I picked this particular article because I found it to be the most complete and illustrative history/biography of Papa Jack’s life and contributions to early jazz I’ve read. A very special thanks to my friend Dr. Karl Koenig for his permission to reprint his work in it’s entirety.
“Papa” Jack Laine is called the father of white jazz by some writers and historians. There is no doubt of his importance in the early history of brass band and jazz in New Orleans.
One looks at a teacher and judges him by his pupils. One looks at a school of musicians and evaluates and analyzes their style from a major influence, This article will approach “Papa” Laine as to his activities and influence on the New Orleans music scene, the success of his alumni and the opinions of him voiced by his compatriots.
Much as the parish bands around New Orleans were a microcosm of how an early white jazz musician began his career and how he lived his life.
Some have taken credit for inventing jazz. Most people will tell you the black musicians around New Orleans started jazz – early black musicians credit their fellow musicians with the development of jazz. There are a few that say it was the early “Spasm” bands of some young white musicians. The early beginnings of jazz can only be theorized, never proven as to it’s origins or the exact facts surrounding jazz’s birth.
Black and white musicians did not usually play in the same band when marching in New Orleans parades and other musical activities. There were “crossovers” – those very light skinned blacks who were taken as being white. Laine had a few of these as regular members of his bands. Included were Dave Perkins, Achilles and George Baquet, Baptiste Aucoin and Gil Rouge. The importance of these crossovers playing in Laine’s bands cannot be overlooked.
They also performed with the leading black bands in New Orleans. The importance? Laine’s white musicians were exposed to the black band experience though association with these men. Also, these men brought the white band experience to the black community. While Laine stated he didn’t hear many black bands, he had within his group, the influence produced by black musicians. This “bi-band” experience bridged the gap between Laine’s white band and the black band tradition, putting Laine in a very influential and important position in the evolvement of New Orleans brass bands that developed into the early jazz bands.
Laine said there were bands that were “mixed up”: “They had some bands…..were pretty good mixed up….Gil Rouge was no white man. Baptiste Aucoin neither.” In his biography, Pops Foster addressed the practice of colored musicians playing with white bands. Pops stated, “The whites had a musician’s union and my cousin Dave Perkins was President. They didn’t know he was colored. He played tuba and trombone, taught music and lent out instruments. He played with all the white bands. The white union would book colored bands on a job with a white band if someone wanted one. Many times the Brunies band would have a job for another band and they would call us. The Dixieland band in those days was a mixed band and nobody paid any attention. The leader was Larry Shields and you had Achilles Baquet, George Baquet’s brother playing with them.”
Thus there was contact indirectly between the white bands and black bands of New Orleans.
Dave Perkins, a very fair-skinned man, played trombone, tuba and alto horn with Jack Laine’s band. He was a very well-schooled musician who taught Laine and the members of his band to read music (along with Prof. Meade). Perkins was considered by law to be a black, but was a regular member of the Laine band and a good friend of Laine.
Just a today’s young people reenact a presentation by their favorite rocks bands by pretending to be playing imaginative guitars, thus did the young boys of the 1880′s Spasm bands imitate the activities of the most popular ensemble of music in their day, the brass band. This form of musical ensemble was extremely evident in the festive city of New Orleans. Music was ever present in almost every social activity in the city.
Laine described how he became involved in music: “I started in music when I was right a young kid. I used to play on tin cans until the Cotton & Sugar Exposition were here. (World’s Industrial & Cotton Centennial Exposition opened Dec 6th, 1884, closed June 1st, 1885) That’s been 70 odd years now and I was about 8 years old (Note: 11 years old) when they brought me a drum up there, a field drum, after they had finished and left from here, see, they closed here, and they sold out everything they had….I managed to get a field drum, ever since I’ve been playing music.”
Laine stated that he soon organized a band and that: “there were no bands in this town then, no white band at all.” (Research has discovered that there were many white bands in New Orleans in the year 1885. Some names include – Fischers, Bockhavens, Yeagers, Froebas, Wolfs, Bauers, Braun and others) Once Laine organized a band he found there was a real need for more brass bands and “wasn’t idle no time at all. Pretty nigh on every night I had an engagement to fill out and got so that I organized five bands.” Laine also mentions that Prof. Meade would come and teach the band members how to read music.
