The Depression and the 1940s (Bio part 8: 1936-1950)

 Upon leaving the Blue Rhyrhm Band, Willie Humphrey returned to New Orleans. Back in his home town, Willie gigged with "short" bands (small bands with less than the standard number of instruments) and filled in with some well-known bands, such as A. J. Piron's dance band, Louis Dumaine's band and Oscar Celestin's Original Tuxedo Orchestra.

Depression life continued to be tough for the Humphreys, as well as for most black New Orleanians. Willie took a number of extra-musical jobs in order to make ends meet. His wife Ora remembered:

He had a truck. He'd put on his clothes to sell wood and coal. He'd say, "Well, I'm goin' out now. I'm the coal man." Come back around one o'clock and put his other clothes on: now he was a teacher, a musician. He'd put a dollar on the mantel at night; that was his food for the next day. We used to call it "My Blue Heaven," a very small house. We stayed there until we had three children. I never complained about it. I had one dress I could put on when I'd go out. We weren't hungry, that's one thing."

Willie elaborated on the struggle to make a living during that period: 

You had to be a hustler. I used to sell wood and coal and everything. I was a grocer and a butcher. I wasn't much of a butcher but I learned.

We all had money in a store... my sisters' husbands and all, we set it up. When I got out of the service, they saved the butcher part for me. So I was the butcher and I sold vegetables, shrimp and crabs and all that stuff. I never made no money. I ate out of the store, and that was about all. And you see, I had my wife working for me, and I'm the boss on my side. Course, I'd help on the grocery side, too, and my sister was in there. She would help me, too.

Then I worked in a barroom. My brother-in-law had one - they wanted to give me the barroom, but I didn't want it. I didn't like the set-up. This Italian owned it, you know, and he was in, what you call it, wholesale wine - the had wine all lined up in there. And see, I don't like that kind of business. my brother-in-law, he accepted it. He took the place, building and all and I was working there for him. So my children used to bring me my lunch and ride a bicycle. We was about 12-15 blocks and they'd bring my food there in the barroom. And finally, my brother-in-law, he fired me because I like to go play music and I wouldn't be there and he had to get somebody else in there. I got fired in a funny way. I was getting a little salary now and then. It wasn't much, I think $10 or $15. At any rate, I've done a little of everything to make ends meet and I've done a little wrong, too. But not too much.

Willie's granddaughter, Renee Lapeyrolerie, says that the family-owned store was on Louisiana Avenue.

The "service" Humphrey referred to was service in the United States Navy. When World War II broke out, Willie joined the Navy and played in the Lakefront Naval Air Station band. Alex Albright has a very interesting account of the band here. As he describes it: "Formed with 23 New Orleans musicians who enlisted at the Custom House, it was also one of the first African-American bands recruited en masse and with a promise of service in their home territory for the war’s duration."

Lakefront Naval Air Station Band
Willie Humphrey is at the back right corner.

At some point during the 1940s, Willie spent some time in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. (This has been the most difficult episode of Humphrey's life to find information on, so this account is sketchy.) His granddaughter Renee thought his Watts residency was during his Navy days. There is a story I read (or was told) that Kid Ory wanted Willie to join his band after Jimmie Noone died. I can no longer remember the source of that, but if it's true, then Willie's California stay probably included the spring of 1944, since Noone died in April of that year.

In any case, prospects in Los Angeles were not encouraging enough to keep Humphrey there, and he was soon back in New Orleans. Out of the navy, he began teaching at Grunewald's School of Music. Grunewald's was the biggest music store in New Orleans, and their music school was located on Camp Street. Many famous names in New Orleans jazz taught there. One of Willie's more famous pupils at Grunewald's was drummer Earl Palmer, who played on many hit recordings by Fats Domino and Little Richard. Palmer, considered one of the fathers of rock and roll drumming, tells of his time at Grunewald's:

It was two schools actually - white downstairs, black upstairs - in an old warehouse building on Camp Street. Around the corner was a little grocery where you could get po'boy sandwiches, drink a beer.

