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* December 31 1890 New Orleans, La
†
This article is a 'tribute' to the great trombone players who helped make the
sound of the great Eureka Brass Band.
ALBERT WARNER
'We wanted Albert Warner on trombone. He
had been one of my favourite trombonists from the moment I first heard him -
along with Sonny Henry - in the Eureka Brass Band funerals and parades I got to
in the late fifties. He was one of the last and most exciting exponents of an
earlier tradition in which the trombone combined its fonction of sustaining
rhythmic foundation with that of providing the bass voice in the polophonic
melodic line. The firmness of his rhythm became melody in itself. It made one
want Albert to play more solos but with a shy smile he wouls always insist that
wasn't really his role in the band." (Walter Eysselinck - liner notes American
Music CD - AMCD-81 - De De Pierce and his New Orleans Stompers in Binghamton, NY
Vol. Three)
Albert Warner was born in New Orleans, Louisiana around St Ann and Roman
Streets on December 31, 1890. He was brought up in the famous Trémé section. "I
was christened at the oldest church in here, this St Boniface… Catholic. It was
back on Galvez, Galvez and Onzaga. I went to school at Robertson School. I first
went to Bayou Road School at Derbigny and Govenor Nicholls. After that they
moved us from there up to Bienville and Robertson, the old Robertson School,
across from the cemetery. They used to teach you music, but they didn't have any
bands then. All they did was teach you the notes and things, you know. Well, I
heard this fellow, he was a young fellow here, he left here, … Zue Robertson.
Well, Zue was a good friend of ours, you know, he was a good musicianer. Zue
could read and play barrelhouse, he played down in the District sometimes. And I
heard this other boy, Vic Gaspard. And Baptiste Delisle, he used to play all
these halls around here."
He first started learning music with one of his half brothers, Ulysses Jackson.
Ulysses had learned to play trombone with
Honoré Dutrey. "Well, when he left,
before he left, he bought him a new trombone and a boy wanted to buy his old
trombone from him and he refused to sell it to him. He say he wanted it for his
brother. Well, he sent downtown and got me, and I went on up to his house to see
what it was all about. I got there and he gave me this little old brass horn,
with about a bell the size of a saucer, little French horn. When, then, I told
him I didn't have time to be worried with that thing. He says, "Well, you got to
learn!" He says, "I'm getting ready to leave New Orleans", he says, "and I want
you to take and learn this thing." I said, "Oh, I don't have time with that."
Well, what he did…he went and put it together and handed over to me, says,
"Well, blow on it." Well, when I first picked it up, I couldn't blow it. so, he
say, "Well, keep on." I just took the thing, kept a blowing first position. So,
finally, I made a note in there. I said, "What note is that?" He said, "Well
that's B-flat." So he said, "Keep on blowing." So after I made that note, well,
he pushed it in the second position. He held my hand and showed me the second
position. Well, I made that note. Then he turned around and shoved my hand in
the third position. I made that note. Well, after that, that kinda made me kinda
like the thing. I said, "Well, shucks, this thing ain't as hard as I thought it
was." So, finally, before I left there, he had me making those three positions.
He said, "Now, all that I want you to do now, go down and buy you a method and
come up here twice a week. I'm gonna give you lessons. My half-brother Ulysses
went to Chicago and he died in Chicago. He used to play with the
Excelsior Brass
band then and he played with Honoré Dutrey. My daddy used to play bass, that's
string bass. He played with some of these old musicianers like himself. Freddy
Keppard was kind of a little cousin of mine, you know…well, they used to call me
Freddy Keppard. Everywhere I went, people used to call me Freddy Keppard, I
looked just that much like him, you know. And his brother, Louis, live around on
Villere Street now, well that's my cousin, you see. "
I was about twenty two at the time. Before I never worried with music. I had the
opportunity to play piano, but I was a fast man at the time and didn't have time
to worry with the music. So, after that, I went and bought the method and
started going up there twice a week."
After having had his lessons from his stepbrother, Warner went to
Arthur Steve (Stevens)
for some lessons. Steve (Stevens) was also a trombone player, who lived on St Philip
Street. Afterwards, he bought himself a self-instructor. A friend wrote a
company in New York to get Warner a self-instructor.