As there were plentiful jobs in New Orleans in the late 19th century, Laine remembered playing as many as five jobs in one day. He started out playing for Dr. Capdau (and advertising job for antiseptic tablets), then the band got on a furniture wagon and played for the advertising of the Merry Widow Ball they were going to play for that night. Arriving at Calliope and St. Charles, they climbed down from the wagon and marched in a parade. They got onto the wagon again to Decatur and Frenchman and viewed the masker and then advertised the ball again. That night, of course, they played dance music for the Merry Widow Ball.
The Laine band continued to be active until the First World War – “The war took my boys away from me.” The band did the Mardi Gras parades for years – also played for balls, picnics, dances, political rallies, weddings, etc. At Milneberg, Laine had three bands most every Sunday.
Most of the time Laine’s band would play Sunday at Milneberg during the day and proceed to either Crescent, Southern or Suburban Park and play a night job there. Laine stated: “Come from Milneberg, go right on these other jobs and play, and finish out my contract.”
While the number and instrumentation of a typical brass band is known, Laine used musicians according to the demands of the job, the availability of the musicians that could be acquired and the type of job it was. He stated that on parades he used two trombones, baritone, tuba, alto horn, two cornets, two clarinets, and two drums – a total of 11. In two pictures of Laine bands there were two drums, four cornets, baritone, clarinet, trombone and tuba – a total of 10.
Laine’s reputation was such that during World War I he was asked to organize a band for the army at Camp Beauregard in Alexandria, La. He was about 45 years old, probably too old to be drafted so he volunteered when asked.
The use of double drums seems to have began during Laine’s career.
Large dances were held in large ballrooms, usually calling for two drummers and a musical group of around 10 men. If it was a smaller place and they would only want so many men, Laine would use the ‘double drum’ i.e. the use of one man playing both the bass drum and snare drum at the same time. Included would be the cymbal, wood block, etc.
For most outdoor activities they would use 2 drummers (West End, picnics, parades and open air pavilions. Laine is said to have developed the bass drum pedal and was one of the first to use wire brushes. Laine states: “When I started I had two cymbals, then I started wire – I made a ring out of wire, heavy wire and I used that as the other cymbal. It went around mighty good”
It has been said by many that in New Orleans music, the most important drum was the bass drum. Cie Frazier mentions this fact and Laine also talks about the importance of a good bass drummer: “all my men, you know, the minute I’d be off the bass drum, they could feel it. They’d eat the head offa me to get back on that bass drum, wouldn’t let me play snare drum in the streets, I had to play that bass drum.” Laine further states that he used cowbells and sleigh bells of which he used to bounce them on his knees.
He used a ratchet and an assortment of whistles. One of Laine’s regular band members, Manuel Mello describes Laine’s drum set: “His traps (foot pedal) consisted of one bar with a nickel baseball on the end. And a shade spring with an additional shade spring on the side, in case the first one let go. Pedal was home made (sic: Laine’s trade in the early days was as a blacksmith ).
Laine stopped playing after or during the First World War. Mello remembers the last job he played with Laine, who probably had gotten rid of much of his equipment. Mello describes this last job of Laines: “Job was over the river. We had to kick rungs out of the chair to make drum sticks. He had nothing. A snare drum with 2 batter heads on it, instead of a snare head and a batter head, He would use the batter head on the snare drum. When he sat down to play a job, they had to tie the bass drum to a chair so it wouldn’t get away from him.”
Laine’s bands, until Prof. Meade began working with them, were ‘head bands’, not reading bands. “A good deal of the boys picked up notes (reading) wonderfully, some of them couldn’t, but you could play a tune, let them hear it just once, and the next time you go over it, they gonna play it the same as you got it on spots” Laine remarked. Laine was about 17 or 18 years old when he began reading music. (C. 1890)
Because of the importance of jazz history, of which it is said that jazz was begun by musicians playing by ear, the fact that Laine and many of his fellow musicians were at first ‘ear’ players has its parallel in the many black bands that learned and performed music in the same way. Each band contained, most of the time, both types of musicians - those that read and those that played by ear.
