In the March 2025 issue of The Syncopated Times, I wrote that Emmett Hardy, Leon Roppolo, and Lou Black honed their musical skills during the 1920 excursion season on the Streckfus steamer Capitol. Arnold Loyacano joined them over the winter in New Orleans. In late 1921, all four played in the Friar’s Society Orchestra in Chicago.
In this issue, I consider another vessel that presented a team of future Friar’s Society musicians. Paul Mares, Jack Pettis, George Brunies, and Johnny Provenzano played the entire 1921 summer season in St. Louis on the Streckfus steamer J. S.
The Friar’s Society Orchestra, of course, enjoyed considerable acclaim. With some adjustments to personnel, the band recorded as the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in 1922 and 1923, spreading influence and making jazz fame that last to this day.
Yet, the band’s riverboat roots have received little attention. When riverboat history is noted at all, the purpose seems merely to clear out biographical detail to make room for the main focus: the formation of that ground-breaking ensemble.
This article will add detail to the New Orleans Rhythm Kings’ riverboat roots. It will correct some mistaken accounts. Most importantly, the article will argue that the band would not have been the same band without those riverboat roots. The riverboat experience on the J. S. and the Capitol contributed directly to the success of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings.
The J. S. Royal 10-Piece Orchestra
Paul Mares, Jack Pettis, George Brunies, and Johnny Provenzano were founding members of the Friar’s Society Orchestra in the fall of 1921. Just before they arrived at the Friar’s Inn, however, they played nearly three months with the J.S. Royal 10-Piece Orchestra on the Streckfus steamer J. S. The steamer departed twice daily from St. Louis’s Washington Avenue dock, the site of today’s Gateway Arch. Their first cruise was on June 19; their last was on Labor Day, September 5. The Streckfus steamer St. Paul also departed daily from the same dock, carrying Fate Marable’s Metropolitan Jaz-E-Saz band featuring Louis Armstrong and other future jazz legends.
With two steamers competing for customers at the same dock, Commodore John Streckfus, owner of the excursion fleet, needed some creative marketing. The St. Paul catered to large and younger audiences. Short excursions were frequently sponsored by civic, corporate, social, and religious organizations. This allowed Streckfus to leave most ticket sales to sponsors who profited by filling his boat for him.
In 1921, the steamer J. S. set out to appeal to older customers who did not enjoy the St. Paul’s large crowds. For them, the Commodore offered full-day cruises to Chautauqua, Illinois, and a more relaxed ride on the river. Ticket sales were limited to half of the boat’s capacity, ensuring plenty of room on the dance floor. Accordingly, ticket prices were comparatively steep. Sponsored cruises were limited to late-night “moonlight” cruises. Day-trip patrons were not subjected to promotions and fund-raising appeals. Streckfus sought to bring first-class ocean-liner service to the Mississippi River on the steamer whose name bore his initials.
After Labor Day, Fate Marable’s band took over the stage on the J. S. and headed north to Davenport, Iowa, where the steamer docked for the winter. Mares, Pettis, Brunies, and Provenzano returned to Chicago, where the Friar’s Inn engagement lay just ahead.
Puzzle-piecing: Jack Pettis
How do we know that future Friar’s Inn bandmates played on the steamer J. S. in 1921? The story hasn’t been fully told.1 Evidence is scarce, sketchy, and often ambiguous. Many clues come from oral histories, inherently subjective, seasoned with nostalgia, personal bias, wishful thinking, distorted memory, and skewing interventions by the interviewer. “Who’s who” on Mississippi steamboat bands is chronically puzzling for students of early jazz history. The Syncopated Times works the puzzle here.
Perhaps the earliest evidence comes from a 1936 conversation between New Orleans Rhythm Kings saxophonist Jack Pettis and early jazz aficionado Edwin “Squirrel” Ashcraft. A summary of the conversation written by Ashcraft reports Pettis saying that he, Paul Mares (cornet), and George Brunies (trombone) jammed regularly on Sunday afternoons in Chicago with a group that came to include Elmer Schoebel (piano), Johnny Provenzano (clarinet), Arnold Loyacano (bass), and Frank Snyder (drums). “They jobbed around Chicago for a while and then got a job on a river boat where they played on the sister ship of a boat that Louis Armstrong was playing on, and frequently jammed with his band whenever they had a chance.”2
Ashcraft is unclear who is meant by “they.” Surely “they” includes Pettis, Mares, and Brunies, the core participants in the Sunday jam. But does the word “they” include musicians who came on later: Schoebel, Provenzano, Loyacano, and Snyder?
Ashcraft tells us, at the least, that some contingent of the group took work on a steamer. The transcript doesn’t name the “sister ship” or the venue where the musicians encountered Fate Marable’s band. The factual record points directly to the steamer J. S. in St. Louis. The J. S. docked on Washington Avenue in St. Louis next to the St. Paul every summer from 1919 through 1921, where Marable played in each of those years.