Willie Humphrey was my best teacher. He took special pains with me and taught me all about my favorite subject, harmony. Willie always said that he was surprised that I'd come to Grunewald when I already played so good and knew all the New Orleans styles. He had known me as a kid, and I think he was proud that here I was, a dancer and a musician that wanted to formally learn what I had been doing. Willie was a nice man.

Willie Humphrey continued teaching, gigging, and scuffling into the 1950s. In that decade he then began a series of musical associations that would bring him more recognition and financial security.

Sources:

William Russell and Ralph Collins: interview with Willie Eli Humphrey and Willie James Humphrey, New Orleans, March 15, 1959; Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University.

William Carter: Preservation Hall; Norton, 1991

Conversation with Renee Lapeyrolerie, New Orleans, April 9, 2003.

Charlie DeVore: "Talking With Willie," Mississippi Rag, June 1982

Tony Scherman: Backbeat: The Earl Palmer Story; Da Capo, 2003

Recordings with Mills Blue Rhythm Band and Red Allen

The question of whether Willie Humphrey recorded with Mills Blue Rhythm Band is still unsettled, but common sense suggests that he did. While we don't know the exact dates of his tenure with the band, he has said that he was with the band for about six months, beginning in December, 1935. As I said in my last post, the band recorded three times during that period, on December 20, 1935, January 21, 1936, and May 20, 1936. 

The standard discography of early jazz, Brian Rust's Jazz Records 1897 - 1942, does not list Humphrey in the band at all. Tom Lord's discography has Humphrey joining for the December 20, 1935 session, but at least in my edition (Version 17) it's unclear if Lord meant to list Humphrey for the next two sessions. In any case, I've listened to all the relevant recordings, and here are the Mills Blue Rhythm Band recordings on which I think the clarinet work is likely by Willie.

From December 20, 1935:

Blue Mood  - This tune features a long low-register melody statement by the clarinet after the introduction. The clarinetist has a liquid, but slightly reedy tone. It sounds like Willie to me.

Yes! Yes! - There is an eight-bar clarinet solo at 2:23. The final cascading final phase in particular makes me think that it's Humphrey.

From May 20, 1936:

St. Louis Wiggle Rhythm - Another eight-bar clarinet solo, at 2:01. The articulation, especially in the last two measures, sounds very "Humphrey-esque."

There is also a short, four-bar alto sax solo on "Midnight Ramble" (from January 21, 1936) that could possibly be played by Willie, who of course doubled on alto with the Mills band. There really isn't enough recorded evidence in terms of Humphrey's saxophone playing to make a determination. The alto solos from May 20 are surely by Tab Smith. 

There is one confirmed recorded glimpse of Humphrey's clarinet from the Mills days. In 1935, Red Allen began a series of small-band recordings for the Vocalion label, and on April 1, 1936, he included his Mills bandmate Willie Humphrey in the personnel. Willie mostly plays background notes on alto saxophone, but he gets one two-bar break in "Every Minute of the Hour," presumably to give Allen time to take down his trumpet and prepare for his vocal chorus. But wow - what a break! Willie soars from the top to the bottom of the clarinet's range, using extremely fast note values. The break comes at the 34-second mark.

The Depression and Mills Blue Rhythm Band (Bio part 7: 1932-1936)

 Willie Humphrey returned to New Orleans at the height of the Great Depression. He later said of the Depression, "I didn't feel it right away." After all, he had a secure job playing on the riverboats. Upon returning to New Orleans, the picture was very different: "When I came home from St. Louis, there was no work." Musical jobs were few and far between, since what money people had went toward the basics of life, not frills like entertainment. "Fortunately, I had a few dollars," Humphrey said; he had managed to save some money from his salary while working on the river.