From the list of Laine’s band alumni , it can be seen that white band music did evolve around Laine during his heyday in New Orleans (1890-1917). This time has been called the Laine Era and it is during this time that Jazz historians believe that Jazz was born. Most, if not all of the ODJB were musicians who had played in Laine’s bands. If they were playing the kind of jazz that they recorded and in the same style they played in Chicago, they had to have been playing it around New Orleans prior to their departure from the city to go to Chicago. Even the music that was played in the Laine band eventually became the early repertoire of the early Chicago Jazz bands of Tom Brown, the ODJB and the NORK.
There was a court trial as to the authorship of a number of these tunes. Laine stated: “This LaRocca changed it …The Livery Stable Blues and all the likes of that sort of stuff, he changed all of that stuff see, had different names for them. Clarinet Marmalade, Tiger Rag, etc. that’s all our stuff.”
Tom Brown was the musician who brought the first white New Orleans band to Chicago in 1915. He was a Laine alumni. If Laine had accepted an offer he received to bring his band to Chicago, it is highly possible that it would have been Laine’s name that would be noted in the history of jazz as the first jazz band to record. Laine should be remembered as the leader and the influence of the many famous early jazz musicians who migrated to the large northern cities, bringing New Orleans style music and who created the ‘jazz age’.
Laine was asked about the style of music his band played: “All that stuff which we played we called it ragtime until they changed it to jazz. They began to call it jazz, its really ragtime stuff. There’s only two bands in this town (New Orleans ) that played the same stuff as I played Paul Barbarin and George Lewis. They played no different. If you set down and listen to them play music you can say right away, I heard Jack Laine’s band play that in the same style, same way.” While it did not receive the publicity of the Chicago band exodus, one of the first New Orleans bands to play north was a Jack Laine band. In 1904 they played at the St. Louis Exposition.
Popular in those early days of jazz would be the advertising wagons. A band would ride and play on these wagons to advertise picnics, balls, fights, etc. Laine states that he did a lot of jobs on the wagons: “I’ve played lots of advertising wagons. Plenty of them. I’ll never forget the day that I played for the John Ruskin Cigar advertisement on Canal Street….advertising wagons for fights, ball’s and stuff like that, advertising wagons for football players too, games. The wagon would move all through the town.”
Perhaps one way early jazz evolved was from the musicians ‘raggin’ the parade marches they played. Laine says: “If you syncopate a march you have a rag. There were straight numbers that were ragged. We’d tear it up, we’d rag it up.” Laine believes he is about the first one to ever have a ragtime band on the streets. Ragtime was how Laine got Dave Perkins in his band. “Dave Perkins used to be pretty good friends. Dave used to go see a lady in the same block Laine lived on (2405 Chartes, near Mandeville)” Dave was always coming by Laine’s house. Laine says , “Dave could take a sheet of music and read it just like nobody’s business”.
In a time line we would see that Laine had been playing for money quite a while before Buddy Bolden became well known. Laine’s band, remarked “Papa” was the first one he remembers coming out on the streets and playing that stuff (jazz). Laine states that he never knew the names of many of the tunes the band played. They did it entirely out of their heads, they made up that stuff. “We’d make up that stuff. Just like if we were playing it for years we’d make it up and we’d fight it out until we got some kind of time out of it”.
One band Laine talked about was the band of Prof. Braun – a band that played, “military stuff , marches, sentimental music, all straight stuff”. The interesting point that Laine mentions is that the Braun Band could and did play ragtime music. Laine says: “Braun could turn his band into a good ragtime band, because he knew his business”.
While Laine had some black men in his band, he does not admit that the Negro bands of his time had any influence on him or his bands. In fact he believed it was the other way around. Frequently and particularly at Milneberg, many great early bands met in friendly ‘cuttin contests’ from one wharf to another. More than likely one camp would have a colored band and the next a white one . Across the water the bands vied with each other. Laine recalls very vividly hearing the band on the next wharf practicing over and over, phrases and syncopations that his group had just finished – and the next week the colored band would be back at them playing the same time.