Puzzle-piecing: George Brunies
New Orleans Rhythm Kings trombonist George Brunies talked to oral historians about his steamer experience as well. He taped interviews in 1958 with musician, composer, and music historian William Russell, and in 1972 with St. Louis cornetist Dan Havens.3 The 1972 session was the basis for “Conversations with George Brunis,” in the Mississippi Rag (predecessor to The Syncopated Times), September 1998. Brunies had distinct memories of the steamer. “We slept and we lived on the boat . . .. We had beautiful purple artist hats and short sleeves with black ties and white pants and white shoes. People were passing by saying, ‘Don’t they have lovely uniforms?’ . . . we’d go on all-day excursions, seven o’clock in the morning. I lived in a room with a pipe that supplied the steam for the steam calliope.”
Brunies struggled to remember the name of the boat. He settled on the J. S., but only on his third try and then only with prompting from Russell. Unknowingly, however, he identified the steamer and the year without naming either. Brunies distinctly remembered “all-day excursions.” Of the four steamers in the Streckfus fleet – the Washington, Capitol, St. Paul, and the J. S. – only the J. S. gave all-day excursions, and only in the year 1921.4
Brunies was more precise than Pettis at identifying his fellow Chicagoans in the J. S. band. He was with Paul Mares, Jack Pettis, and a clarinetist whose name he couldn’t quite recall. Was it “Palisano?” Russell introduced more interviewer bias, suggesting “Tony Catalano.” Brunies settled on “Tony Palisano” as he tried to recall “Johnny Provenzano,” whom Pettis identified with confidence as part of the Chicago group. Brunies excluded Schoebel, Loyacano, and Snyder. He concluded, “the rest of the boys were from St. Louis.”
The best inference drawn from the oral histories is that Mares, Pettis, Brunies, and Provenzano were hired on the steamer J. S. in 1921. They probably augmented a popular St. Louis-based dance band. It wasn’t the first time the Commodore hired New Orleans musicians to add pep to a riverboat band. In 1920, he brought Emmett Hardy and Leon Roppolo to join the band on the Capitol.5
A Potent Piece of Objective Evidence
Sadly, fire destroyed most company records about musicians on Streckfus steamers. Still, some documents with musical content survive in Streckfus family collections. One ordinary publicity photograph of Brunies bears a handwritten caption:
GEORGE BRUNIES – TROMBONE
PLAYED ON JS SUMMER 1921, NOT LAST STOP6
The handwriting supports the inferences drawn from the oral histories as to the steamer and year for the job that Pettis and Brunies recalled. The last three words attest to the credibility of their unknown author, revealing knowledge and attention to detail. The writer knew that Brunies was on the J. S. in 1921 but qualified that information with: “not last stop.” Why? Because the writer knew who really entertained dancers on the J. S. from St. Louis to its winter dock in Davenport, and it was not the J.S. Royal Orchestra with Mares, Pettis, Brunies, and Provenzano.
Fate Marable was on the J. S. stage during that final trek from St. Louis to Davenport. His band played in Louisiana, Missouri (Sep. 7), Quincy, Illinois (Sep. 8), Fort Madison, Iowa (Sep. 9), Burlington, Iowa (Sep. 10), and Davenport, Iowa (Sep. 11 and 12). In each town, press releases and advertisements announced the presence of the St. Paul’s crowd-pleasing band, the Metropolitan Jaz-E-Saz Band.7 Commodore Streckfus wanted to give audiences upriver from St. Louis one more chance to hear this celebrated band in the third and final year of its existence.
Tidying the stitchwork
When stitched together, the story of the 1921 steamboat band on the J. S. puts to rest some mistaken narratives. In one account, George Brunies played on the steamer Capitol in the summer of 1921. He was said to be part of the kerfuffle in which several band members quit their jobs. The need for quick replacements gave Bix Beiderbecke a short stint of employment on that steamer at age 17.8 In fact, Brunies could not have been on the Capitol at this time.
Another account places Brunies, Pettis, and possibly Mares in Davenport, working on unidentified steamers at the end of June 1921.9 Again, this is not possible. All three were already in St. Louis at that time on the J. S.
In a third account, Brunies and Mares plied the Mississippi on the J. S. in 1921, arriving finally in Davenport in September when they looked up clarinetist Leon Roppolo on their way to Chicago.10 But the facts are incontrovertible. The J. S. opened its season in St. Louis and stayed there until Fate Marable and his band took the stage on the journey from St. Louis to Davenport.
