Audio file
Title: Interview with Albert Glenny and Leonard Bechet about early jazz musicians, orchestrations, honky tonks, and music teachers
Date recorded: April 4, 1949 to April 14, 1949
Contributor(s): Performer: Lomax, Alan; Performer: Glenny, Albert; Performer: Bechet, Leonard; Recordist: Lomax, AlanBelongs to: Albert Glenny and Leonard Bechet 4/49
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Date recorded: April 4, 1949 to April 14, 1949
Contributor(s): Performer: Lomax, Alan; Performer: Glenny, Albert; Performer: Bechet, Leonard; Recordist: Lomax, Alan
Subject(s):
Genre: interview/commentary
Instruments: voice
Setting: At the home of Albert Glenny, 1315 St. Anthony St.
Language: English
Location: New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, United States
Physical form: Reel to Reel
Tape number: T995
Track Number: 4
Archive ID: T995R04
Note: Albert Glenny and Leonard Bechet recall Tony Jackson, Alcibiades Jeanjacques, and Nene Morette; as well as mailcarrier-cum-music-teacher Paul Cherami (?), who taught cornet to a man named Cousteau who in turn taught Manuel Perez. Discussion of origins of "Tiger Rag," which Glenny says was a two-step and not a quadrille (the quadrille having been the basis for Jelly Roll Morton composition). Bechet rails against the jealousy of "colored musicians," and tells about an argument he had with Big Eye Louis Nelson about Sidney Bechet's ability to read music. He also discusses the formation of the Federation of Musicians. Lomax asks Glenny for his recollections of Jelly Roll Morton, but – apart from having played with him, he says he can't remember anything. Talk about "Barrelhouse Blues," Buddy Bolden, and early brass bands. Glenny describes a typical funeral march and its second lines.
About the session: Interviews with Albert Glenny and Dr. Leonard Bechet. Albert Glenny (1870–1958) was a member of Buddy Bolden’s marching band (c. 1900) and played string bass with the bands of Kid Rena, Big Eye Louis Nelson, John Robichaux, and the Depression-era WPA Brass Band and ERA Orchestra. The box of the recording tape bears this description: “79, spry old gentleman, spots and freckles, eyebrows gone, toothless, his memory slow, eyes blurry and red, the slightly clawed fingers, clean, poor clothes, broken but polished shoes, quiet old fellow, looks 60.” Dr. Bechet was a trombonist, dentist, and older brother of renowned clarinetist Sidney Bechet. He led the Silver Bells Brass Band, featuring Sidney, until World War I and was a member of the Young Superior Brass Band in the 1920s. (See Lomax's interviews with Bechet with Glenny.)
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