There is no doubt that the reverse is also possible with both groups to have exerted influence on the other without knowing it or with out wanting to admit it .
There are a number of interviews at Tulane Univ. by Laine’s old musician friends that talk about Laine’s career and his personality. Their information strengthens the previously stated facts.
Steve Brown talks of Laine’s bands and the fact that he usually gave orchestra jobs to his friends : “Jack Laine, more or less, had brass bands. He didn’t fool around with orchestras. (sic: Perhaps at first Laine did not take as many orchestra jobs but Laine is mentioned playing dance jobs in other interviews.) Laine had a big brass band. He was the bass drummer himself and whenever he had orchestra jobs he’d give us a lot of orchestra jobs. I’d play with Jack Laine in his band and he’d want me to play tuba for him. Many times the personal of the band would change.”
Eventually Steve and his friends began to find enough work to keep themselves busy and did not take any more Laine jobs. Steve played tuba for Jack Laine quite a number of times across the river and he remembers many different affairs. Brown also adds further proof that brass bands were the dance bands of this era. He states : “We used to employ brass bands for dances too, great big dances. Now they use to have dances out in all the large pavilions. They’d have a great big brass band in order to be heard. But later on the lake in Milneberg and West End, they had certain pavilions out there that it all depended upon the chairman of the committee, if he wanted an orchestra he’d specify an orchestra, or if he wanted to hire a brass band, he’d hire a brass band. But as a special rule, they (the orchestra) used to sound better to the dancers than a brass band. They could dance much better than they could with a brass band. A brass band couldn’t get in the groove like the orchestra could.”
Johnny Lala was in a Laine band while still in short pants, having his start with Jack Laine. “During this time Laine had so much work that he had to organize other bands” says Lala. “Some say as many as 5 bands baring Laine’s name were playing jobs” he added. Lala believes that Laine bands were hired because he was the only man who could get “hot men”, a style that became known as ragtime and later jazz. Lala continues: “the year was around 1910, the bands of Jack Laine were hot, what were called ragtime bands. They played for everything including funerals over in Gretna. This band had three trumpets, and a colored fellow on baritone”. (sic: probably Dave Perkins. )
Lala also backs up many statements in other interviews about staying at the Laine house: “Jack would take all of us, and bring us home to his house. He lived on Port St. Go to sleep, in the in the morning we get up “his wife have breakfast ready and we have to catch that 9:00 train and go to Milneberg. Play all day for picnics for $2.50 from 9:00 to 6:00 in the evenin”. Then from there, jump over the ferry, go to Algiers, play the Elmira Pleasure Grounds. We even played a funeral over in Gretna’s regular brass band. They cut it out because soon as we’d leave the cemetery we started playing the ragtime music and the families would see that, cryin’ and everything. Didn’t like it. We didn’t know where we’d be with Jack Laine”.
One cannot help wondering if the black bands, hearing the early Laine bands playing this happy ragtime music after a funeral, attempted to imitate the band thus starting the tradition of the playing of “hot” music after a funeral.
Lala emphasized how Jack Laine always could and did have jobs.”Jack used to get jobs. I swear, I don’t know where he got them at. We didn’t know where we – alright nothin’ tomorrow or the next day. Very few people had telephones in them days, know. He’ll come around and get us. Be there tonight 8:00, always you know” stated Lala “The Laine bands wore uniforms” Lala said, “because many people would try to get in the dance free by carrying a band member’s musical instrument saying they played in the band.”
Jobnny Lala played in what was called the #3 band made up of younger kids than #1 . The leader was Jack’s son ‘Pansy’ Laine. “We was hotter than all of them – me, Pansy, Yellow (Nunez ) Paul Vinerelle – bass , Jules Cassard trombone”, remarked Lala.
Bud Loyacano played in the Laine Reliance #2. When asked about the band, Bud stated: “You mentioned the Reliance Band. Number one was Jack Laine. Number two was under Jack Laine’s name and I played in number 2.
