Henry Red Allen - Jazz Monthly - February 1970

During the late Henry Allen's last but one trip to this country I spent many days with him while he taped his autobiography. It was originally intended that it should be published in book form by Cassell & Company Ltd., but for a variety of reasons the plan has had to be dropped. On his final British trip I proposed to get Henry to fill in and enlarge certain parts of the autobiography, but an initial meeting convinced me that his health was such as to make this impossible. In fact he died within a couple of months of concluding this tour which, I am certain, was undertaken only because medical expenses had taken most if not all of his savings. The autobiography was to be called, at Henry Allen's request Make Them Happy, and Henry was particularly keen to correct what he felt were false impressions of early New Orleans days. This extract, and others that will follow, deal in the main with New Orleans and the musicians with whom Henry Allen played there. I have, as far as is possible, kept the story exactly as Henry told it, only making minor corrections in a few instances, though the order of telling has been slightly readjusted to follow a chronological sequence. I first met Henry Allen in 1958 and in the ensuing years my respect for him as a man and as a musician grew at each meeting, so that when I heard of his death I was conscious of the loss of someone whom I had come to regard as a personal friend - a feeling shared by many who knew him in this country. I am happy that extracts from his story can appear in Jazz Monthly and am grateful to Dr. Desmond Flower and Mr. David Polley of Cassell & Company Ltd., for their co-operation in making this possible.

Albert McCarthy

The Early Years - Henry 'Red' Allen

As far back as I can remember I was playing music, starting in my father's band when I was about eight years old. The band consisted of eleven pieces as a rule - three trumpets, two trombones, alto horn, baritone horn, two clarinets, and bass and snare drums - and I played either trumpet or alto horn. My other job with the band at this time was to carry the music, as frequently my father cut off the titles of the more popular pieces to avoid other bands copying them, and they were just called out as number one, number two, and so on. My mother stopped me playing the trumpet for a while, on account of the fact that she had seen some of the great musicians of the day with their cheeks puffed out and their necks protruding and reckoned the instrument was too strenuous for me! She told me to play an easier instrument and got me a violin, but though I took a few lessons from Peter Bocage I was never keen on it and the practice came to an end one day when a friend visited our house and found me playing it like a bass fiddle. Just as I was about to make some excuse my father yelled at me and asked what I was doing playing the violin that way. I couldn't figure out how he knew but discovered that he had a mirror in his room and by looking into it could see what I was doing. After this I got back to practising on the trumpet again, though my father tried hiding it or turning the valves to keep me from blowing, not because he was really against my playing it but because he was trying to please my mother.

By day my father worked as a longshoreman and at this time most musicians had day jobs away from music. His band had probably more great musicians in it than any other I have heard of, such guys as Buddy Bolden, King Oliver, Big Eye Louis Nelson and many others I could name, and this was great for me though at the time and for many years afterwards I had no idea that they would be recognised as pioneers or makers of jazz history. By now I was playing trumpet pretty well, my father having convinced my mother that it could be done without my having my cheeks puffed out or my neck protruding! I kept getting compliments from neighbours about my playing too and I think that my mother rather went for this.

Those parade jobs with my father meant a lot of walking. At first he would arrange for me to meet the band at some corner and then I could come in and play a number, generally getting a lot of applause, though whether for being good or just because I was a youngster is something I don't know. After a while I went all the way in the parades, walking miles and miles, and I just grew up in this setting. At one time Louis Armstrong and I happened to be in my father's band, on a parade - I just realise now what a brass section that could have been with Louis, my father, and myself - and already Louis was great and because he squeezed me I played as well as I could. My father wasn't a great jazzman but he had lots of power and was a fine musician as far as reading and organising was concerned, in addition to being an outstanding conductor. He brought a lot of guys into New Orleans from such places as Tipita and Morgan City, and at one time had two brothers of his in the band, Sam and George Allen. I've seen several early New Orleans photographs of parade bands where the drummer is listed as unknown, but it was my uncle, George Allen. We also had an uncle in Burbeck City, which is across the river from Morgan City, same as Algiers and New Orleans, by the name of Ezekiel Mack, and though I never did hear him personally I was told he could play well. Then, on my mother's side, an aunt of mine was a very fine organist and pianist who used to play in the church a lot. That gave me the chance to play in the church as well, on such numbers as What a friend we have in Jesus. That was my crip at that time - when I say crip, I mean my outstanding number.