"So, at that time, I was in the pressing business and so every time I'd blow the
horn, I'd lay it down, I'd go press a piece, I'd come back, blow the horn, go
back and press another piece. And my wife say, "Gee whiz, you make me sick with
this thing." I say, "Well, I might make you sick now, but some days this
thing'll come in handy." Finally, after I'd kinda got good with it, Jiles came
along. He wanted me to join a little band he was putting up, a little brass
band, back on Conti Street. They called it the
Bull's band. So I used to
rehearsal with them every Sunday. And I used to go by Pete ('Peapicker' Pierre),
and Pete helped me out a whole lot, you know. And he'd showed me different
things."
The Jiles brass band used to rehears at a barber shop on Bienville Street.
Amos
White joined the band and he would write out some music for Warner to practice.
"So, the first job they had, for Carnival day, Steve say, well, I wasn't good
enough, he wouldn't take me out. So, the boys say, well, they say, "You better
take him with you so you'll have some kind of help." So he went on out there and
he came out there, he fell down on the job! Next job that we got was down at the
Holy Ghost Church, there…Holy Redeemer…down on Royal and Elysian Fields."
"And I started playing with Louis Dumaine and
Eddie Jackson. So, they'd send
downtown and got me…they was living uptown..so they said they wanted me to play
with them. So, I went on and started playing with alittle band they had up
there. So, after this, I left them and I went with a fellow by the name of
William…the Columbia Band. Then I went with the
Camellia Band led by
Wooden Joe
Nicholas. Well, the Camellia had a pretty good pull around this town. They had
work in the countries and down in Violet and all these different places….Bertrandville…they
was going pretty good. Johnny Prudence used to play with me in the Camellia
Band. So, I went with Chris Kelly, and different fellows, you know, I would go
around playing with…next band I got with was
Kid Rena…well, I stayed with Kid
Rena a good while…this was his dance band. Then I'd leave him, and well, when I
left him I went with another fellow who had a band around here. Well, I played
with him a pretty good while until I got around depression time. When it got
around depression, then I just give up playing…stopped altogether."
In 1928, Albert Warner was a member of the Tonic Triad Brass Band with
Isidore
Barbarin, Red Clark, Albert Francis,
Chicken Henry,
Willie Pajeaud and Alcide
Landry. The Tonic Triad was led by Professor Pritchard.
"Kid Rena's dance band? Well, they played music and by ear too, but they was
better on this routine stuff than they was on music. You see, because a lot of
time they had music up there, they just was guessing at it, see…especially the
sax, you know. Well, the time I was playing with them, they had Kid Rena, Edna
mitchell, Joe René, myself, Manny Gabriel, John Handy, Henry Harding, who played
tenor saxophone. And they had another boy from Bay St Louis…he played sax. And
they had this other boy playing bass…'Lizard'…Chester 'Lizard' Zardis…was
playing bass. It was ten pieces. Son Thomas was on guitar. We was playing up on
the Astoria…around about 1927-1928…we played up there, it must have been about a
year and a half. Lee Collins used to come up there…well you see, after we left
from up there, then they started playing what you call 'percentage' jobs. Then
they was using different bands.
Then Remy had a band. He used to come up there, you see…that's Ti Boy Remy.
"To get back to the Eureka Band here, see, way back, as far as I can
remember, Cornish had come to get me to play with the Eureka Band. Well,
Cornish, he wasn't no kind of reader, but he always wanted somebody that could
help him out. So, he came and he got me to play one job. After he got me to play
one job, well, he did just liked what I did. Well, then, he say, "You stay
here." So, I said, "All right." So, I continued playing with them. The band was
going down, they wasn't doing much work. And Wilson was running a little candy
stand and he didn't have time to rehearse. So, I say, "Well, you run your candy
stand, I'm going to play music." So, they didn't want me to play, I told him,
"Well, I'm going to the country." So, he say, "Well, I have to get somebody to
play." So, I say, "All right, you get somebody to play. Well, get Red Clark, Red
plays trombone." That's how they got Red in the band you see. I was in the band
before Red, you see. Well, at that time we used to rehearsal up and down Rampart
Street, see, sometimes they rehearsal in the back of one barroom and then the
next time they rehearsal in the back of a restaurant. See they didn't have no
regular place. I'm the only old man in there. I was playing with them then at
the time Louis came down here to play that "Peanut Vendor", when Louis was at
the Suburban Gardens, that was way back in 1931. When Louis came in, why, then,
we went and picked up Louis at the L&N depot there. And Louis had that "Peanut
Vendor" out then, that's the time he was playing the "Peanut Vendor". And we
brought him through Canal Street there. It had to be the Eureka because that was
the Zulus band then, you see. Well, they had one bras band and, if I'm not
mistaken, they had a band in a wagon, you know, playing on a furniture wagon. We
played through Canal Street, brought him on up to the hotel, The Patterson on
Julia and Rampart. When Buddy Petit died, cause we played Buddy Petit's funeral,
you see. At that time in the band were Willie Wilson, Johnny Wilson, myself,
Cornish, Flowers, I think 'Little Jimmy', 'Groundhog', and
George Lewis was
playing clarinet, Shots, Alcide Landry. I remember Landry because I used to kid
him about begging cigarettes. Lick his finger, he meant for somebody to give him
a cigarette. And Verret on tuba.
