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New Orleans - Part 2

© Barney Quick

The generation of New Orleans jazz musicians that came of age in the late 1940s had bebop fever as badly as their counterparts anywhere else. The problem was that, with the public's expectation that New Orleans players would nod to tradition, and the craze for jump blues among young blacks with disposable income, bop wasn't very commercially viable. It was relegated to an after-hours activity.

They listened to it, though. Cossimo Matassa had a store on Rampart Street that sold appliances, musical equipment and records. Drummer Earl Palmer, pianist Harold Battiste, tenor sax player Alvin "Red" Tyler, trumpeter Dave Bartholomew and others would hang out for hours pouring over the latest Charlie Parker and Tadd Dameron sides.

Matassa moved his recording projects into a cramped studio in the back of his store. Not only was Roy Brown cutting more r&b, but others such as Bartholomew, Fats Domino and Professor Longhair needed a place to record as well. The musicians mentioned above became the house band at Matassa's facility.

Art Rupe, the owner of the west-coast r&b label Specialty, saw the success labels such as Lew Chudd's Imperial were having with New Orleans r&b talent. He flew into town in 1952 and promoted his own search for acts on local radio. A deluge of hopeful performers resulted. On the last day of his visit, as the time was nearing for him to go to the airport, a visibly nervous seventeen-year-old approached him for a last-minute audition. Rupe thought the lad, Lloyd Price, was going to cry if denied his chance, so he heard Price's song, "Lawdy Miss Clawdy." Rupe immediately canceled his flight and booked studio time with Matassa. Fats Domino played piano on that first Lloyd Price record, giving it that easygoing stride feel behind Price's rather urgent vocal.

Price cut three more Specialty records. Then, like many an r&b performer in the early 50s,he had to take a career hiatus for military service. When he returned to New Orleans, he started his own label which licensed his material to ABC Records. He started using slicker arrangements, with an eye toward pop crossover possibilities. His late-50s hits such as "Personality" and "I'm Gonna Get Married" achieved that crossover status for him.

Musicians from elsewhere were gravitating toward New Orleans in the early 50s. A down-home blues performer from the Mississippi delta named Eddie Jones developed a wild, unique club act that gave him a big local following. Billing himself as Guitar Slim, he would use hundreds of feet of microphone cord to connect his guitar to his amplifier, so that at the climax of his show, he could walk out of the club and down the street, attracting cheering throngs outside. They would enlist when they saw his outrageously dyed hair and flamboyant costumes while those inside still heard his blistering licks.

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