Nowadays lots of people ask me about Louis, and as I remember they had a lot of great trumpeters around New Orleans but Louis was already coming up to top them all when I was a boy, though at the time I didn't pay too much attention - like, if I was to live this over, I'd have the same life again but would pay more attention to what was going on. Still, Louis was really great then, along with Buddy Petit and Henry Rene, and I admired, Louis, Rene and Chris Kelly, though I never did go for playing with the plunger myself like Chris, learning how to growl without one.

Most of the bands at this time played spirituals, because they believe in sadness at birth and rejoicing at death. That's why they went in for big parties when someone was dead, and everybody would have a band for a funeral, it didn't matter whether they were poor or had a lot of money or belonged to a lot of clubs and societies. If you belonged to four or five societies or clubs, you had four or five bands. If you didn't belong to any, they would put a saucer on your chest - the deceased's chest that is - and others would walk into view the body and contribute five, ten, fifteen or twenty cents, or a quarter, whatever could be spared. Now whatever was raised, you got a band to coincide with this, musicians getting three dollars for a parade and the leader four dollars, the extra dollar being for phone calls, or if the band already had a gig on the same day then the dollar was clear. Talking of phone calls, it wasn't like it was today then, for the number of people with phones in New Orleans was not all that great and the lines seemed to be always open so you could talk as long as you wanted for a nickel. My father always gave the number of our local grocery store where the owner, a very kind guy, would call anyone to the phone that was wanted. If a call came through for my father he would go to the front of the shop and holler his name, then neighbours would shout from house to house until it reached us. Maybe then my father would have to get dressed properly to go and take the call, but nobody ever seemed to mind waiting and it was still all done for a nickel! Usually calls were about jobs and I would go along with my father to get the men for a funeral or parade or whatever it was, and if it was during the carnival days or Mardi Gras there would be a shortage of available men and my father would be foraging about in the places out in the country, picking up musicians like Punch Miller or Papa Celestin to fill in...

Sometimes during a funeral we would go into the church - the band that is - and play these different hymns. That's where I would come in as the watchman, for the band would then go over to a bar while I would lie on the ground or sit outside until the people are coming out of the service. Now, when I got that cue, I would dash over the bar and call the guys. The snare-drum player would be the first one I'd call, he'd then make a roll and he's rolling until everyone comes out of the bar. When everybody's there the bass drummer would hit three notes, I mean three beats - no cymbal, very slow. As a matter of fact, they're organising what number they will play, and they go into that number. Then the snare drummer takes off the snares - they give a kind of tim-tom effect - and that's where the sadness came out, with people probably crying or screaming. Now it's a slow walk to the cemetery and when you get there - from a kid up, I done this - the sermon going on and, when they say "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" or whatever goes on, well the drum gives a roll again from outside the cemetery, and they're ready to come back again, and the band plays that first number "Didn't he ramble, he rambled till the butchers cut him down". After that, everybody's having a ball, parading back in tempo, the band playing different numbers. That's when my dad used to say "Take it, son", that's where I would come on and play the jazz numbers.