In that band there was Leonce Mello, Yetlow Nunez on clarinet, most of the time I used tuba, clarinet, cornet, trombone, tuba and Cutto Tulla on drums. The Reliance number one had Jack Laine on drums, Manuel Mello, Charlle Christian-trombone, the bass player was Chink Martin, I also remember that Jack Laine would work as many as 4 bands at once. Loyacano recalls, “when he wouldn’t need them he wouldn’t have them . We played parades, dances, I played 13 years in Mardi Gras parades with Laine.”
The Mello brothers are mentioned as playing with the early Jack Laine bands. Leonce died prior to Manuel and was not available for the oral interviews but Manuel was. Manuel Mello was in Jack Laine’s Reliance Band number one. Manuel remembers when they played for funerals he would stand behind the tombstone and play ‘taps’. They would play “Nearer My God to Thee”, just the first part, taking the body from the house to the hearse, from the hearse to the church, from the church to the hearse, and from the hearse to the burying.” Manuel recalls some of the musicians that played for Jack Laine. In one funeral band was: Wire Faced Dago Alessandro on tuba, his son “Little Wire Face” on alto, with rotary valves. Dago Horn Brock on baritone, Joe Castro on alto, and Leonce Mello on trombone. They tore them up going to where the fellow was laid out. Played “Nearer My God
To Thee” when he was brought out”
Mello was one of the leaders of a Jack Laine band when Laine reorganized. In the new band were: Alex Bagita, Chink Martin, Yellow Nunez, Leonce Mello, Jack Laine-drums and Manuel. Laine and Mello, it is mentioned in the interview, used to split the leader fee, usually double what a musician would receive.
One of the earliest Musicians to play with Jack Laine was Frank Christian. Christian remarked that he played with Jack Laine when Laine first started playing and remembers that the personnel of Laine’s bands changed often, he even took people who had never played into his bands. Also if Laine needed a player on any other instrurnent, he would play it (Christian ). “Laine used ’10 men when he played parades, such as carnival”, recalls Christian.
Merritt Brunies and all the Brunies brothers played for Jack Laine.
Al Brunies called Laine, “One of the greatest band organizers in New Orleans and organized ‘ragtime’ bands.” In his interview Al mentions that Laine used 10 piece parade bands and they played the same kind of music which today is called Dixieland. He remembers that the same band which played for parades also played for dances, serenades, etc.
Brother George Brunies, like Johnny Lala, remembers staying at the Laine house, “Papa” Laine used to pick me up, see, I’d play with his Reliance Band and he picked me up and we played a dance. We got 50 cents an hour. Crescent Park, Owl’s Hall, Suburban Park and Alverro Park in Algiers and we play the Serenades, but he pick me up and he’d take me to the job and if it’s too far away from my house, I’d sleep at his house and then he’d bring me home the next day and he’d give my mother the money” says George.
The popularity of the dances Laine’s band played at were usually outstanding. There was usually an overflowing crowd. George tells of one such crowd a crowd that was too large. “Papa” Laine had a special band. We played a dance one night, it was Nick LaRocca-cornet, Martin Kirsch on clarinet, me on upright alto and Papa Laine played drums. We played the Lucky One Dance, Hall up in Harvey and there was so many people in there the thing fell in, the hall fell in (the dance floor). It was on the second floor and it crushed in – a lot of people were hurt but nobody was killed. The band was 4 pieces, no piano, they probably couldn’t afford more than 4 pieces”, recalls George
Happy Schilling also played for Papa Laine. Schilling describes Laine as the “most powerful man I ever knew”. Schilling began playing for Laine in the early days, when Laine needed extra men for his extra bands and played for Laine almost every parade Laine did. He did very little dance work for Laine. “Laine used to have a lot of parade jobs. I did very little dance work. We didn’t play any regular marches, mostly jazz”, states Schilling. He recalls also the band played ‘Saints’ which he said they learned from a hymn.
Schilling also remarked about staying at Laine’s house and how it was a haven for musicians: “Laine’s house on Sunday morning looked like a club meeting because there were so many musicians there.” recalled Schilling. Happy also states that Jack Laine Bands were good. Each man depended on the other, all depended on ear and played only jazz. He thinks Laine had much of the music business in New Orleans at one time.
