All That Jazz

The Incomparable Sweet Emma Barrett in her prime, complete with jingle bells on her garters.

I learned my love for jazz at the knee of my first cousin Erik. 

He was a clarinetist and played a little sax in his high school and college days and along with his buddies preferred traditional music to the mainstream sounds of the 50’s and 60’s. 

We would sit in his bedroom in Catonsville and listen to Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, and Pete Fountain records by the hour. We probably landed on The Dukes of Dixieland as our favorite and knew every cut of every album by heart.  

The Dukes were founded in 1948 by brothers Frank Assunto, trumpet, Fred Assunto, trombone, and father “Papa Jac” Assunto, trombone and banjo.  Papa Jac was a native of Lake Charles, LA, a first-generation Sicilian-American with a music degree from Loyola University in New Orleans. 

The era of the group we loved included Harold Cooper, clarinet, Stan Mendelsohn, piano, Paul Ferrara, drums, and Bill Porter, tuba and string bass. During its run, the band featured a who’s who in jazz including Pete Fountain, Herb Ellis, and Louis Armstrong. 

I heard my very first stereo recording sitting on the living floor of cousin Erik’s house on Coleraine Road. The technology was so new that among the first offerings on vinyl were things like a ping pong match. The ball would “bounce” from speaker to speaker, as we listened in amazement. 

I started my own record collection in those days and in addition to the Dukes, I branched out to Herbie Mann, Les McCann (no relation), Eddie Harris, Al Hirt, and pseudo jazz artists like Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Truth be known, I’ve always been a sucker for brass. Canadian Brass doing Christmas music, The US Marine Band doing John Phillip Sousa marches, and German military music that stirs the soul and makes you want to march on Poland. (Google “Happy Heine March” sometime and march around your living room when no one is watching.) 

When I got to William and Mary, on Interest Night, again to emulate my cousin, I headed right to the table for the college radio station, WCWM-FM, “The 10-Watt Flowerpot.” I studied for and passed my test for a Class C FCC Operators License and started being trained on the board and observing my fellow student broadcasters.  

Most of the announcer slots were Top 40 music, and I served my time in a 3-5pm show as “Johnny C, the Boss with the Hot Sauce.” But my goal was to eventually unite my broadcasting with my love for jazz. 

One year after my start, I got Mike Campana, our program manager to give me a one hour Tuesday evening slot that I branded “Jazz Scene ‘70.” I was in heaven. An hour to play my favorite jazz with no Top 40 chart restrictions. 

As my play-in theme I chose Herbie Mann’s “Hold On I’m Comin’.” It had a fast tempo and a great vibe to get things started. I was “Pilot of the Airwaves” and for one hour a week felt tres cool.  

I got some regular listeners who would call in their requests which made me feel connected to the faceless audience. One woman would repeatedly call from Mechanicsville, VA which was 50 miles away from Williamsburg. Although fully dependent on the weather and time of year, the fact that my little 50-Watt FM signal could get to the Richmond metro area was a thrill. 

My two-year run on Tuesday nights ended when I met Hayden Gwaltney, and my interests turned from Cowboys to Girls. Twas a fun run and I will occasionally still listen to old cassette tapes of my lead-in and snippets of my shows. 

After graduation and marriage, I started working at the National Archives where my first stop was the National Audiovisual Center. In 1978 a national audiovisual convention was my first opportunity to travel to New Orleans. Given my jazz interests, I felt like a Muslim walking to Mecca. This was a sacred journey and serendipity awaited my arrival. 

On the first night I could get away, I headed to 726 St. Peter Street to experience Preservation Hall for myself. A famous jazz venue from the 1950’s it had been popularized by an owner who took a house band on tours of the United States and the World. It was a dingy, poorly lit room with uncomfortable bench seats and peeling plaster, but great acoustics. Its band that night looked like a nursing home day room filled with a rotating group of the best living jazz musicians in New Orleans. Their sound was sweet Dixieland filled with solos that would draw long applause from the appreciative crowd.  

There was a line outside, so once you got in, you could stay for two, maybe three tunes before you were ushered back out into the January cold. That is, unless you were lucky me. 

When they moved me off the benches, I wedged myself in a little space between the upright piano and the wall. I took off my fake suede winter coat and dropped it behind me. The elderly one-eyed piano player looked up and smiled at my vanishing act. I wanted to stay and it was ok with her. 

What I didn’t realize at the time was that piano player was none other than Sweet Emma Barrett, a self-taught jazz pianist and singer who began her long career with the Original Tuxedo Orchestra between 1923 and 1936. She was world famous as one of the greats and was 80 years young on that night in New Orleans. 

Although I didn’t know who she was, I knew that she was unique. They nicknamed her “Bell Gal” because she always wore a red skull cap and matching garters with Christmas bells that jingled in time with her music. Something else stood out that night. She was completely paralyzed on the left side of her body. 

And let me tell you something, in the 10 years since her stroke, she had developed the ability to play that upright piano with one hand better than 99.9% of the population can play with two. Those 80-year-old fingers bounced across the ivory like a pinball machine on tilt. 

In their second set I made it abundantly clear that I was enjoying her music and as a performer with her back to the audience, she was enjoying my visible enthusiasm. So much so that when that crowd was again being escorted out, Sweet Emma reached across her body with her right hand and patted the bench beside her for me to sit down. 

Magic. 

Her bandmates did not seem surprised. Apparently, Sweet Emma had been asking men to sit next to her for decades.

The third set I will never forget. Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans, Rampart Street Parade, and When the Saints Go Marching In. 

I kissed her on the cheek and marched back to the hotel with my feet barely touching the ground. 

My life has led me to other nights and venues, none better than that but great in their own way. 

I’ve heard the Charlie Byrd Trio at an intimate evening of music and one-on-one conversation at UMBC in Catonsville, Maryland. An expensive, but heavenly night of jazz at the famous Birdland South in New York City. A very memorable night with the incomparable Billy Taylor at Blues Alley in Georgetown. Street music from Doreen in New Orleans and an introduction of my whole family to an evening of jazz at Fritzel’s European Jazz Pub on Bourbon Street. All wonderful. 

But the best of all, the one that comes close to matching a night with Sweet Emma Barrett, was a night at Southwest Middle School. We had great bleacher seats and a good view of the band. My granddaughter Harper sat confidently in her crisp white blouse, black slacks, and leather pumps. She was first clarinet in the school jazz band under the capable baton of Miss Linville. 

The tunes were familiar, the solos cool, and the whole vibe was wonderful. Kind of a full circle moment for an old jazz aficionado.  

I’m not crying. You’re crying.