We didn't go straight into the hall as soon as we got back - people would be jumping in the streets and everything - and if they have two or three bands they're going into a buck, by 'buck' I mean a session when the bands play against each other. When the bands got back home they might at first make for their hall but they'd never go straight in, you'd first go across the street, to the corner, come back around and then go into the hall. But you then came back and played for ten or fifteen minutes out there on the porch, which we called the gallery. Now, if you're a member of a club, you'd get a dollar for carrying the banner, fifty cents for carrying the flag, and it's up to you to give the two guys something that's holding the tassels on each side of the banner. Sometimes a musician had to double from playing at this funeral or parade to go and work at a dance the same night - I'm sure that's one reason why the guys had such strong embouchures around New Orleans. Now the job that night, wherever you're playing, that calls for a meal - all contracts call for a meal during the time of the dance, and also state that you must be paid for the job right after the dinner or the supper you're having. And you'd probably have gumbo or ham and potato salad, you could get either one, one to each musician. But I liked playing with Chris Kelly because he was a little superstitious, he didn't eat anybody's food but what he brought with him you know. So that would give me two chances, and I would make sure I got Chris's share, having gumbo and a ham and salad. When I say Chris was superstitious, I mean that he always had the feeling that somebody would poison him or do him wrong, so always brought his own meals.

I read a statement in a book, I think it was Nick La Rocca's book, that he was one of the originators of jazz. Well, who can say who was the originator of this? Anyway, he mentioned that when he went to Chicago, the recording people went on trips to New Orleans to find somebody who could play jazz and couldn't find them. I resent this remark very much. Although I have nothing against what he played, or what anybody plays, as far as that, we certainly had a lot of people around New Orleans at that time who could play good jazz and I guess that they could not have looked very hard, or maybe they were looking just one way racewise, whether they went uptown, downtown, back o'town or what. Whether white or coloured people started all this I really don't know - it was started before my time - but the coloured people must have had something to do with it.

I remember hearing a little boogie-woogie, but we didn't have too many pianists in New Orleans who were well known at this time. Instead of using piano we generally used a guitar, and I think the reason for this was that everybody had a piano in their home, whether they played it or not, my guess being that as many as 90% of the houses had one. Guys like Clarence Williams used to plug numbers from door to door; he'd come into your home and play your piano, and sell his numbers - the price would be around ten cents whatever the number was - then he'd go next door and play again, and so on. In addition every saloon or tavern had a piano in it and you were free to go in there and bang on the piano, whether you could play it or not. So a guy taught himself, but they didn't learn within the boogie idiom or anything like that, because they thought they would have to play along with a band. We did have a few boogie woogie players but they weren't all that many in number. Another big reason why few of the bands used a piano was that most of the halls, the dance halls rather, didn't have one, so you'd need to borrow a piano from someone's home in order to use it. Now it was easy to get thirty or forty guys to help you take this piano out of these people's home up to the hall, but where people stopped loaning the piano out, it was getting it back. After the dance they had trouble in getting anyone to haul it back. To get back to the parades again: The uniform for parades was white pants, blue shirts. Naturally the hats were reversible, you could take the top off and leave the white on, but when we played a funeral we wore dark suits to mark the sadness of the occasion. My father used to give dances to collect enough money to get the uniforms, and you can see in some of the old photographs the musicians with the uniforms on, including my father with the great hat that had all the trimmings on. When they had these great dances I would be there all night, now and then nodding off for a few minutes, but going straight on to school next morning. My father was very strict about that and made sure that I went to school always, and I did pretty well there at Macdonnel 32 which is in Algiers, that's on the west New Orleans side, so not being a drop-out I made it through to High School before the trumpet finally took over completely.

They had a lot of great parade bands in New Orleans when I was a kid, some of them still going today incidentally, such as the Onward, the Tuxedo, and the Excelsior. As a matter of fact I played so regularly with the Excelsior Band that some people must have thought I was a full time member, starting out by playing the drums - either bass drum or snare drum - and managing to get a few good gigs as a result. When I was a kid I was also a very fine - though I say it myself - ukulele player, having good wrists and the ability to pick up chords very quickly. After a while there were so many good ukulele players around that I gave up and concentrated solely on the trumpet.

The first time I played one of the dancing schools - where the band never stops and goes right on through - I was on parade and a very fine bass man by the name of Doug Ernest offered me a job that night. So I got in touch with my father and went right on and played that job after he gave me permission to take it. There was a guy in the band, a very fine trombonist by the name of Freddie Bubu, who admired me and he told me that he thought I played like Louis. Anyway, we played all that night; only thing was these guys, every one of them, was getting a drink of water now and then, and I didn't know what was happening. I was trying to play right on through, but that was supposed to be the rest period, something that I didn't understand.