Willie did manage to find a little musical work - gigs with Herbert Leary's band - but his main musical employment during the Depression was as a teacher. Beginning in 1933, Willie began teaching in the Black schools of New Orleans. On various occasions, he credited his father, well-known bandleader and music "professor" Pinchback Touro, and music store owner Morris Karnofsky with facilitating his teaching career. In any case, Willie and his father traveled to several different schools, teaching instrumental music from three until five o'clock in the afternoon. For each lesson they were paid 25 or 35 cents, part of which went to the school to establish a fund to buy instruments. Among Willie's students was trumpeter John Brunious, who would later be Humphrey's bandmate in the Paul Barbarin band. The Barbarin band was interviewed collectively in the spring of 1956 for the Miami University Archive of Folklore in Oxford, Ohio. On that occasion Brunious said, "Well, I learnt music when I  was goin' to grammar school. And Willie Humphrey, our clarinet player, was my first teacher. He start me off when I was 'bout, oh, in the third, fourth grade."

WPA Band, New Orleans, 1936

Willie also taught lessons in students' homes; for these, he was paid 50 cents per lesson. He said of these small payments, "It didn't look like much, but do you know you pile those nickels and dimes up they sort of amount to something."

Humphrey also found some work with the WPA band. The Works Projects Administration was one of the the New Deal agencies initiated by the federal government to help alleviate the effects of the Depression. The WPA tried to provide employment for the out-of-work musicians of New Orleans by forming a large concert band under the direction of Pinchback Touro. Many well-known New Orleans musicians turned to the WPA band to provide themselves with a small income. Humphrey was not able to get into the band at first; he said, "Looked like they tried to keep me out." In any case, the WPA did not pay much, and when a better opportunity presented itself, Willie quickly took it.

That opportunity was a spot in Mills Blue Rhythm Band, a New York-based big band. The Blue Rhythm band was formed in 1930 by drummer Willie Lynch. Music publisher and promoter Irving Mills took over management of the band in 1931 - hence the addition to the band's name. In 1934 singer Lucky Millinder took over as front man of the band, and the great New Orleans trumpeter Henry "Red" Allen joined the group that year, quickly becoming the band's major soloist.

Mills Blue Rhythm Band was a second-tier band during those days - the heyday of the big band - not on the musical or commercial level of the Ellington or Henderson bands. As Albert McCarthy has said, "Musically, Mills Blue Rhythm Band was a highly efficient unit with a number of good soloists. It failed to rise from the ranks of the secondary units of its day mainly because it never really established an identity."

I had long suspected that Willie owed the Rhythm Band job offer to fellow New Orleanian Red Allen. This was confirmed by a telegram now owned by Renee Lapeyrolerie, Humphrey's granddaughter:

1935 Dec. 8

Washington, DC

Willie J. Humphrey - 1004 Valett St. Care Pete Bocage NRLNS

RECEIVED YOUR WIRE JOB HERE IS OKAY LUCKY WILL SEE YOU THRU AFTER YOU ARRIVE AS FOR ADVANCEMENTS I DON'T KNOW BUT SO FAR AS A GOOD JOB IS CONCERNED ITS HERE FOR YOU IF YOU DONT WAIT TOO LONG BORROW MONEY FROM SOMEONE AND PAY BACK LATER WIRE LUCKY

HENRY ALLEN JR.

Humphrey joined the band in December, 1935, shortly after receiving the telegram, and stayed for about six months, playing mostly alto saxophone. As was usual for a big band at the time, The Blue Rhythm Band toured extensively. Willie recalled playing in Washington, New York, Pittsburgh, and San Antonio, among other places. Although he enjoyed the steady income a touring band provided, Willie found that playing with Millinder's orchestra was not as lucrative as he expected. Touring created expenses, such as lodging, that didn't exist for a band playing in its hometown. Some expenses were unexpected - for example, the valet's tips. The band traveled with a valet who took care of having the musicians' suits and uniforms cleaned and their shoes shined. Although the valet was a salaried employee of the band, he still expected to be tipped for his services.

Touring on the big band circuit provided Humphrey with the opportunity to hear and appreciate other bands. During this period he heard and admired the orchestras of Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington. Like many other musicians, he greatly admired a band that never made it big: that of Alphonso Trent. Willie described Trent's group as "a hell of a band."

