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* Mar 17, 1884 St. Bernard Parish, La
† Sep 2, 1934 New Orleans, La
As a brass band musician he played with:
Reliance Brass Band
Nickname: Yellow
"Oh Boy! Wonderful!" -- bandleader "Papa" Jack Laine
"King Yellow, Wizard of the Ebony Stick" -- trombonist Eddie Edwards
Alcide Patrick Nunez was born 17 March 1884 in or near the city of New
Orleans. His family was of Spanish and French decent, established in Louisiana's St.Bernard Parish since before the Louisiana Purchase. He lived in the Marigny
and Bywater district of downtown New Orleans. Jack Laine, an older musician who
lived in the neighborhood remembered him playing tin-whistle as a child. Nunez's
son Eugene remembers his father enjoyed being able to make musical instruments
out of almost any object; eg a guitar out of string and an old cigar box.
Nunez started playing in bands on guitar, but was playing clarinet by 1902.
Alcide Nunez was playing with Jack Laine's Reliance brass bands and dance
bands by about 1905 if not earlier. He could not read music, but had a good ear
and could pick up tunes quickly and improvise variations on them. He could play
several instruments, but mostly played C clarinet. Early on he was not a full
time musician. For a while his day job was driving a mule-drawn hauling wagon
with fellow musician "Chink" Martin Abraham.
By 1910 or before, he was regarded as one of the top clarinetists in New
Orleans and was well known. He contributed new tunes, strains, and variations to
the Reliance Band repertory.
In early 1916 he was part of a New Orleans band which was heard by a Chicago
promoter, who offered them a job up north. In March 1916 Nunez went up to
Chicago with a band led by drummer Johnny Stein (Stein Dixieland Band), along with cornetist Nick
LaRocca, trombonist Eddie Edwards, and pianist Henry Ragas. Soon after arriving
the band bolted from the leadership of Stein, and renamed themselves "The
Original Dixieland Jass Band". They sent to New Orleans for drummer Tony Sbarbaro
who Nunez had played with earlier at a New Orleans club.
The Original Dixieland Jass Band was popular in Chicago. On the last day of
October 1916 Nunez had a dispute with trumpeter LaRocca, and left the band. The
O.D.J.B. soon moved to New York City. Nunez stayed in Chicago, working with Tom
Brown's band and later with bandleader/club-owner Bert Kelly. Nunez was billed
as "The World's Greatest Jazz Clarinetist".
In early 1917 the Original Dixieland Jass Band made the first commercially
issued jazz recordings in New York. One of the tunes recorded was "Livery Stable
Blues" which Nunez considered himself to be co-composer of. With trumpeter Ray
Lopez, a fellow Reliance Band veteran, Nunez copywrited the number (which the
O.D.J.B. had not done) and had sheet music published. This lead to a lawsuit
between Lopez & Nunez verses LaRocca & the O.D.J.B. over ownership of the tune, which became an unexpected national
hit. The trial was covered extensively by the Chicago press, which played it for
humor value. At a time when "jazz" was still considered a rather improper word,
that various "jazz musicians" who couldn't even read music were fighting over a
tune with animal imitation effects was considered amusing. Other New Orleans
musicians were asked to testify; their testimony was contradictory and some
claimed that they too should have a share of the "Livery Stable Blues" aka
"Barnyard Blues". The Judge ended up throwing the case out, saying that the
authorship of the tune was impossible to establish.
This trial can be seen as the first clash of the New Orleans musical
tradition, where melodies were often treated like folk tunes, with the
commercial USA Tin-Pan-Alley music business which was very concerned with
copy writes and composer credits. According to interviews with many musicians,
members of the Laine Reliance bands would collectively compose or add to
numbers. Anyone who had something to add could add it. (Nunez was remembered as
someone with lots of ideas to add.) New tunes were considered to be a boost to
the band, but were not seen as having commercial potential to write down and
copy write. This attitude had to change when New Orleans bands first started
going up north.
In August of 1918 Nunez went to New York City with the Bert Kelly Band. In
January of 1919 he co-founded "The Louisiana Five", managed by drummer Anton Lada. Throughout 1919 this band
recorded extensively for many of the record companies in the New York City area.
