Willie Humphrey fan. During the 1980s, I became fascinated with New Orleans brass band music, that amazing hybrid that could not have developed in any other city. Sometime before the end of that decade, I ordered an album on the Jazzology label called Music of New Orleans: The Brass Bands. Side one reissued the first (1962) recordings of the Harold Dejan's Olympia Brass Band, and side two offered a previously-unissued 1966 live session by the Eureka Brass Band, led by Percy Humphrey. It is, incidentally, the only recording which features all three Humphrey brothers playing together: Percy, Willie, and trombonist Earl Humphrey.

The Olympia tracks were revelatory to me. I instantly got their message, and was extremely moved by the complex and unusual interplay of the band. When I flipped the record over to side two, I was less impressed at first - the poor recording balance made it difficult to hear everything that was going on. But after the clarinet solo on "St. Louis Blues," I remember shaking my head and thinking, "Did I just hear what I thought I heard?" I moved the needle back, and was again astounded by the virtuosity and daring of the clarinetist. Who was this guy?

Here's that solo. For rights reasons, only a short excerpt of the track is presented here. The entire album, now on CD, can be purchased from Jazzology or Amazon.

Willie Humphrey with the Eureka Brass Band: solo on St. Louis Blues

I'm not claiming, of course, that this is Willie Humphrey's "best" recorded solo or anything like that. It's just the one that made me sit up and take notice of this remarkable musician. I'll resist the urge to provide a detailed analysis - just listen.

And then there's Humphrey's place in jazz history. He was born at nearly the same time that jazz was born, and lived for over 93 years, through most of the history of the music. His recording career spans a mind-boggling 67 years. He performed with King Oliver, Freddie Keppard, and Ma Rainey. He played his first professional gig at the age of 16, and played his last one just eleven days before he died on June 7, 1994. And as someone who heard him play in April of that year, I can attest that he retained his creatively and musical unpredictability to the end.

This is a musician who should be known and celebrated by the entire jazz world, not just by "trad jazz" fans. Here's to Willie James Humphrey!


Narvin Kimball quote from the book Preservation Hall by William Carter.