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* New Orleans, La Dec 28, 1871 or 1873 or 18795,p85
† 1946
As a brass band musician he played with:
Excelsior,
Imperial,
Onward,
Tuxedo Brass Band
Manuel Perez was cigarmaker by trade.
In an interview Roger Richard talks to
Albert Nicholasi1
You say in some article that you played your first street
parade with Manuel Perez’s Onward band — would that be around 1913?
No, no that was later than that. I wasn’t good enough to play in 1913. It was
when I was fifteen, sixteen, before the war broke out. That’s when I was really
amounting to something. I was studying about five years, and limited, but I had
a chance to play around 1915, 1916.
Papa used to give private lessons to the children of the neighborhood. That was
his hobby. He was a cigar maker by profession, and a first class musician. He
played in opera and all, like that, and, for his hobby, he could tell; if the
kids had music in them, he would teach them, and if they didn’t, well, good-bye.
That’s the way . . . you know what I mean? It was his hobby; he could be in the
room making cigars and have a class . . . about three or four of us at the same
time. He’d tell you plenty of lesson and he’d know when you make a mistake. And
if you’d practiced, he’d know, and if you didn’t practice, he would bawl you
out. He was like a father, you know; he’d say, “Go and take the lesson; go back
and study; you didn’t study; you was playing ball.” He was very strict, but when
you did it right, he’d give you credit, you know what I mean. Oh! You couldn’t
fool him.
Red Hot Jazz:
Manuel Perez's place in the history of Jazz would probably
have been greater if he would have talked to historians, but when scholars
became interested in the history of Jazz in the 1930s, he refused to speak about
his past or his music. Perez played cornet and in his time he was famous for his
work in New Orleans' brass bands. He was playing in the Onward Brass Band before
the turn of the century and put together his Imperial Orchestra in 1900. Perez
was in great demand for parade and dance work in the years leading up to the
First World War. Perez is said to have been an excellent reading musician and
demanded the same from his musicians, unlike the more improvised music of his
contemporary Buddy Bolden. In 1915 he left New Orleans and played with Charles
Elgar's Creole Orchestra at the Arsonia Café in Chicago, and with the Arthur
Sims Band in Chicago. He returned to New Orleans and led bands in the Storyville
district and he played excursions with Fate Marable aboard the SS Capitol.
During the early 1920s he played parades with the Maple Leaf Orchestra and other
bands. In the mid-1920s he was up north again playing with Elgar's Creole
Orchestra and he made his only recordings with Elgar in 1926. He continued to
play until 1931 when he quit trying to make living as a musician and returned to
his trade of cigar making. In the early 1940s he suffered a series of strokes
that left him disabled.i2
Wikipedia:
Some details of his early life remain obscure. Most likely he was born into a
Creole family of Spanish or Cuban descent. His family continues to live in New
Orleans, Louisiana. When scholars attempted to speak to Perez in the 1930s he
refused to cooperate (by some accounts he was already suffering from senile
dementia) and thus not much is known about his personal history. He made his
start in brass bands around the late 1880s.
At the turn of the century (1899)16, he became a member of the
Onward Brass Band and led the band from 1903 to 1930. He also started his
own brass band called the Imperial Orchestra from 1901-1908. The Onward
Brass Band was one of the most respected of its day. Some of the
best-known players in New Orleans were apart of the group including King
Oliver, Peter Bocage, Henry Kimball, Lorenzo Tio, Luis Tio, George Baquet,
Isidore Barbarin, and Benny Williams. The Perez & Oliver two cornet, or
"trumpet" team, was one of the most renowned in New Orleans. Perez was
known for his beautiful tone, staying close to the lead, while Oliver
improvised variations as a second cornet part.
Later, Perez went north to Chicago in 1915 playing with
Charles Elgar’s Creole Orchestra at the Arsonia Cafe and also with the
Arthur Sims Band. Although Elgar and his Creole Orchestra recorded a few
sides (albums) during this period, Perez is not to be heard, and so our
chance to enjoy that smooth sound of the cornet. Returning to the Crescent
City in the 1920s, he played in the District (Storyville), on steamboat
excursions with Fate Marable, and in parades with the Maple Leaf Orchestra
and multiple other bands. During the Great Depression in 1931, Manuel quit
playing music and turned to the occupation of cigar rolling, which he had
long done part-time when music jobs were scarce. “ I was down in New
Orleans and I saw Manuel before he died. I saw him and I couldn’t bear to
see him; it was something awful. He just began to slobber at the mouth
when you spoke to him...And when he looked at you there wasn’t anything in
his eyes . . . it was like they were missing from his face, and his face,
it had just come apart.” tells Sidney Bechet when seeing Perez in the
early 1940’s after he had suffered a series of strokes leaving him
disabled and eventually leading to his death in 1946.i3
Perez was one of the "big name"leaders of Storyville,
mainly at Rice's Cafe. After WW I heplayed on the S.S. Capital.16
Sources
(internet):
i1
http://www.doctorjazz.co.uk/rogernich.html
i2
http://redhotjazz.com/perez.html
i3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Perez_%28musician%29
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