These recordings offer a rare glimpse of the improvisational stylings of Nunez,
one of the earliest well regarded New Orleans musicians to make numerous
recordings. Many of the numbers recorded were composed or co-composed by Nunez.
Some numbers would be recorded for different competing companies, and some
record companies issued records from multiple masters (for reasons of ease and
speed of mass production). This resulted in many "alternative takes" existing,
so Nunez's improvisations can be listened to and examined in detail.
The band was very popular in New York, playing for both dancing and
vaudeville. An Oklahoma oil millionaire hired the whole band to come play for
his friends in Oklahoma-- which is where young Pee Wee Russell heard Nunez.
At the start of 1920 Nunez signed up to make recordings with New York dance
band of Harry Yerkes. The Yerkes records also feature a fellow New Orleans jazz
great who Nunez had often worked with in the past, trombonist Tom Brown. Nunez
played jobs in cities of the USA's North East from New York to Baltimore.
Nunez rejoined the Louisiana Five in 1920 for a 10 week tour of the West. He
had a long residency in Baltimore in 1921.
In January of 1922 Nunez returned to Chicago where he continued to work
regularly. For years he led the house band at Bert Kelly's "Stables" club. He
recorded with the band of Willard Robison.
In the mid 1920s Nunez was having dental problems and started loosing teeth.
He feared he would no longer be able to play clarinet, and with his wife and
small children moved back down to New Orleans.
Back in New Orleans Nunez got false teeth and found that he could still play
clarinet professionally. Nunez got a job with the Police Department, mainly to
play with the Police Band (which featured him on both clarinet and banjo) and
drive a patrol wagon. In addition to his regular work in the Police Band,
Nunez played with a band called "The Moonlight Serenaders" over local radio station WCBE, and with various New Orleans
dance bands.
Nunez died suddenly of a heart-attack on 2 September 1934, at the age of 50.i1
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ALCIDE "YELLOW" NUNEZ,
WORLD'S GREATEST JAZZ CLARINETIST
Based on a presentation by Daniel C. Meyer at the April 2000 New Orleans
International Music Colloquium
 Alcide Nunez in New Orleans, 1910 or before.
I entitle this as being about "Alcide Nunez, World's Greatest Jazz
Clarinetist" because that was how he was billed in Chicago and New York in the
late 1910s and early 1920s. I'm being a bit provocative. I won't argue with
anyone who wants the title of World's Greatest Jazz Clarinetist to go musicians
like Sidney Bechet, Johnny Dodds, or Benny Goodman. But they and just about
anyone else you might name to the title would probably be a good bit younger
than Alcide Nunez, a good bit later in jazz history. That's the first point I'd
like to make. Alcide Nunez was born in 1884. This makes him just about the
earliest jazz clarinetist we have extensive recordings of.
To put things into context:
The great Johnny Dodds is sometimes thought of as a pioneer early jazz player;
Dodds was 8 years younger than Nunez. Nunez was 9 & 1/2 years older than
clarinetist Larry Sheilds who replaced him in the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
Nunez was 13 years older than Sidney Bechet, and a full 25 years older than
Benny Goodman.
The only clarinetist years older than Alcide Nunez who made many
recordings was the venerable Alphonce Picou. Picou's style is so early that some
listeners have classified it as 'not quite jazz' or 'just barely jazz'. And
Picou didn't record until his old age. On the other hand Nunez recorded in his
late 30s, an experienced musician still in his prime. When we listen to Nunez's
recordings from 1919, we're not just going to 1919 -- which is quite early in
jazz history anyway. I believe were listening to a mature musician, some of
whose style was already established years earlier. We're getting a rare chance
to listen to the sound of very early jazz.
EARLY LIFE
Alcide Patrick Nunez was born on 17 March 1884, the youngest son of the large
family of Victor Nunez and Elisa Chalaire Nunez of St. Bernard Parish.