The question of whether or not Humphrey recorded with the Mills Blue Rhythm Band is surprisingly unsettled. Although for many years the standard jazz discographies didn't list Willie among the personnel, the band recorded on December 20, 1935 and both January 21 and May 20, 1936. It seems logical that he must have participated in at least a couple of these recording sessions. And he is confirmed on a Red Allen session from the period. I'll discuss these sessions and weigh the evidence in a future post.

Sources:

James Cahn: interview with Willie Humphrey, New Orleans, November 29, 1979; Hogan Jazz Archive.

William Russell and Ralph Collins: interview with Willie Eli Humphrey and Willie James Humphrey, New Orleans, March 15, 1959; Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University.

Al Kershaw and John Ball: interview with Paul Barbarin band, Oxford, Ohio, March 3, 1956. Reprinted in liner notes to Paul Barbarin's Jazz Band of New Orleans - The Oxford Series Vol. 16 (American Music).

Conversation with Renee Lapeyrolerie, New Orleans, April 9, 2003.

Al Rose & Edmond Souchon:  New Orleans Jazz: A Family Album; Louisiana State University Press, 1984.

First Recordings with Dewey Jackson

 At age 25, Willie Humphrey made his first verified visit to a recording studio - the first of dozens of such visits he would make over the next seven decades. Dewey Jackson's Peacock Orchestra made three sides for Vocalion in St. Louis on June 21, 1926. A fourth side featured the band's drummer, Floyd Campbell, as a blues vocalist, accompanied by piano and Jackson's trumpet. Two 78s were issued: Vocalion 1039, which paired "Go 'won to Town" (as the original label reads) and the Campbell vocal, "What do You Want Poor Me to Do." Vocalion 1040 had "She's Crying for Me" and "Capitol Blues."

Dewey Jackson's Peacock Orchestra, c. 1926
Willie Humphrey: kneeling, third from left

Jackson's band followed the usual instrumentation for a large dance orchestra of the time: three brass, three saxophones (doubling clarinet), and a four-piece rhythm section. Willie was the third saxophone, playing tenor sax and clarinet. He was probably overshadowed by William Thornton Blue, a St. Louis clarinetist who was a more famous musician than Humphrey at the time. It's Blue who plays the clarinet solo in "Capitol Blues," which (by the way) features a cut-down version of the band, with only three of the horns playing. Blue is an accomplished, technically adept clarinetist, but his improvising leans toward the "gaspipe," novelty style of clarinet playing that was all too common in the 1920s. 

"She's Cryin' for Me" is the only fully-scored piece recorded at the session; "Capitol Blues" and "Go 'won to Town" sound like head arrangements. "Cryin'" was written by New Orleanian Santo Pecora; it was a popular tune at the time - there are several other recorded versions of the piece from the same period. The Peacock Orchestra's version is well-rehearsed, although the clarinet trio is kind of sloppy, and the tempo drops as the performance progresses. 

Willie makes his real mark on the session with his clarinet solo on "Go 'won to Town." It's a searing statement, displaying the fine technique, rhythmic freedom, and deep blues feeling that would characterize his music in later years. This well-constructed solo shows Humphrey's attitude toward blues improvisation to be totally committed and serious. Unfortunately, it would be ten years before he would have another chance to record. 

Listen to "Go 'won to Town" here.

St. Louis and Riverboats (Bio part 6: 1925-1932)

 The SS Capitol was based in New Orleans during the winter; during the summer months its base of operations shifted upriver to St. Louis. For seven years, Willie Humphrey's life followed the same pattern; he lived in St. Louis when the boat was based there. When the Capitol was in New Orleans, he used the Humphrey home at 4225 South Liberty as his base of operations. The city directories list him at that address until 1931. By that point, he had apparently made enough money on the boat to buy a small house at 2413 Cadiz Street. Willie lived there until the end of his life.