Looking back on the jobs I played in New Orleans away from my father's band I remember working at a couple of halls, one was called the Young Friends Of Honour - we called it the Turtleback - and another was the Sacred Heart. I also played at the Eagle's Hall which was at the end of Algiers at a place called McDonoughville, then at a few places around Gretna, all of them being within about a three-mile radius of home. One time I remember getting caught up in a jam session with Kid Thomas and our group were supposed to have won the contest, anyway they gave us the prize which was a sachet bag. The people at the hall didn't seem to like this too much and on the ground that we were kids they had some policeman come and take the bag back and it was then given to the Kid Thomas group. We couldn't do anything about it because we had no business in the place in any case, on account of our age. Soon after this I ran into George Lewis and my father gave George permission to use me on a job. The very first night I played with George someone fired off a pistol in the place we were working and the police raided it, as a result of which the whole band were taken down to the station. Fortunately they didn't keep us in prison long and released the whole band. Another time I played with Willie Cornish, a great trombone player at that time, and he used the kids band for a job in a cabaret where they used to keep the whiskey in the basin - what we called a face basin in which you washed - in case the police came in. If they did arrive all they had to do was to tilt the basin and waste the whiskey, and no evidence! If someone offered us a drink we would have a coca-cola and whoever offered it to us had to pay the price of a whiskey to the cabaret owners, though this was alright by me as I wasn't drinking anyway.

One of the greatest of the trumpeters in New Orleans around this time was Emmanuel Perez, and I had the great fortune of working with him. As a matter of fact I worked with most of the guys around there on various jobs but the two men who took the most interest in me were both trombonists, Yank Johnson and Harrison Barnes. It was Yank who got me a job with the famous Sam Morgan band, though I was just used as an extra with each guy giving me a dollar apiece or maybe fifty cents, just what they felt like giving. The Morgan band usually worked at a place called the Astoria Ballroom and I remember that Sam Morgan had been taken ill and so Yank Johnson had brought me along to fill in for him. Meanwhile the other members of the band had sent for Henry Rena to take Morgan's place and that's how I became the extra, though I must admit that this job was one of the greatest kicks of my life, for I could enjoy listening to Rena without having to be on a parade. The band had just got hold of a number called Weary blues, so they passed around the sheet music for this and quite naturally everybody wanted to show their musicianship and didn't want to be seen peeping at the music too closely; they wanted to show off to the public and prove themselves to be fast sight readers. In fact, though, the Morgan band had already run it down a few times in private rehearsals, but Rena had trouble getting into it until Yank nudged him on the leg and told him that it was the same thing as Shake it and break it. Once Rena realised what it was he really went into it.

My first trip away from New Orleans was a job with the Sidney Desvigne band on the "Island Queen" which went as far as Cairo and then back again. We had such guys in the band as Bill Matthews, trombone, "Pops" Foster and Walter Pichon who was one of my ace boys, we had done a lot together since our school days. On the boat Pichon became a very good player of the calliope. It was when I got back from this trip that I heard from King Oliver.

Quite a few people I knew had left New Orleans to play with Oliver - Barney Bigard, Albert Nicholas, Paul Barbarin and Luis Russell amongst them - but then some of the men dropped out of his band and he sent home for Willie Foster, Paul Barnes and myself. We left together and joined the band in St.Louis in April 1927. I have read in some articles that I joined the Oliver band in Chicago but I didn't get there until some time after this. I could never understand why they use terms like "Chicago Jazz", "New Orleans Jazz" or "New York Jazz", because I made records with the Chicago Rhythm Kings before I had ever been there. Anyway I met the Oliver band in St.Louis and it was a great experience for me, but nothing to what I felt when we arrived in New York and saw the banners there running from one side of the street to the other, with a sign saying "The East Meets The West". We played against, or rather alongside, Fletcher Henderson's band and the Fess Williams band, and in the latter group I had the pleasure of hearing Jimmy Harrison for the first time.