Ray Lopez joined the Laine band around 1910 and remembers his first job with Laine was playing a Holy Name parade (a Catholic society). Lopez says Laine had about 10 bands playing this parade (the highest number of bands attributed to Laine on any given activity or day – perhaps a little exaggerated). Ray remembers playing parades being the only cornet; usually there were at least two or more cornets on a parade job. “These bands didn’t play from music, says Lopez, “they would tackle anything but how it finished we didn’t know. The band knew only those kinds of tunes and they had been played 40 years before his time.” Lopez also recalls, “When the band happened to meet another band on a job, we would have a contest.”
Jack Laine the Musician
What was Jack Laine, the musician like? Was he a good drummer? What did his fellow musicians think about his playing? A number of them did voice an opinion as to his playing ability and his creative nature. Manuel Mello, when asked to pick musicians for a “all star” start band said he would choose Jack Laine on trap drums. Bud Loyacano was asked to name who he thought was the best drummers he had heard. He gave the names of Didi Stevens, Ragbaby Stevens and Jack Laine.
Emphasizing the fact that the bass drum was the most important drum in early New Orleans music, Johnny Lala expressed the fact that Jack Laine was a great bass drummer. He relates: “Jack Laine would play bass drum on the parades. He was good. On a dance he played trap drums. On parades be always played bass drum.”
Laine, in his interview with Richard Allen discussed his playing and what others thought of it. When asked what drum did he play when doing a parade he answered: “Either one, but unfortunately I’ve got to say this that my band, all my men, you know, the minute I’d be off a bass drum, they could feel it. They’d eat the head offa me to get back on that bass drum,
wouldn’t let me play snare drum in the streets at all, you know on the march. I had to play bass drum.” Laine said he carried a 16 inch bass drum for parades.
Laine says he played ‘off beat’ bass drum. “When a drummer began playing all the drums, the style of drumming changed,” remarked Laine.
“They got a certain beat right now if you notice one – one steady beat, right now, the drum player, a steady beat, there’s no changes, no changes in the drum players, a steady beat, one beat just steady. You notice that after this you pay attention to it. You’ll see it’s steady beat. Not me, I’d make rolls, in mine you know, lots of rolls, lots of plumping, one thing and another and all sorts of that where it would, where it would fill out the proper place. That’s how I played.” Laine’s approach to drumming was very creative from his above description. It is closer to the modern style of Bebop drumming than it was to the old style drum style of early New Orleans music.
Laine was heard to gently lay claim to the invention of a foot pedal to strike the bass drum – which freed a drummer’s hands for use on the snare drum (called the Kettledrum in the early days ) . This combining the bass drum and snare drum of marching bands into one was achieved by Laine by attaching a foot pedal of his own devising a 5 cent baseball on a stick attached to a rocker arm. This enabled a drummer to sit and easily operate the foot pedal and let the drummer use his hands to play cymbals, snare and the many other percussive instruments used in Laine’s era. Laine used all the extras on his trap set. Manuel Mello describes Laine’s drum set: “Laine had a compete set of drums – single head snare drum, orchestra drum, pedals, sand block, wood- Block, triangle, brass cymbals, everything.”
Laine used two sizes of drum sticks – a light pair for orchestra (dance) work and a heavier stick for street work. The bass drum bad a cymbal on the top that Laine played with a wire beater (could this be the forerunner of our drum brush we use today? )
Repertoire
When asked what were some of the first tunes that you heard when you and the other kids were around Laine answered: “The first I heard was when I first played on the streets it was something like “Cuticura Whiskey”, and then “Good Old Summer Days”. . . “Kentucky Days”, all the likes of that sort of stuff was so much of it that you won’t remember way back like that.
When asked about playing marches: “We played all marches like ‘Under Arms’ and stuff like that. Military marches, most of them. Now and then we’d pitch in such stuff as ‘Did You Ramble’ – it all went in march time. On a funeral Laine says he played ‘Rock of Ages’ and funeral marches. Even as kids we would hear a tune, we played it, like ‘Hot Time in the Old Town’. All the old stuff we used to play from what was sang and played by piano years before we started to play it.