The SS Capitol, from a 1925 postcard

The Capitol band Humphrey joined was led by St. Louis trumpeter Dewey Jackson. Jackson had recently replaced the legendary New Orleans riverboat bandleader Fate Marable. The Capitol had a day band and a night band; as a member of the night band, Willie would meet the boat at the wharf around 6 PM, rehearse with the band for a little over an hour and half, and play a moonlight excursion dance from 8 PM until 11:30 or midnight.

Just after Easter, the boat steamed upriver toward St. Louis. The trip took two or three weeks, since the boat stopped for dances at towns along the way. Willie recalled entertaining the residents of Donaldsonville, Plaquemines, Baton Rouge, Greenville (Mississippi), Memphis, and Helena (Arkansas) on the way to St. Louis. After Labor Day, the boat began the slow journey back to New Orleans, again taking several weeks to make the trip.

Life for an itinerant musician on the riverboat was restricted, but comfortable. The Streckfus brothers demanded strict discipline, but if a musician was willing to play by the owners' rules he would be taken care of and paid well. Willie said of the Streckfus brothers, "As long as you satisfy 'em, you can stay long.... As long as you do right you've got the job."

During those weeks when the Capitol was on the move, the musicians ate and slept on board the boat. Humphrey described the food and accommodations positively. The pay was also good; Willie said, "At the time, I made a little money." He described the money as slightly better than he could make gigging in New Orleans, with the added benefit of job security. He didn't like being away from home for long periods, but summed up his experience on the boat, "It was all right; it was a job.... I wasn't crazy about it."

But the positive aspects of a riverboat musician's life outweighed the negative aspects long enough to keep him working for the Streckfus brothers for the rest of the decade and into the 1930s. Perhaps one factor that influenced his decision to keep the job so long was the then-single young musician's fondness for "big-legged St. Louis women," as he told Richard Allen many years later.

Jackson's Capitol band was made up of a mix of New Orleans and St. Louis musicians. Ironically, during their winter residency in New Orleans the band was known as the St. Louis Peacock Charleston Orchestra; when the boat returned to St. Louis the band was renamed the New Orleans Cotton Pickers. Apparently, the appeal of a dance band was enhanced if it claimed to be from a distant city.

Dewey Jackson six months older than Humphrey. He was one of a long line of fine jazz trumpeters that came out of St. Louis. Charlie Creath, Leonard Davis, Harold "Shorty" Baker, Irving "Mousie" Randolph, Joe Thomas, Clark Terry, and Miles Davis are all part of that St. Louis trumpet tradition. Jackson had played in riverboat bands led by Charlie Creath and Fate Marable before taking over the leadership of the Capitol band.

The riverboat bands were not primarily jazz bands, although jazz was part of what they played. Jackson's band played mostly published stock arrangements. Willie remembered that they "played a few numbers by head, but not many."

Under Jackson's leadership, the band played a St. Louis style of music rather than the New Orleans style Humphrey was used to. The St. Louis musicians played with a different beat, described as "toddle time." They also didn't play many of the New Orleans tunes that Willie was familiar with. However, he did recall several Jelly Roll Morton compositions: "We used to play a lot of Jelly Roll's numbers on the boat: 'King Porter,' 'Milenberg Joys,' 'Wolverine' - I think we recorded that one once. We used to play 'Grandpa's Spells' and 'The Pearls' - that was a very good number. We used to play all of them on the boat; some were special arrangements and stocks."

Humphrey primarily played tenor saxophone with Jackson's band. He, along with many other clarinet players, had picked up the saxophone in the early 1920s when the instrument was enjoying unprecedented popularity. He said of the saxophone, "You had to play that. Course, I featured the clarinet."

In June, 1926, Willie Humphrey made his first recordings. The Jackson band recorded four sides in St. Louis as Dewey Jackson's Peacock Orchestra. I'll discuss these recordings in a later post.

Fate Marable's band on the SS Sydney, c. 1919

Sometime during 1927, Fate Marable was reinstated as the leader of the Capitol band. Kentucky-born Marable enjoys legendary status in New Orleans jazz lore. He was a demanding bandleader, and his bands provided training for dozens of New Orleans musicians. One photograph from around 1919 shows a Marable band aboard the SS Sydney,, with Louis Armstrong, Johnny and Baby Dodds, Johnny St. Cyr, and Pops Foster among the personnel. New Orleans drummer Zutty Singleton said of Marable, "There was a saying in New Orleans. When some musician would get a job on the riverboat with Fate Marable, they'd say, 'Well, you're going to the conservatory.'"