His family was of Spanish and French decent, established in Louisiana's
St.Bernard Parish since before the Louisiana Purchase. Many of the Nunez'es in
Saint Bernard came to Louisiana by way of the Spanish Canary Islands. Alcide's
son Eugene researched the family history as far back as he could trace, but
wasn't able to find out if his family was from Islaño ancestry of not. In Spain
and Latin America the family name is pronounced Nuñez, ("noo-nyes") spelled with
a tilde over the second "n". Here in Louisiana we say Nunez ("new-nez"). From
what I've seen Alcide never spelled his name with a tilde, and taped interviews
with people who knew him before 1910 like Jack Laine and Frank Christian show
his last name was pronounced Nu-nez even back then. So discographers and writers
who spell Alcide's last name the Spanish way with a tilde over the "n" seem to
be engaging in scholarly over-correction.
Alcide Nunez was in the city of New Orleans by a young age. He lived in the
Marigny and Bywater districts of downtown New Orleans until his move up north.
Jack Laine, an older musician who lived in the neighborhood remembered Nunez
playing tin-whistle as a child. Nunez's son Eugene remembered that his father
enjoyed being able to make musical instruments out of almost any object; such as
a guitar out of string and an old cigar box.
Alcide's friends and fellow musicians nicknamed him "Yellow". According to
the 1939 book "JAZZMEN", this was because of his complexion.
It might be worth mentioning that the earliest references to this nickname tend
to call him "Kid Yellow", and a popular early newspaper cartoon character was
"The Yellow Kid" created by Richard Felton Outcault. Several competing cartoons
featuring this character were running in the late 1890s.
Some interesting information on Nunez's early career appeared in New York
papers when he was a notable figure on the New York music scene years later.
In 1918 and 1919, as "Jazz Bands" were becoming all the rage in New York, some
New York theater and vaudeville newspapers started asking just what this new
"jazz" was, and where did it come from? The interesting discussion that followed
quickly identified the music as coming from New Orleans, and contained some
interesting tidbits about some of the New Orleans musicians who were then in New
York, including these reminiscences of Nunez's early career:
From The New York Dramatic Mirror 14 Dec 1918:
"Yellow" Nunez had been guitar player for John Spriccio. [...] famous jazz
professor of New Orleans, John Spriccio, the vetern violinist, who teaches jazz.
All the famous jazz artists in this country have been taught by him or his
pupils. He was teaching jazz and "blues" a generation before they reached
Chicago."
This is an interesting article. Is Spriccio the earliest documented jazz
educator?
Nunez remained a friends with Spriccio, frequently visiting him in his later
years in New Orleans in the 1920s and '30s.
Here's another article, from 8 February 1919 "VAUDEVILLE VOLLEYS" page 201:
One "Harry Huguenot" wrote that he was "born and raised in New
Orleans" and recalled that about 20 years ago "there was a social
organization in the New Orleans composed of young business men, numbering about
one hundred. An orchestra was formed by some of the musical members, consisting
of [Gus Shindler piano, Yellow Nunez (a Spaniard), guitar; myself, bass fiddle,
and a cornetist name forgotten] The addition of Frank Christian, another
guitarist, prompted Yellow Nunez to purchase a clarinet, and then from the
clarinet began to flow the weirdest blue notes one ever heard. After a week of
practice Nunez had these blue notes arranged as cadenzas, and I am firmly of the
opinion that this was really the first 'jazz' effect in an orchestra. The
orchestra became known as the 'RIGHT AT 'EM'S RAZZ BAND' and continued
successfully for some time. I mentioned above that it was some twenty years ago,
but a correct idea of the time can be ascertained by the fact that our star
number was "Billy Bailey, Wont You Please Come Home." [...]we were the first to
play it in New Orleans. Incidentally "Frankie and Johnnie" was an old selection."
The piece Bill Bailey came out in 1902.
It's remembered that Nunez could not read music, but had a good ear and could
pick up tunes quickly and improvise variations on them. He could play several
instruments, but mostly played C clarinet.
Early on he was not a full time musician.
Other than reading musicians with a regular job in theater orchestras, very few
musicians were able to make a living playing full time in New Orleans then.
Old city directories lists Nunez as a "teamster" or a "driver". One musician
recalled that Nunez drove a mule-drawn hauling wagon with fellow musician
"Chink" Martin Abraham.
