Jazz on the Road: Don Albert's Musical LIfe (Music of the African Diaspora)

Rating:
Summary: excellent book on a New Orleans trumpet player, the musician
Review: Let me begin to say that an immensely hours on research must have been put in this book. One can almost follow Don Albert and his band day by day. The result is beautiful image of a reasonable successful territory band and the day tot day worries of an bandleader to keep his band going.

The autor has based his research in the first place on the Tulane Jazz Archive interviews with Don Albert and his musicians, Alvin Alcorn and Louis Cottrell jr. Next to it he sifted out national and regional newspapers looking for articles on and adverts for the Don Albert band. With these, The Chicago Defender was a primory source of information. This is a job every (New Orleans music) researcher is dreaming of. In 1982, in New Orleans, I went to the offices of the Louisiana Weekly somewhere on South Rampart Street, leaf through some back volumes of the periodical (everything is on microfilm). I found a treasure on information on bands from the 1910's and 1920's. The only problem, you got to have time and patience to go through all that. If only because of this, this book deserves a recommandation.

There are two chapters I found even more interesting than those dealing with the good and the bad days of the band during their touring, namely chapter one : 'A Musical Education in Creole New Orleans', and chapter eleven : 'The Second Keyhole, and a Fight for Social Justice'. It is very interesting following Don Albert during his youth in the ethnic and cultural very divers New Orleans. The account gives a more objectif image of the life in the Creole part of the city, the merge of the 'French-European' values of the Creoles with the 'American' of the poeple living Uptown, than what Sidney Bechet described in his autobiography, 'Treat It Gentle' or what Jelly Roll Morton told Alan Lomax. For some one who loves New Orleans music this chapter alone is a sufficient reason to buy this book. Chapter eleven on the other hand, tells the about the hard reality of Don Albert's return to New Orleans and the opposition he encountered in this town of the South of the US in the fifties to open a club. Until then, in Sanb Antonio, Don Albert had developed 'The Keyhole' into a modern, succesful nightclub with known acts and where White as well as Colored were welcome. Back in New Orleans, it was Don's intention to buy the 'Gipsy Tearoom' and to bring to the same level as 'The Keyhole'. But Don had not taken into account the laws of the South. On which Don returned to San Antonio to start a second Keyhole. But also there he had to deal with the same narrow minded mentality. Very interesting is also the story of Don Albert's return as a musician. It will not surprise you Bill Russell played a very important part in it.

I heard Don Albert twice during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Jazzfestval (with Manny Crusto, Wendeel Eugene and Manny Sayles) in 1976 and 1979. He appeared to be a very comlpetent musician, although he did not had that inspiring hot style of Kid Howard, DeDe Pierce or Kid Thomas, but he rather fitted in the category of a Peter Bocage and Charlie Love. Even if his style is not one of the most exciting, the account of his life, as a musician, bandleader, clubowner and as a product of the amny cultures of his native city, reads as a novel. And this is not the sole merit of the writer. Once you start reading, you will not stop. A Very lovely book.