Willie Humphrey remembered his association with Marable's band with pride:

I played with Fate Marable in one of the greatest bands there ever was - that went for the music we were playing. We didn't play specials, like the special rags or nothing like that. But he had a great band. He was a driver. If you didn't play it right, he tried to give you two weeks' notice and get you out of there. And there were a lot of musicians in there that weren't stars and they worked together. We had a nice little band, and the people liked the band.

At the end of the decade, probably in 1929, Willie left Marable's band and returned to New Orleans, where he married Ora Mathieu - a union which lasted until Willie's death in 1994. The hiatus from the riverboats did not last long, however. The Humphreys' first child, William James, Jr., was born on November 7, 1930. When Dewey Jackson asked Willie to return to the riverboat band, he did so. Presumably, the steady income of a riverboat musician was a strong incentive for the new husband and father.

During one of his summer stays in St. Louis (1930, 1931, or 1932 - Humphrey could not recall which year), Willie encountered a legendary jazz figure, Jelly Roll Morton. Although Humphrey had played Morton's music, he had never met the great pianist and composer. He later told Bill Russell:

I remember seeing Jelly Roll in St. Louis. Jelly was traveling with Sunshine Sammy's show and was in charge of the band. When Sunshine Sammy was a boy, he used to be in moving pictures - the Our Gang comedies. So he grew up to be a young man, and I guess he was singing or dancing. I never did see the show. I believe Sammy had a little mixup with his daddy and thought he could make it on his own. So he had this show barnstorming around, playing theaters. I don't think it clicked like they had expected, and they weren't doing so well on the road.

So Jelly Roll was traveling with the band when they were stranded in St. Louis where I saw him. Bill Mathews was the trombone player, but I don't remember anyone else from New Orleans in Jelly's band. At the time I was working on the steamer J.S. with Dewey Jackson's band and lived out on Lucas Avenue. I can't remember just where I met Jelly, but it was in some rooming house, and it was summertime, I'm sure. He was just in his shirt sleeves, you know. Jelly had a big old Cadillac. That's what they used to move around in, the Cadillac. So a friend of mine, Al Morgan, the bass player, we all pitched in and gave a little money to get gas. I think Jelly was pulling out for Chicago. So we contributed a little money for gas, because they weren't in good shape. 

Jelly was sort of a slim fellow. He talked very fast. He was smart, and the talk was intelligent-like. Although I'd never seen Jelly in New Orleans, I'd heard plenty talk about him.

Shortly afterwards, Jelly sent for Willie to join Morton's band:

Now, one year when I was on the boat in St. Louis, Jelly asked me to come and join his band in New York. I can't remember how he got word to me, or if he wrote me a letter. Most likely somebody had recommended me to him because I don't think he had ever heard me play. But I didn't leave my job and join him.

Humphrey elaborated to Charlie DeVore about his reasons for rejecting Morton's offer: "I got word that Jelly was not sincere. Jelly was a bad man with his money."

In 1932, Willie had had enough of life on the riverboats and of living away from his family for much of the year. In the midst of the Great Depression, Willie Humphrey returned home to New Orleans.

Sources:

Soards' New Orleans City Directories.

Conversation with Richard Allen, April 4, 2001

William Russell and Ralph Collins: interview with Willie Eli Humphrey and Willie James Humphrey, New Orleans, March 15, 1959; Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University.

William Russell: interview with Willie Humphrey, New Orleans, July 25, 1969; Williams Research Center, New Orleans

Charlie DeVore: "Talking With Willie," Mississippi Rag, June, 1982.

James Cahn: interview with Willie Humphrey, New Orleans, November 29, 1979; Hogan Jazz Archive.

