Keeping the Beat on the Street (26 page)

The music changes just like the seasons of the year. I can stay up with it, no problem. But it's still hard to make the switch. It takes time to make the adjustment—the feeling is totally different. I mean you try and play a straight line with those chords behind you, you're going to be stuck
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When I was coming up, I used to listen to a lot of Louis Armstrong on records—still do—but never tried to copy him. I know some on-the-way famous people right now that copy Louis note for note, but I never did that, that's not me. You don't have to: there's enough out there to give you plenty of inspiration
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BORN
: New Orleans, February 22, 1948
Played with Doc Paulin, co-led the Majestic Brass Band with Flo Anckle, played with Dejan's Olympia Brass Band for eighteen years; currently with Andrew Hall's Society Brass Band
Interviewed at 3621 Burgundy Street, October 2002

Before crack became an epidemic in New Orleans, we had the opportunity to see what it could do in New York City. It was like “When this gets to New Orleans, it's gonna fuck some shit up.” Lo and behold.

—
KEITH FRAZIER

And some of those smart kids who think you have to be completely knocked out to be a good hornman are just plain crazy. It isn't true. I know, believe me.

— CHARLIE PARKER,
Hear Me Talkin' to Ya

Purely from the music standpoint, the Olympia Brass Band was the crossover. It was the fork in the road, especially after Milton Batiste and Ernest [“Doc”] Watson and Boogie Breaux got in the band. Milton Batiste had played rhythm and blues, and so had Boogie and Doc Watson. When you get guys like that, who have a different insight into music, then you're gonna have that change. They still feel compassion for the old standards and the traditional music, but they want to add a little spice to the gumbo. That's the whole New Orleans thing: what you add to the gumbo. It opened up a lot of different avenues
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I was working with the Majestic Brass Band led by Himas Floyd Anckle, better known as “Flo.” He had a bebop and rock 'n' roll background. He had worked with a lot of the big names; he played tenor and alto saxophones. He was a real good musician, could read anything. Flo was a restless type of person. I had first met him when we worked together in Doc Paulin's band. We decided to leave that band and do our own thing. We wanted to try something else. We heard things like the Olympia playing “Hey Pocky Way.” They “were the first brass band to do it; they called it “Tuba Fats.” Milton infused other things like “Hi Heel Sneakers.”

Flo and I listened and thought we could do the same sort of thing. He was very much influenced by Louis Jordan, and he wanted to take that music to the street. We had Cyrille Salvant on cornet, Joe Taylor on bass drum, Lawrence Trotter on snare, Ayward Johnson on trombone, I was on trombone, and Tuba Fats was helping us out on bass horn. That's what inspired me to play sousaphone; up to then I had been playing trombone
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We started doing funerals, and a lot of people started to pay attention to us. That's how we got Jazz Fest in 1977. We got rave reviews. The only surviving members of that band besides me are Jerome Davis, Daryl Smith, Joe Taylor, and Daryl Walker. Then we got Joe Salisbury in the band on sax. The trend was getting the so-called genuine musicians—guys who could read, do parts, and play harmonies correctly. Later on, we had Greg Davis on trumpet for a while. We always had three trumpets playing three-part harmony. Two saxes and two trombones in harmony, bass horn, and two drummers
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Greg stayed with us a couple of years, and then he started the Dirty Dozen with Roger Lewis, who I think is one of the greatest reed men we have. He plays all reed instruments equally well, and you don't find that with a lot of musicians. He's dedicated himself to his craft—he's an excellent reader and an excellent orchestrator. He reads all the directions— if it says “pianissimo,” you don't have to stop and say, “Wait, let's do that part softly.”

I remember we were at Lawrence Trotter's house for a practice one Sunday, and Greg Davis told us, “I'm not going to be able to work with you so much. I'm starting my own band.”