After a while the guys in the band got a little nervous at facing the top bands in New York and went to talk to King Oliver, Oliver reassured everyone by pointing out "We're playing what we know" and as a result we began to gain in confidence. We had some great musicians in the band and they included Omer Simeon, Barney Bigard and Paul Barnes in the reed section. Tick Gray - a very good trumpet man who is not too well known - along with King and myself made up the trumpet section, and there was Kid Ory on trombone, Paul Barbarin and Willie Foster - "Pop" Foster's brother - in the rhythm section. I stayed a little while with Oliver and we worked at the Savoy Ballroom, though as a matter of fact I was not too keen on being away from home because I was used to my mother doing everything like seeing to my clothes and getting all my meals, and didn't like the idea of having to do everything myself. I found it hard to get used to the idea of being away, particularly for any length of time, in these far parts. Fortunately King Oliver took a liking to me and insisted that I lived with him at his sister's place, so one way and another I began to get some confidence. We did pretty well against some of the great bands in New York, but I felt that I wasn't too well established there, particularly in my knee pants! You see at this time it didn't matter what size you were, until you reached a certain age in New Orleans you wore knee pants. I was saved by a guy called Buchanan who rented a suit for me from a rental firm under the Savoy, so I felt pretty great then and began to take more interest in what was going on. When we took the stand we played and everybody gathered around the bandstand to hear what we had to offer, and then the next band would play and after that we were back again, so it was real interesting. Then our gig at the Savoy ended and we were to have gone into the Cotton Club, but something happened there, though to this day I never found out what it was - maybe finance - and Ellington got the job. We were very disappointed at this, for we had been certain of getting the job and had been promised it for sure. Instead we set off to play a dance at Baltimore but we had very poor luck there. Our first dance was completely rained off, so we thought we had better do something to cover ourselves in the future, particularly as our room rent and meal bills were beginning to run up and our landlady was starting to cut down on our meals - King Oliver used to have this bowl of sugar and water along with about half a loaf of bread before he got into his meal - and the boys got a little desperate and tried to get started on their meal before King knew about it. Then King made a deal with the lady to bring him in fifteen or twenty minutes before the meal and serve us all at the same time. But the lady was still a little worried because the loot wasn't coming on, so to make sure we got our loot at the next dance we insured it - if it rained or anything, we'd get paid. So it rained on that day, and the curfew must have been eight o'clock, because it rained right up to eight o'clock and then stopped! That threw us out, made our contract with the insurance no good, and to make matters worse the rain had messed up the light fixtures at the place we were supposed to work. Everyone got discouraged and the first one to leave was Clarence Black, he was a violinist who was fronting the band, and when he got home he formed his own group and sent for Omer Simeon. Most of us went back to New York, still trying to stick around in case any jobs came up and with King Oliver still trying to hold us, but nothing happened and I went on home to New Orleans.

I had not been home long before I got a job with Walter "Fats" Pichon, working at a club called The Pelican about four nights a week, and this worked out very good. There were two bands sharing the job, the one led by "Fats" Pichon and another led by Oscar "Papa" Celestin, and we used to play against each other. Guy Kelly was in Celestin's band and he and I became the drawing cards, with a lot of people coming along to hear us blowing against each other, though Guy and I became very good friends anyway. The funny thing was that my friends and Guy's friends didn't get along too well for some reason, and they felt that there ought to be more saltiness between us just because we were playing against each other, but after a while Guy and I got fed up with this and we decided to go to Chicago together. Guy did go but I had another offer and made up my mind to stick around the home area a little longer, working with Fate Marable on the riverboats.

