* July 31 1887           Algiers-New Orleans, La  (Aug 4 16)
† December 3 1967  New Orleans, La

Instrument: cornet, trumpet

As a brass band musician he played with: Henry Allen´s, Excelsior, Onward, Tuxedo, Original Zenith Brass Band

Multi-instrumentalist Peter Edwin Bocage was one of the great trumpeters in New Orleans history and ironically did not consider himself a jazz player, rather a ragtime musician. He got his start on the violin, although he did play mandolin, guitar, banjo, trumpet, baritone horn, xylophone and trombone. Listening to the records he made in the 1960’s reveals the differences between the downtown “orthodox” ragtime orchestras and the uptown “syncopators”. Bocage came from the downtown school and preferred soft, melodic playing as opposed to the hotter or as he referred to them “vicious” styles as played by Buddie Bolden, Freddie Keppard and later work by Bunk Johnson, a former pupil.

Born into a prosperous Creole family in Algiers across the river from New Orleans, Bocage began taking violin lessons at 13. He was soon playing local parties with his father's group, but soon began playing with various groups in Storyville. At 21, Bocage became the leader and violinist for the Superior Orchestra, which at the time was one of the city's most popular ragtime bands and featured Bunk Johnson on cornet. Bocage is considered responsible for Bunk's learning to read music. During this period Bocage also saw and heard Buddy Bolden's band, as well as a band led by Freddie Keppard, both of whom he considered inferior to Bunk. In 1910 Bocage joined Frankie Dusen's Eagle Band on violin which was essentially the Bolden band without Buddy. Bocage began learning the trumpet and with Fate Marable in 1917 formed the first inter-racial band on the Strekfus line.

Throughout this period Bocage played with a who’s who of New Orleans brass and dance bands, many of which contained the most famous musicians ever produced in the Crescent City. In 1918 he played in both the Onward band which included Joe King Oliver and Henry Allen Sr.’s band. He also became a regular member of the Tuxedo Orchestra, which included Louis Armstrong. In 1922 he took over leadership of the Excelsior band which he continued to lead up until the band's demise in 1932. He kept the entire working stock of band marching and dancing arrangements and neither he, nor his family after his death have ever let anyone copy the documents.

In 1923 Bocage rejoined Piron's New Orleans Orchestra and with the help of Clarence Williams went to New York for a brief residency at the Cotton Club. The band also recorded for Okeh and Victor. Both songs were rejected and remain unissued. Piron's New Orleans Orchestra did record 13 sides in 1925 and again in 1932 for Victor as the Creole Serenaders.

In 1939, Bocage made his living in the insurance business and briefly left New Orleans to take Bunk Johnson's place with Sidney Bechet's group in Boston. As the New Orleans revival of the 1940’s came to a head, Bocage recorded with some of the old-time New Orleans musicians as the Jazz Pioneers as well as playing with Henry Allen Sr.’s brass band in Algiers.

Throughout 50’s and 60’s Bocage led various incarnations of the Creole Serenaders, and released an album on Riverside 60's for Riverside called: "Loves-Jiles Ragtime Orchestra/Creole Serenaders" and was becoming an important part in the early Preservation Hall until his death in 1967 at the age of 80. Source: http://www.redhotjazz.com/bocage.html by Ted Gottsegen

Jazz man Peter Bocage stands as a giant in the history of New Orleans traditional jazz. Born across the Mississippi River from New Orleans in Algiers, Bocage followed in his father's footsteps, playing music at venues, dances, rent parties, and street parades throughout the Crescent City area. He soon became a fixture at the famous club, Storyville, where "people paid to have a good time, any kind of good time you wanted", as the late, great Danny Barker recalled.

The music rage of the day was Ragtime. By the age of 21, Bocage was the band leader of one of the most popular ragtime bands, the Superior Orchestra. At that time, Bocage was playing violin. He hired in a horn player named Bunk Johnson. The sound Bocage was striving for was soft and refined, like the Creole culture from which he came. Eventually, the hotter sound, exemplified by Buddy Bolden won out, but people later came back around to enjoying the softer tones Bocage played for them years later at the renowned Preservation Hall in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

In the mid 1910's, Bocage decided to take up the trumpet himself, an instrument of which he ultimately became master. He played in all kinds of brass bands in New Orleans, from the Onward, the Tuxedo and the Excelsior Brass Bands, the last of which he led for 10 years. His musical colleagues included Joe "King" Oliver, Henry Allen, Sr., and Louis Armstrong. With Fate Marabel, Bocage formed the first integrated band the South had ever seen. He was a mover and shaker, once leaving New Orleans to gig at the Cotton Club in New York, and with Sydney Bechet in Boston.

He recorded with Piron's New Orleans Orchestra and his own Creole Serenaders. This band appeared in various permutations from the thirties until not long before Bocage's death in 1967. In 1961, a CD was pressed as part of the New Orleans Living Legends series. This one featured Peter Bocage with the Creole Serenaders & The Love Jiles Ragtime Orchestra. The CD gives the listener a good feel for that historic time, with tunes like Bocage's Moma's Gone, Goodbye, and B-Flat Society Blues; Piron's I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate; along with Bouncing Around, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and TheHilarity Rag.

Bocage often played at the Preservation Hall with other musicians of his day, like Sweet Emma Barrett, Jim Robinson, and Louis Cottrell, Jr.. People from all over the world flocked to see the old time musicians who spanned the history of jazz. They are all gone on home now; there will never be an era like the one Peter Bocage lived through again. But the legacy of that special time lives on.
Source: www.artistdirect.com/nad/music/artist/bio/0,,405700,00.html#bio Rose of Sharon Witmer, All Music Guide

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