Over the years, the Eureka Brass Band was recorded many times. In the Summer
of 1951, David Wyckoff and Alden Ashforth came to New Orleans with the idea to
make some recordings. During their stay they recorded Kid Thomas with Milé
Barnes (Hope Hall, Algiers, La September 3, 1951)(American Music -AMCD 10),
Billie and DeDe Pierce with Milé Barnes Louisiana Joymakers (August 30,
1951)(American Music-AMCD 13) and the Eureka Brass Band in August, 1951
(American Music AMCD-70).
David and Alden wanted to record the Eureka as their top priority because they
thought that the brass bands that were recorded so far did not represent the
real brass band tradition since they had been specially assembled for the
occasions and because of the fact that the band had made such an impression with
its power and finesse. Percy Humphrey,
Willie Pajeaud and
Eddie Richardson were
on trumpet, Sonny Henry and Albert Warner on trombone, Ruben Roddy, alto sax,
Manny Paul, tenor sax, George Lewis, E-flat clarinet, Red Clark, sousaphone,
Arthur Ogle, snare drum and
Robert 'Son' Lewis, bass drum.
Another jazz enthousiast and researcher who wanted to record the Eureka Brass
Band was Sam Charters. Since he had heard the band in December 1950, he was
decided to record the band. With the help of Frederic Ramsey jr and Moses Ash
from Folkways records, in January 1956, he was finally able to realise his
dream. Charters recorded the Eureka Brass Band in rehearsal on three occasions
on January 12, 19 and 26, 1956. Warner is present on the latter two and Kid
Sheik replaced Eddie Richardson. (American Music AMCD-110/111) On March 3, 1958,
Charters recorded finally the Eureka Brass Band for Folkways. Alfred Williams
had replaced Arthur Ogle.
In 1962, Atlantic made some recordings in New Orleans for their series 'Jazz At
Preservation Hall'. On July 2, 1962, they recorded the Eureka with the following
personnel Percy Humphrey, Kid Sheik and Peter Bocage, trumpets, Albert Warner
and Chicken Henry, trombones, Manny Paul, tenor sax, Willie Humphrey, clarinet,
Wilbert Tillman, sousaphone, Cie Frazier, snare drum and Robert Lewis, bass
drum. (Mosaic Records MD4-179)
In the Autumn of 1942, Albert Warner was present on Bunk Johnson's second
recording session. Others in the band were George Lewis, Walter Decou,
Lawrence
Marrero, Chester Zardis and Edgar Mosley. In his liner notes, Eugene Williams
wrote "a trombone player who also works in these bands (Original Tuxedo N°1 and
the Tulane), Albert Warner, was called in to make the records at the last
minute, when Bunk's first choice couldn't make the date. In spite of this
disadvantage, Warner - a former member of Joe Nicholas' and Kid Rena's jazz
bands - made a fine showing with his reliable foundation playing."
Our fellow countryman, Walter Eysselinck made some important contributions to
the preservation of New Orleans music. He was the man behind the Love-Jiles
Ragtime Orchestra. Albert Warner was a stronghold of this band that played the
music from the famous Red Back Books. Charlie Love was on trumpet, Peter Bocage,
violin, Albert Warner, trombone, Polo Barnes, clarinet, Manny Sayles, banjo,
August Lanoix, bass and Albert Jiles, drums. In June, 1959, The Love-Jiles
Ragtime Orchestra was recorded at a rehearsal at Milé Barnes house on
Metropolitan and Louisa Streets in New Orleans. On this occasion Bocage was not
present and McNeil Breaux was on bass. These recordings were issued on Sounds Of
New Orleans SNO 1 LP, and are not issued on CD so far. The orchestra was
recorded by Riverside in New Orleans on June 12, 1960. (Riverside OJCCD-1835-2)
A few weeks later, in August, Walter recorded the band again at a private party.
