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*
† Ca. 1910 New Orleans, La.
About the spelling of the name Crusto, Croustaut,
Coustaut, Cousto, Crousteau or Cristo.
Brother of Manuel.
As a brass band musician he played with:
Onward Brass Band
Emanuel Crusto was born in New Orleans on May 2, 1918.
New Orleans jazz being a "family music", we can safely say he came from a
musical family. His father's uncle played trumpet. His father's nephew was
the famous clarinet player, Lorenzo Tio jr. In Sam Charters' book, "Jazz
New Orleans 1885-1963", we find twice the name 'Cousto' (Cousteaux?) in
the musicians index (which could be a misspelling for Crusto) with
christian names Sylvester and Emanuel, both cornet players. One of them
might be the granduncle Manny told us about. Both musicians are once
mentioned in Charters' book. Manuel 'Cousto' had a dance orchestra
together with another cornet player, Dan Desdunes in the early 1890's.
Sylvester 'Cousto' is mentioned in a paragraph about brass bands, as being
a cornet player in the early Onward Brass Band. To add to the confusion,
we find a Sylvester 'Constant' in the supplemental index to names of
musicians in the same book. In a paragraph about brass bands, Sylvester
'Constant' is mentioned as cornet player with the Onward. The other
members of the brass band named, are the same in both paragraphs : George
Filhe and Steve Johnson (valve tb) Bartholomew Bruno and Isodore Barbarin
(alto horn) Joseph Clark sr (baritone horn) Mike Gillin (bs drm). Only the
other cornet player, Bellevue Lenair, becomes Professor Lainez. Bill
Russell and Dick Allen interviewed Isidore Barbarin on January 7, 1959 for
Tulane Jazz Archive. Allthough the interview was not easy, Isidore
remebered 'Crusto', "Crusto used to play in the Onward Band." Paul
Barbarin, who was present, added "That's little Crusto's grandfather."
Isidore gave Sylvester as his christian name and added he played trumpet..
However, the Family Album lists both Sylvester and Manuel
with their surname spelled 'Coustaut', Manuel being an early dance band
leader (1888-1893) and Sylvester being a founder member of the Onward
Brass Band in 1896 (1886). The theory of the misspelling of the name (very
plausible in Charters' book where misspelling occurs very often - the
Creole French spelling of the names is often Americnaized) becomes very
probably now, for the Family Album is much more accurate in this matter.
So I nearly decided to drop the matter when I found a photograph in the
Family Album, showing the WPA band of 1936 and one of the members is
Manuel Coustaut, according to the instrument he is holding, a trumpet
player. When we return to the biographical entry in the book, we see that
Manuel Coustaut was born before the Civil War (1861). This would mean that
the man on the photograph should be at least 75 years old. It would also
mean that after an active period as a dance band leader given as
1888-1893, this mucisian would have dropped out of the scene to return in
a WPA band in 1936. Both these assumptions are possible, but somewhat
improbable. It could be that the man on the photograph is the Manny Crusto
now playing in New Orleans and that the misspelling occuring here was also
used for the two older musicians. During our stay at Manny's house, we
talked about this. He went looking for his copy of the Family Album and
confirmed us that he was the trumpet player on that picture. Later on we
found out that his certificate of baptism gave his name as Manuel Mitchell
CROUSTEAU, son of Mitchell Crousteau and Agnes Casimir (no relation to
John Casimir). On the original birth certificate the name was spelled
CRISTO. From Crousteau or Cristo to Crusto is a small step especially in
New Orleans!i1
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