The Dirty Dozen started setting a different pace. They just picked it up—respected the traditional music but came up with their own thing. There's a lot of people who say they're not respecting the music, but I have to question
their
understanding
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The Dirty Dozen was number one for musicianship. The younger bands have the enthusiasm and fire, but they don't have the know-how. I'm not knocking, but I have to say, there are very few young brass bands that are paying their dues. Straight out of school, straight on the street. Guys say to me, “You still playing that old style.” I tell them, “Well, it works. I'm playing what the tuba's supposed to play. Not trumpet or saxophone parts.” I'm just glad that there's some younger musicians who are serious. Steve Johnson, the trombone player, comes to mind, and so do Jeffrey Hills on tuba, and Steve's brother, Ronell
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When the Dozen came on the street, they played a lot of cerebral music. Some of the younger musicians couldn't catch it, and they started using drugs. Get this right: I'm not saying that the Dirty Dozen encouraged drugs—they didn't. But some guys don't know how to separate realism from foolishness. That's the whole thing. I don't want to get into naming names, but we have some fantastic musicians who would be even greater if they only would stop using drugs, and I've had to counsel them. They come to my counseling office and talk to me; their wives come to my office and talk to me. They need help because of their addiction problem
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I've been doing that work for twenty-six years. The whole crack thing didn't come from the music. It was introduced into the schools by some criminally diseased minds to institute drugs in society. And the best way to make dope a staple in society is to put it in the schools. They pushed it in the school grounds to kids who were not mentally ready to face it. They had no concept of where tomorrow was going to come from. We're talking heroin, we're talking crystal meth, we're talking angel dust, things of this nature, sweeping through the schools like a plague
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The effect was devastating. A lot of musicians with time on their hands and money in their pockets found themselves at a point where they could experiment. So they'd buy a little angel dust. Start off by putting a little dust with some weed and smoke it. Then they start cooking up some heroin and smoking that, which is the worst way to be under that spell. It gets into your system faster
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I'm not going to sit here and tell you I'm Johnny Good—I've done a wide range of things myself in my time. One of them was smoking a bit of marijuana, but that gage makes me get fat—I can't afford that. I was the type of person that likes to be in control
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At one time, society seemed to treat drugs as a joke. You'd get comedians on stage making jokes about getting high and making jokes about seeing someone overdose. That kind of thing makes it acceptable, like, “If they can laugh about it, I can use it.” Some of these guys I counsel say, “You like to eat. You're addicted too—you're just as bad.” But the point is I'm not breaking into houses to go buy a poboy
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I ask people, “Do you realize where you are? See yourself: where do you expect to be? Before you answer, think about it. If you want help, I'm there for you day and night. But if you're just going to say things to placate me, I don't need it.” I let them know the things I had to kick for myself. I didn't do a twelve-step program. The only thing I did was bend my knees and pray. In my case, I had a problem with alcohol. I loved my beer! Ricky Monie and I would go anywhere; he'd say to the bartender, “Give us two beers,” and I'd say, “And give us two beers.” It got worse
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Kicking any kind of addiction has to begin with the person you have to make up your mind that you want to stop—you have to see what you can lose. As far as being a musician, you lose a lot of your patience, and then you lose a lot of your talent. Because, instead of worrying what comes out of the horn, you're worried about going out and getting some stuff and getting loaded. Then you start losing gigs, and you lose your credibility—if you keep on, you lose your soul. It's like working with a zombie. I don't profess to be any kind of goody-goody, but I know what it took for me, and I can only talk about that from my standpoint. It's a thing where you want to quit, and you need to quit
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The birth of my son was a big factor to me. We had to be two sober parents to bring up our child in a house full of love and sobriety. Nowadays, I may have a social glass of wine every three months
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I quit drinking in 1981, and that summer, I went to Europe with the Olympia. We went to Germany and finished up in Munich—you know that's where they have the best beer. Everybody in the band—including Watson—was saying, “Come on, Edgar, have a beer.” They goaded me for three weeks. Oh man, that blond beer looked great in those big frosted steins. I just sat there. Everybody was having a joke; Harold was laughing, “Come on, cuz, have one with me.” They knew what I was doing, and they were helping—thej were testing me. I didn't understand; I would go back to my room, and I would be mad. I thought, “Mother fuckers, pulling that shit on me.” Harold Dejan, being the gentleman he is, called me up a couple of days after we got home. He said, “Edgar, I'm proud of you. You know, we did that intentionally, to see just where your head was.” He had got together with Milton and Watson and said, “Let's find out exactly where Edgar stands on this.” There'll never be another Harold—no one will ever come close
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The drug problem in New Orleans isn't improving. The minute we get a handle on one problem, something else comes up. Now heroin is back—that's bad, bad, bad. You can get black tar heroin, white horse—all kinds of heroin, different versions of it. Once you think you've beat one villain, back comes an old enemy you thought you had subdued
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We have a program at my church called the “A Team.” It's a group of ex-users who decided, with prayer and abstinence, that they would never do drugs again and would help others. You see a lot of churches doing this now, but ours was one of the first churches to come out against drugs and go out in the community. That's the Christian Unity Baptist Church, at 1700 Conti
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We don't have any federal sponsorship or city money; this program is purely generated by the church. We have a vast number of members, but we're not one of those mega churches that gets on TV, asking for money: you get preaching for two minutes, and asking for money for the other twenty-eight. We're a community church, made up of imperfect people—we listen to the perfect word. We don't have healing salve, we don't speak in tongues, we don't rock chandeliers, none of that crap. These faith healers are just skills—if you can cure people, why not take it to the hospitals?

Our church has had the Olympia Brass Band, the Tremé, and the Dirty Dozen. “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.”

Interviewed at Donna's Bar and Grill, St. Ann and Rampart Streets, November 2002

Donna's Bar and Grill
Photo by Barry Martyn

I was born right here in New Orleans, so I grew up with an understanding of what the music is all about. I stayed here until I was five and then went away to school. It was at the age of eighteen that I came back, after I graduated. I always loved it—my first husband and I had a little place on Bourbon Street where a lot of musicians like the French brothers, George and Bob, used to come; that was back in 1977. The Olympia and all the older brass bands were around then, but not the younger ones
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