Kid Sheik and Love were on trumpet, Warner, Milé Barnes, clarinet, Louis Gallaud,
piano, Sayles, banjo, Jiles, drums. (504 Records 504 CDS 21). This band was also
recorded as Emile Barnes and his New Orleans Joymakers on August 21, 1960 at
Tulane University. Until now this session remains unissued. On August 17, 1960,
Albert recorded again with Charlie Love, Milé Barnes and Ernest Roubleau. This
session has never been issued on record.
In the pre and post Preservation Hall days, Albert Warner was one of Ken
Mills' favourite artists. He was recorded on August 13, 1960 with Billie and
DeDe Pierce, Milé Barnes, Slow Drag Pavageau and Albert Jiles. Albert was a
member of Kid Sheik's Storyville Ramblers that were recorded on August 6, 1961
for Mills' Icon label. (American Music AMCD-56). In the band were Kid Sheik and
Punch Miller, trumpets, Warner, trombone, Steve Angrum, clarinet, Harrison
Verrett, banjo, Slow Drag Pavageau, bass and Alec Bigard, drums. In the Spring
of 1962, Mills recorded a band he called Albert Warner's Brown Buddies with Kid
Sheik, Milé Barnes, Warner, Ernest Roubleau on banjo, John Joseph, bass and
Albert Jiles, drums. (American Music AMCD-66) Another live recording that Mills
made at the hall he ran at that time, Icon Hall or Jeunes Amis Hall, in July,
1962 of a band called Harrison Verret's Fern Dance Hall Band (Sheik, Warner,
George Lewis, Harrison Verret, Slow Drag Pavageau and Alfred Williams) was
issued on American Music AMCD-65. On August 31 and September 2, 1962, Albert
Warner was present on a recording session of a band led by Punch Miller
(American Music AMCD-57). Members of Punch Delegates of Pleasures were Punch,
Warner, Israel Gorman, George Guesnon, Wilbert Tillman and Alec Bigard. On
September 5, 1962, recorded Warner again, this time as a member of John
Casimir's Young Tuxedo Jazz Band. (American Music AMCD-61). Kid Howard was on
trumpet, Warner, trombone, John Casimir, clarinet, Manny Sayles, banjo, Wilbert
Tillman, tuba and Alfred Williams, drums.
Albert Warner was also member of one of the few New Orleans bands that went
on a concert tour outside the city in the early sixties. In September 1961, Kid
Sheik's Storyville Ramblers, Sheik, Warner, John Handy, Louis Gallaud, Papa John
Joseph and Cie Frazier, played at the Empress Room of The Hotel Tudor Arms in
Cleveland Ohio. The band was recorded on September 28, 1961. (American Music
AMCD-69)
On February 5, 1962, the Harold Dejan's Olympia Brass Band was recorded for
the first time. Barry Martyn recorded the following band for his M.O.N.O. label,
Sheik and Ernie Cagnolatti, trumpets, Albert Warner and Louis Nelson, trombones,
Harold Dejan, alto sax, Jessie Charles, tenor sax, Louis Cottrell, clarinet,
Anderson Minor, sousaphone, Cie Frazier, snare drum and Booker T Glass, bass
drum. On May 3, 1963, Warner was also present on another recording by the
Olympia Brass band. This session remains unissued.
Walter Eysselinck was a cultural jack-of-all trades. He wrote and directed
plays, taught drama, documented the folk music of New Orleans, was director of
the Flemish National Theatre, organised the Gent Jazz Club and helped starting
musicians in finding the 'true gospel', etc. And above all, he loved the music
from New Orleans. And where ever, he had his assignment, he invited musicians
who played New Orleans music, whether he was working at the State University of
New York at Binghamton or in Cairo, Egypt.
In the Spring of 1962, Walter had already invited Billie and DeDe Pierce up to
Harpur College for a series of concerts. (American Music AMCD-79 and AMCD-80) In
the Autumn of 1962, he invited Billie and DeDe again for another series of
concerts. This time, he wanted them to come with the band they used to play at
Preservation Hall at that time, with George Lewis, Albert Warner and Albert
Jiles. For different reasons, Lewis and Jiles could not make it and were
replaced by Willie Humphrey and Cie Frazier. The result of these concerts can be
found on American Music AMCD-81 and AMCD-82.
Albert Warner was also member of one of the first bands that went on tour
under the name Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Billie and DeDe Pierce, Polo Barnes,
Warner, George Guesnon, Cie Frazier and Allan Jaffe went to Memphis in 1965.
During that tour Albert got sick and was taken to the E.H. Crump Memorial
Hospital in Memphis and therefore he missed 3 concerts.
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