Your Blogger, Listening to Willie Humphrey in Person

 Below you'll find a low-quality photograph of Your Blogger, Jeff, looking raptly at Percy and Willie Humphrey before a performance at Preservation Hall in New Orleans in 1992. It's not a good picture, but I'm glad I have it. This will be a more personal post than is usual with this blog; I'll give my impressions (as best as I remember) of the three times I heard Willie Humphrey in person. There are many people who heard him far more often, but those three times were very meaningful to me.

I first visited New Orleans in 1990, when I was 31 years old. Of course, I went to Preservation Hall; I had been looking forward to that experience for years. The evening just mysterious enough to be exciting: When do you show up? Is that the line? Who is playing tonight? The band that night was led by trumpeter Kid Sheik. Besides George "Kid Sheik" Colar, the band included veteran pianist Jeanette Kimball and a real pioneer of the jazz bass, Chester Zardis. Zardis was 90, and played powerful, imaginative jazz that night. There's a picture of him with the legendary, unrecorded cornetist Buddy Petit's band, supposedly taken when Chester was 15. He died four months after I heard him; I feel very fortunate to have seen him in person. Manny Crusto was on clarinet that night, not Willie Humphrey.

I returned to Preservation Hall on my second visit to the Crescent City in the fall of 1991. Although my visit corresponded with the regular night for the Humphrey Brothers Band, they were on tour. Willie, though, had come home to take care of a sick wife, and so played that night. The pickup band was led by English expat trumpeter Clive Wilson, and Phamous Lambert, part of a famous New Orleans musical family, was on piano. I sat at Willie's feet with his clarinet pointed right at my head. He played with more volume than anyone else in the band, and his sound filled the room. He was featured on a nice version of "Just a Closer Walk with Thee." Humphrey was pushing 90, but the only obvious age-related weakness I noticed in his playing was some sloppiness in the 16th-note clarinet breaks in "Fidgety Feet." Otherwise, I was very impressed with his powers, and came away with a sense of fulfilment on hearing a musician I had come to revere.

One potentially unpleasant moment during the evening turned into a nice one. Clive Wilson asked Phamous Lambert to sing on “Pennies from Heaven” and got annoyed when Lambert didn’t. It was obvious to me that Lambert hadn't heard or didn’t understand what Wilson had said. When Lambert didn't start singing at the obvious place, Wilson scowled, than launched into the vocal himself. The audience spontaneously joined in, sang well, and created a warm feeling, wiping out what might have turned into a "humbug," as New Orleans musicians call a disagreement.

Percy and Willie Humphrey
Preservation Hall; November, 1992

I heard Willie Humphrey for the second time a year and a half later, back at Preservation Hall in November, 1992. It was the regular night for the Humphrey Brothers Band, and they were there with the usual lineup of the time: Frank Demond on trombone, pianist Lars Edegran, Narvin Kimball on banjo, bassist James Prevost, and Joe Lastie on drums. As an added bonus, Leroy Jones walked in, wearing his Harry Connick tour jacket, and sat in for a set. I don't remember much about the music that night except that Jones added some very tasteful second trumpet parts. My only surviving note about the evening's music says that "Willie played particularly well." I do remember my feeling of quiet awe before the first set - just being in the presence of those two jazz pioneers, Willie and Percy Humphrey, was something special. They didn't say much to each other, but shared a few softly-spoken sentences as they took their instruments out of their battered cases. My then-wife took a discreet photograph with a cheap camera. That's the back of my head to the left.

The last time I saw Willie Humphrey was also at Preservation Hall, on April 2, 1994, just nine and a half weeks before he died. The personnel was the same as in 1992, except that Benjamin Jaffe had replaced James Prevost on bass. I spent part of the evening in the Hall's small performance space, and part of the evening listening from the carriageway, with one of the ubiquitous Preservation Hall cats sitting in my lap.  It was the night before Easter, and the band opened with Irving Berlin's “The Easter Parade.”  Willie sang “Bourbon Street Parade,” gesturing toward Bourbon Street every time he sang the words “on Bourbon Street,” and he marched around in a circle when he sang, “I’ll parade you” - some nice show business from a 93-year-old musician/entertainer. Willie only had a few more gigs after this, and I feel lucky to have caught one of his last performances. But each of those three times I heard him in person was special.

