New Orleans’ long line of trumpeters carry on a rich jazz tradition.
Throughout the first century of jazz, New Orleans produced many amazing musicians. Louis Armstrong became the city and jazz’s first great ambassador. Entering jazz’s second century, many talented trumpeters are following in his footsteps.
It is nearly impossible to overstate the drama of Armstrong’s miraculous climb to world-wide recognition and popularity. He was born at the turn of the century into extreme poverty in a neighborhood bordering Storyville, New Orleans’ official red light district. Not yet a teenager he was placed in a “Colored Waifs Home” after police caught him shooting a pistol on New Year’s Eve. He played in the home’s band and took to the cornet, an instrument very similar to a trumpet. By his late teens, Joe “King” Oliver took him under his wing and into his band. Oliver then took him to Chicago, where the two became famous in the early ’20s.
Armstrong spent the next decade increasing his fame for his virtuoso playing and entertaining. Thereafter, he rarely returned to New Orleans. Through the decades, styles changed and he sometimes played with less talented groups of musicians, but his musical genius remained unquestionable. Coupled with his huge personality, his talents took him around the world as a band leader well before his hometown was desegregated.
Back in New Orleans, many new trumpeters gained fame. The legendary Al Hirt grew up in New Orleans and played a swinging style of Dixieland jazz. Hirt, known as “Jumbo” to his friends, preferred to play melodic popular music rather than pursue the more esoteric sounds of modern jazz. He had been trained in classical music and led and played in big bands after World War II. But he made it big recording music with his New Orleans-based jazz band starting in the ’50s. His popularity translated into regular television appearances and a 15-year run as Playboy magazine’s favorite trumpeter. He ran a lively and popular club on Bourbon Street for years, only a couple blocks down from former bandmate, friend and clarinetist Pete Fountain.
Hirt also, perhaps only incidentally, passed on the legacy of New Orleans trumpeting superstars. At a rehearsal, he gave a trumpet to the son of his piano player to give him something to do. The piano player was Ellis Marsalis. The boy was Wynton Marsalis and the trumpet was his first.
Wynton Marsalis has climbed to the top of the jazz world. He is the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. He has recorded prolifically, won Grammys in both jazz and classical music and won a Pulitzer Prize for music.
While Marsalis lives in New York, New Orleans is not suffering for lack of accomplished or rising star trumpet players. One of the young lions is Nicholas Payton.
Though Payton is just 29, he has been playing the Jazz Fest for two decades, starting with his father Walkter Payton’s Snapbean Band. At the age of 19, Payton was invited to join Elvin Jones’ Jazz Machine – as musical director. Since then he’s recorded several diverse albums including a Grammy-winning collaboration with Doc Cheatham and a tribute to Louis Armstrong.
“I am one of the few people fortunate enough to make a living leading my own band,” Payton says. It keeps him on the road most of the year. When he’s in town, a good place to catch him is at Snug Harbor (626 Frenchmen St., 949-0696), a jazz club that favors modern and progressive styles of jazz but includes plenty of traditional New Orleans jazz as well.
Another blazing New Orleans trumpeter who has climbed to the upper echelons of modern jazz is Terence Blanchard. Blanchard was chosen by Downbeat magazine in 2000 as its readers’ choice for jazz artist of the year and for best album. Blanchard’s music gets well beyond jazz audiences though. He wrote the musical scores for many Spike Lee films, including Clockers, Malcolm X, Jungle Fever, as well as for MGM films such as Original Sin. Blanchard was recently hand chosen to succeed Ellis Marsalis as the director of jazz studies at the University of New Orleans.
There are several local trumpeters who favor more traditional styles of jazz and play more frequently in local clubs. Wendell Brunious and Gregg Stafford both play more traditional jazz at clubs such as Preservation Hall (726 St Peter St., 522-2841) and the Palm Court Jazz Café (1204 Decatur St., 525-0200).
Many New Orleans musicians make their name in the marching brass bands that play jazz funerals and “second line parades.” The ReBirth Brass Band was co-founded by a young trumpeter named Kermit Ruffins. Blowing their brass band standard “Do Whatcha Wanna,” the ReBirth broadened the brass band repertoire. Brass bands originally jazzed up spirituals and hymns for jazz funerals. “When the Saints Go Marching In” is an old hymn. The ReBirth brought funk and soul sounds into the music. They covered Earth, Wind and Fire and other popular music of the ’70s.
After roughly a decade with the ReBirth, Ruffins left to focus more on an old style of New Orleans jazz. “Traditional New Orleans is a strong backbeat with a steady swing,” he says, citing Armstrong’s “Hello Dolly” and “When You’re Smiling.” Ruffins takes his band, the Barbecue Swingers, to all sorts of New Orleans nightspots, from jazz clubs to corner bars (Vaughan’s, 800 Lesseps St., 947-5562) to dancing and big band clubs.
As always, there are younger trumpeters climbing their way up the ladder. Irvin Mayfield is making waves with Los Hombres Calientes. They are infusing jazz with afro-Cuban and Latin beats. Mayfield forms the core of the band along with veteran percussionist Bill Summers, who got his own early start with Herbie Hancock. As jazz carries into its second century, youth and tradition are well acquainted in New Orleans.