* March 16, 1892 Thibodaux, La
† 1962 New Orleans, La
Born as: Isaiah Robinson
As a
brass band musician he played with:
Henry Allen,
Camelia,
Chris Kelly's,
Kid Rena's,
Tulane Brass Band
Isaiah "Ike" Robinson - "I had good times
in the early twenties in New Orleans"
"I was born in Lafourche
Parish, Louisiana, which is near Thibodaux, March 16, 1891. An early
string band in that area was led by Joe Gabriel. In fact Gabriel had two
bands, and I played in the number two band, while Gabriel was in the
number one band. The string band consisted of trombone, drums cornet,
clarinet, violin, guitar and string bass. Joe Gabriel played violin,
Clarence "Tit-Tan" Jules, trombone, Al Triche, cornet, Louis "Doo Dooce"
James, clarinet, Neddy James, guitar and Bourgeois, bass. Henry "Pallet"
James played bass and clarinet as a relief man, now and then with the
number one band. He started playing trombone when "Tit-Tan" died. In the
Gabriel Number Two Band, you had me on guitar, Achille Table, trombone,
Bud Green, drums, Joe Banks, cornet, "Little Willie", clarinet and Alfred
Dixon, bass. When we played in places along the Bayou Lafourche, we
traveled by train or truck. I began playing guitar in a band about 1914.
After World War I, about 1918, I began playing trombone, because the
trombonist in Joe Gabriel's Number Two band moved to New Orleans. In those
days, the bands owned the instruments. So I was given the trombone by the
band, to learn and to play. I played my first job on trombone about two
weeks after I began playing, but the band was hard up for someone to fill
in. Our cornet player, Joe Banks, a good reader, taught me some. Our band
rehearsed every night. The members all had day jobs. I went to work for
the Southern Pacific Railroad when I was about seventeen years old.
We played in Thibodaux at the pavilion at the Fair Ground. And at another
place called Cox's, a picnic ground where there was an open-air pavilion.
Both places were for colored. There was a pavilion for whites on Second
Street.
The big difference between the music played around Thibodaux and that
played in New Orleans, was that the New Orleans musicians played with more
of a jazz swing. New Orleans musicians such as Joe Oliver, Freddie
Keppard, Frankie Duson and others came to play in the Thibodaux area. I
was just a kid when I got inspired to play trombone by hearing Duson. The
trombone style of the old times was different from that of today. Today
the trombone sings, play the lead. In the old days, the trombone played
vamp style sometimes, and played a melody counter to that of the lead
sometimes, and sometimes played a harmony part to the lead. That's the way
Duson played. That was the way the music was written.i1