Excelsior Brass Band, Kid Rena, Ma Rainey (Bio part 5: 1923-1925)

Sometime during Willie Humphrey's 1920-1925 period in New Orleans, he joined the Excelsior Brass Band, considered to be one of the finest musical organizations in the city. George Moret, Willie's colleague in the Pythian Roof Garden band, was the music director of the Excelsior band, so Humphrey was probably invited to join the Excelsior while he was sharing the bandstand with Moret at the Roof Garden. 

The Excelsior Brass Band was a well-rehearsed group full of highly literate musicians; they played published arrangements, Moret's own handwritten arrangements, and less formal music. Humphrey said of the band, "To me, at the time, it was best 'cause we used music. We used to play head numbers, too." As was customary in New Orleans street bands, Willie played the smaller E flat clarinet with the Excelsior, rather than the standard B flat instrument. He played with the band at least until he began his second stint of playing on the riverboats in 1925, and he apparently played with them after that when it was possible; Leonard Bocage mentions Humphrey being part of the band around 1927. Willie was proud of his connection with the band, and kept his Excelsior Brass Band cap until the end of his life.

Of course, Humphrey played with other bands and musicians during this period. He mentions playing with Johnny St. Cyr for a long time, and he often subbed for Alphonse Picou in theater pit bands when that pioneer clarinetist was unable to play a job. Willie also played with the great blues singers Ida Cox and Ma Rainey during this period. The engagement with Rainey (a tent show) stood out in his memory; he called her “the greatest blues singer I ever heard,” but “ugly as old babe sin.” On this job he played violin; Buddy Christian played piano.

Percy, Willie James, and Willie Eli Humphrey

One memorable engagement was a gig with his father on Delacroix Island, southeast of New Orleans. Willie played clarinet while the elder Humphrey played saxophone. During one of the band’s breaks, the Humphreys were reminiscing about the days of Storyville with a guest from New Orleans when an armed drunk came into the dance hall and started shooting. The building emptied; Willie Eli remembered that he beat everyone out of the hall and was almost to the lake by the time most people got out. His son chided him, “I thought you such a brave man.”

Willie’s last regular gig during this period was with another legendary New Orleans cornet man, Kid Rena. Henry Rena is usually mentioned as one of the great early jazz players by musicians who were around in those days. Fellow trumpeter Lee Collins said of him, “Rena had a most beautiful tone and a range which was more perfect than any cornet players' I ever heard. He could play the high register so clear and beautiful. In the early days he used to really cut me when we would meet on the corners advertising some club.”

Although Rena was only 41 when he made his only recordings, he was apparently long past his prime. The records show a relaxed New Orleans lead trumpet style, but nothing of the brilliance Collins and other New Orleanians ascribed to him. Collins gives reason for Rena’s decline: “It’s too bad he drank so much and his lip gave out early.” However, Willie stated that during his stint with Rena, the cornetist was not drinking. Willie played with Kid Rena for about a year.

While playing with Rena in the fall of 1925, Willie went down to the river for one night’s work filling in with the band on the Streckfus boat S.S. Capitol. He didn’t return to Rena; he signed on with the riverboat band permanently. For the next seven years the Streckfus riverboats would provide Humphrey the bulk of his musical employment.

Sources:

Leonard Bocage interview, 1972; cited in Richard Knowles: Fallen Heroes, Jazzology Press, 1996

Allen, Richard, liner notes to Two Clarinets on the Porch,  GHB Records, 1992

William Russell and Ralph Collins: interview with Willie Eli Humphrey and Willie James Humphrey, New Orleans, March 15, 1959; Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University.

Charlie DeVore: "Talking With Willie," Mississippi Rag, June, 1982.

Lee Collins:  Oh, Didn’t He Ramble, University of Illinois Press, 1974.