Riverboat Roots and the NORK
Seven musicians compiled extensive steamboat jazz résumés before their work in the Friar’s Society Orchestra led to historic recordings by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings: Paul Mares, Jack Pettis, George Brunies, Johnny Provenzano (on the steamer J. S.), and Emmett Hardy, Leon Roppolo, and Lou Black (on the steamer Capitol). The number is eight if one counts Andrew Loyacano’s excursions on the Capitol in the winter of 1920-1921.
The J. S. played 81 consecutive and grueling all-day dance-a-thons in St. Louis. Aboard the boat every morning at 7:00 for daily departures at 9:00, dancing continued for 10 hours from Tuesday through Friday, and 13 hours on Sunday and Monday. In their spare time, they jammed with Fate Marable’s Metropolitan Jaz-E-Saz band. The Capitol played an unknown number of excursions over 125 days from St. Louis to St. Paul. Winter excursions followed in New Orleans.
What better place than a steamboat to build great musical chops? Streckfus steamers were huge. The J. S. was 175 feet long. The Capitol was 300 feet long (as was the St. Paul), the length of a city block. The ballrooms occupied an entire deck. Musicians filled those ballrooms with music (and without amplification) for hours per day, day after day for months. The work was concentrated, intense, and sustained. For those who could tough it out, the experience created a special type of musicianship and camaraderie.
Jazz musicians often speak of the benefits that flow from a sustained period of collaboration. Each musician learns the musical vocabulary of the others. Each musician finds subtle ways to contribute in a way that is personal, yet complementary to the contribution of others. The Friar’s Society Orchestra, formed in late 1921, played an entire year at Chicago’s Friar’s Inn before their first recordings in August 1922. Certainly, that was ample time to create repertoire, perfect arrangements, and cultivate the musical empathy that is the mark of a mature ensemble. But the steamboat jazz experience that immediately preceded the Friar’s Inn engagement must have been a significant catalyst. The steamers gave the Friar’s Inn a roster of dedicated and well-seasoned musicians.
Richard Sudhalter wrote that the New Orleans Rhythm Kings had few role models. They had no time for the “rattle and clang” of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Clearly, Mares admired King Oliver, but most of what you hear in the band’s recordings is original. Sudhalter finds the ensemble light, supple, and venturesome, the repertoire tuneful before it is rhythmic, and the instruments astonishingly in tune.11
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings were as polished a jazz ensemble as could be found anywhere when they entered the recording studio in 1922. Some of that shine was burnished before the musicians even knew they would grace the stage at the Friar’s Inn. Some of that shine was created on the steamers J. S. and Capitol.
End Notes:
1. Mares, Pettis, Brunies and Provenzano have been sighted on the steamer J. S. before. In CD liner notes, a brief paragraph places the men aboard the J.S. “on the Mississippi,” joined by Elmer Schoebel and Frank Snyder. See: Fischer, Sue, New Orleans Rhythm Kings: Complete Recordings 1922-1925, Rivermont BSW-1170 (CD), 2018 (liner notes). The story presented here varies from that account.
2. Ashcraft’s summary is held in the William Russell Jazz Collection at the Historic New Orleans Collection in New Orleans, Louisiana.
3. The Williams interview is held in the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music at Tulane University. The Havens interview is held in special collections at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
4. See, for example: Advertisement, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 15, 1921, page 3.
5. See: Welsh, Allen, “The Palmetto Jazzerites: Steamboat Jazz on the Mississippi,” Syncopated Times, March 2025, pages 11-13.
6. The photo is held in the Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library, a special library within the Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri in St. Louis.
7. “St . Paul Band Coming Here on Steamer ‘J.S.,’” Davenport Democrat and Leader, September 9, 1921, page 7; “Popular St. Louis Boat Takes Only Trip on Thursday,” Quincy Daily Herald, September 8, 1921, page 2; Advertisement, Quincy Daily Herald, September 8, 1921, page 3; Advertisement, Fort Madison Evening Democrat, September 8, 1921, page 2; Advertisement, Burlington Hawk-Eye, September 10, 1921, page 10; Advertisement, Daily Times (Davenport, Iowa), September 6, 1921, page 5.
8. Sudhalter, Richard M. and Evans, Philip R., Bix: Man and Legend, Arlington House (1974), page 51 and pages 55-57. No authority is cited for the presence of Brunies on the steamer.
9. Sudhalter, Richard M., Lost Chords, Oxford University Press (1999), page 30. The author cites no authority for the presence of the musicians in Davenport at this time or at any time.
10. See the Rivermont CD liner notes, op. cit. at note 1, page 7.
11. Sudhalter, Richard M., Lost Chords, Oxford University Press (1999), pages 31, 33.
Allen Welsh is a retired international legal reform consultant. He has been an active jazz fan since age 10 and a researcher of early jazz in Iowa since 2020.