When asked who wrote those old Dixieland pieces ‘Clarlnet Marmalade’, ‘Livery Stable Blues’ and ‘Tiger Rag’, Laine replied, “That’s all our own stuff . He was also asked if he had the music for them. He answered: “Made it up by, ear, this man Baquet and Vega,…Manuel Mello. They’d get together, they’d plan some stuff.
For funerals we used to play the the likes of ‘Marching Along’ and stuff like that, marches, no trios, all loud stuff. Along came Perkins, he arranged it . First chorus piano (soft ) then ‘put it on heavy’ in the second. Play all marches, dead marches at funerals. Going to the funeral we played different stuff , goin’ and coming back you see . Coming back we played all kinds of stuff, ragtime stuff. Coming back and going to a funeral.”
Ray Lopez words seem to be in accord with Laine’s. In his interview he states: “Laine’s bands did not play from music. They played things such as Washington Post March, Its a Long Way to Tiperrary, American Soldier, Sempre Fidelis. They would tackle anything but how it finished we don’t know.” Lopez recalls that Laine’s band was engaged to play at the opening of a big religious movie at the Dauphine Theatre. They began playing ‘Oh Mister Dream man’, Please let me ‘Dream Some More’ as someone in the picture was being crucified. The management didn’t approve and threw them out. They were replaced by Prof. Rosatos’s Band.
In Alfred Laine ts interview he speaks of a black musician named Green. Green told him: “You better play good music (Green speaking to his own band) the Reliance Band is out here today.” He was talking about being at Milneburg when he made the statment to his band. Green also stated that the colored bands copied a lot of Laine’s stuff. LaRocca, says Alfred Laine, “Never wrote those tunes, he learned all those tunes while playing in Laine bands.”
Laine was asked what the band played coming back from the funeral. He answered, “All kinds of stuff, ragtime stuff and any kind of stuff until we’d get a block away from the corpse’s house – we’d just play certain beats on the drum – pum pum pum, pupum, pum. When we get to the corpse’s house, then we’d stop and as they carried out the corpse, we’d play different marches carryin’ out the corpse. Then coming back, after we left the cemetary, we’d play the ragtime stuff.”
Laine was asked what kind of music he played when he first started playing for money. He said, “The songs we played were all their own compositions. They had Lawrence Veca and Baquet. These and the rest would be whistling all kinds of funny stuff. When they got together, they would try to see if they could play that stuff over again. ‘Livery Stable Blues’ was one of their numbers. Achille Baquet and Alcide ‘Yellow’ Nunez composed it. They used to call the tunes different funny names like ‘Pralines’ and ‘Meatball’. The band played ‘Praline’, ‘Livery Stable Blues’. ‘Midnight (Moonlight on the Shovel)”
“Dave Perkins, who was a first class note-reader, came down one night with a copy of ‘Under Arms’. Perkins would hum it to the rest of the bunch. Everyone of those kids had an ear for music. Pretty soon the boys would be trying to play it, and Perkins would be trying to teach them,” Laine remarked.
Laine recalled another march, “something about the American Flag”. He was asked about the “Stars and Stripes Forever” and remarked “They played that one too. These were all straight numbers that they ragged. We’d tear it up….We’d rag it up….I mean as far as we could go.”
The first titled song Papa remembered his band playing was “Praline”. Papa and the boys made up names for their numbers. Papa remembered “A Little Bunch of Whiskers on a Young man Grew.” His own favorite was “Kentucky days”.
When asked about what music they played at carnival balls he said, “There was no particular song they liked most, they liked everything. They didn’t care what we played. I don’t care how we played it or what we played, we got a big hand. They must have liked the music or otherwise they wouldn’t clap like they did, holler and whistle and clap on the floor and all that sort of stuff. Play it over, play an encore. They danced the two-step, the Schottische, etc. to the ragtime music, They couldn’t dance a waltz to the stuff, a waltz is a different time.
On June 1, 1966 (quietly and without fanfare, while under observation at Charity Hospital after being admitted for shortness of breath ) Jack Laine’s heart beat its final cadence, marking the end of a legend and an era. There are many of his boys left and to be sure, the disciples of Papa Jack are ready to keep his ‘Reliance’ for future generations alive
and marching.