I'd been listening to Fate Marable since I was small, when I used to go on the levee over in Algiers and the music from his band on the boats would carry across the river. I've already mentioned that I had worked on the "Island Queen" with Sidney Desvigne - this was one of the fleet owned by the Streckfus brothers - and I think that Fate had heard about me as a result of this, for he came into The Pelican one time and after hearing me offered this job. When I started on the boat I got several raises as the Streckfus brothers wanted me to stay on. There were five of them, all brothers, and they were really interested in the music and employed most of the famous early musicians. The other musicians in the band were from St.Louis and included Albert Snaer on trumpet, bassist Al Morgan, and a guitarist called Al Sears - not the tenor player who made his name with Duke Ellington. For a short while Willie Humphreys came in on clarinet, but there were a few changes now and then. We started by playing in and around New Orleans, then we'd leave for a scheduled trip of maybe two months, but usually we'd be gone for three. We didn't dash madly on to St.Louis, but the boat worked its way up, playing night after night in different places. A lot of people think, when you mention riverboats, you had to check your pistols when you came on, and that the boats were full of women good-timing, but I didn't find it like this. I do know that everyone had a good time but it wasn't as wild as some writers say, and I can't remember personally ever seeing any gambling on board when I was playing. We played stops such as Memphis, in fact when we got there we would play two nights, and it was here that a guy called Loren Watson first heard me, or maybe heard of me, because I have the feeling that King Oliver may have mentioned my name to him. We finally would get to St.Louis and play there, and when you reached there it was every tub - that means you have to get off and get you a room outside the city, because the boat would be stationed there a while. We had lots of fun on the boat though, because they had a cook on board who was from New Orleans and I'd suggest that he cook red beans and rice. I found out that he was a great cigar smoker and kept him happy with supplies so he would fix these New Orleans dishes, though the guys in the band who came from St.Louis weren't so keen on rice and always gave us the chance to have our fill!

There were some great musicians out of St.Louis, guys like Charlie Creath, Dewey Jackson and Fate Marable, and as they all played the boats I had heard most of them quite early in New Orleans. One time Creath, Jackson and Marable were all in the same band together, but as they were all leaders in their own right there was some tension going on. I remember once hearing them in a cabaret and when Dewey - a great blues player - ran over his horn to warm it up the people would start screaming. Then Charlie Creath would hit just one note and draw attention - his tone was so big and wide that he would pull everything together - and I thought that both were great trumpeters. When we were berthed in St.Louis I would get around and hear different people, and I remember listening to Johnny "Buggs" Hamilton who later became well known when he played with Fats Waller, and Blue, Reputed Blue as he called himself, who later on was on a couple of my recordings for Victor. His real name was Thornton Blue.

At the time there seemed to me to be so many great players around St.Louis that it's hard to name them all. Others I remember are Nat Storey - a really fine trombonist - drummer Floyd Campbell, and a pianist called Burroughs Lovingood, who as a matter of fact, I still correspond with and is now working in Washington, D.C. Lovingood was a great pianist and we worked together with Fate Marable on the boat, using two pianos. I remember that Fate would get these hard numbers, and play them with just the bass backing him, probably trying to show Lovingood up or something. But Lovingood was a little fast musicianwise, so Fate would study first, hold the music on his lap and run it over a few times, and when pass it out to Lovingood while everybody's looking. And if there was a really hard passage coming up Fate would decide to go and have a drink of water, just when the piano passage was due, and leave Lovingood out there. But he pulled through alright, it always turned out o.k. Fate gave me a message when I left the boat, for Jelly Roll Morton, but I had trouble leaving in any case. You had to put up fifty dollars when you joined the band on the boat - a sort of guarantee of good behaviour - but though you were supposed to get it back when you left I never did have it, still haven't to this day. I went home to New Orleans on account of the fact that my grandfather had passed and I thought, and my family thought, that I should be there for the burial. When I got back after this to the boat they wanted me to stay on, but I had already given in my notice and told them I was going on to New York. They didn't really believe that my story about my grandfather passing was true, claiming I had made it up to get away. First Streckfus ordered me to stay, then he offered me a little more money to remain - I had had raises a couple of times before - and also Fate tried hard to keep me. But I had to go this time, because I had wires from both Luis Russell and Duke Ellington offering me jobs with their band, and was determined to make New York City.

Publication: Jazz Monthly
Issue: 180
Date: February 1970
Country: UK