The photo shows Alcide Nunez, right, with his nephew, violinist Harry
Nunez, in the early 1910s. In this photo they were playing at one of the old
camps on Lake Pontchartrain with Frank Christian's Band.
Nunez worked in the bands of his friends cornetist Frank Christian and
trombonist Tom Brown. At least on occasion, Nunez put together a band under his
own name. But for years his most important work was with bandleader Papa Jack
Laine.i2
This photo shows Jack Laine seated in front of one of his bands. Alcide Nunez
stands second from the left; Chink Martin Abraham stands second from the right.
The musicians are standing in front a tent which is documented as having blown
down in a storm in 1910, dating this photo to 1910 or earlier.
Many people recalled Alcide Nunez was often playing with Jack Laine's
Reliance brass bands and dance bands. Nunez seems to have been working with
Laine by about 1905 if not earlier.
Jack Laine, born in 1873, was the most active and one of the most important
band leaders in New Orleans in the years between the Spanish American War and
World War I. He often had multiple brass bands and dance bands working
simultaneously at different locations. He hired young kids just starting to play
up to some of the city's best regarded established musicians. When Nunez was
mentioned to Jack Laine in his old age, Laine exclaimed, "Oh Boy! Wonderful!" He
said that Nunez had played in his bands "for years and years and years".
By 1910 or before, Nunez was regarded as one of the top clarinetists in New
Orleans and was well known. He contributed new tunes, strains, and variations to
the Reliance Band repertory.
Clarinet player Tony Parenti said that the best clarinetists when he was
little were the Baquet brothers and Yellow Nunez. They played nice jazz and were
known to all. At that time Larry Shields was just one of the boys coming up.
Below is a photo of Nunez and two of his musical colleagues, taken in New
Orleans in the early 1910s. Left to right, Nunez, trombonist Tom Brown, and
cornetist Frank Christian. All three on occasion lead bands and hired each
other.i3
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Nunez's background
Alcide Nunez's great-grandson, Robert Nunez (who is a tuba player for
the Louisiana Philharmonic and sometimes plays with the Louisiana Repertory Jazz
Ensemble), says that the family came from Canary Islands to Louisiana's St.
Bernard Parish 1700s.
Nunez in New Orleans before going up north
Clarinet player Tony Parenti said that the best clarinetists when he
was young were the Baquet bros and Yellow Nunez. They played nice jazz and were
known to all. At that time Larry Shields was just one of the boys coming up.
Bat Streckler (a non jazz N.O. musician, born 1877) said, "the first
fellow I ever heard play jazz was Yellow Nunez. He played at Beter's place on
Music (Street) and Claiborne (Avenue). He couldn't read (any music), but the
minute he heard anything he could play it well".
Bandleader Jack "Papa" Laine, in a March 1957 interview, was asked by
about Yellow Nunez by jazz historian Richard B. Allen. Laine exclaimed: "Oh Boy,
wonderful! Just like Baquet." In 1959, Laine reminisced that Nunez used to play
tin whistle when young, and that his Uncle played with the Mexican Band at 1884
exposition.
Wellman Braud mentions Yellow Nunez and Tony Giardina were fine
clarinetists, but Sidney Bechet was the greatest.
Trumpeter Johnny Lala said about Nunez: Very good, a wonderful faker.
Most others couldn't fake (at that time). (Jack Laine's son) Alfred Pantsy lead
the #3 (Reliance) band, but it got to be hottest. It had Manuel Mello, Yellow
Nunez, Jules Cassard valve-trombone. Knocked em Dead. Yellow was powerful. Lala
would encourage him to jump band to join him.
Manuel Mello says he played with Nunez in Tom Brown's band. Nunez and
Mello left the band when Brown asserted he was the leader..."you can never hear
of a trombone player leading a band!"
Tony Sbarbaro said he played in Tango Palace, a bad place across the
tracks, with Henry & Merrit Brunies, and Yellow Nunez.
Papa Laine, in two different interviews, said that Achille Baquet and
Yellow Nunez composed "Livery Stable Blues".i4
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