Two steamboat jazz bands were the talk of the Mississippi River in 1920. One became famous. The other remains obscure. The famous band, of course, was Fate Marable’s Metropolitan Jaz-E-Saz Band on the Streckfus steamer St. Paul, featuring teenaged Louis Armstrong on cornet and other future jazz legends.1
This is the story of the other band—the Palmetto Jazzerites. Though obscure, the band’s achievement on the brand new Streckfus steamer Capitol in 1920 deserves to be measured favorably with that of Marable’s storied organization.
Part 1: Who were the Palmetto Jazzerites?
The Palmetto Jazzerites were organized and led by Tony Catalano and Carlisle Evans, two well-known band leaders in the Tri-Cities (Rock Island and Moline, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa). Catalano came to Davenport in 1905 as a cornetist whose big sound was forged in circuses and whose musical sensibilities were cultivated in New Orleans. He began his 33-year association with the Streckfus company in 1907.2 Tony’s Ragtime Kings played the entire 1913 season on the steamer St. Paul.3 When Catalano was not on a steamer, his dance bands played the finest Tri-Cities dance halls. He was the musical director in Tri-Cities vaudeville theaters. His “demonic” sound caught the particular attention of Sophie Tucker, who called Catalano “the best ragtime cornetist she ever heard.”4
Carlisle Evans was also a seasoned Tri-Cities musician and band leader. Evans founded the Evans Original Jazz Band in 1917.5 Catalano was a member of the band at its inception. Within a few weeks the band performed regularly in and around the Tri-Cities. In the summer of 1918 the band played several cruises on the St. Paul.6 Evans was a pianist who answered the early call of ragtime music, and no doubt Tony Catalano’s call was among the most powerful he heard. Together they made the transition from ragtime to jazz. They were good friends from the start and remained so for life. In the meantime, the Evans Original Jazz band drew crowds to the best dance floors effortlessly.
Commodore John Streckfus invented the Mississippi River’s excursion tourism business. He owned the most prominent steamboat fleet in the business, based in the Tri-Cities. The quality of music on Streckfus steamers was a passion for the Commodore. He paid top dollar for the best talent he could find. At the end of the season he paid handsome bonuses to help assure that he retained that talent. He held mandatory rehearsals regularly. He supervised tempos with his stopwatch. He recommended tunes from his phonograph collection. He alone assigned names to his bands. In 1919, the Commodore’s obsessive attention to music on the St. Paul delivered Fate Marable’s first great band to an enthusiastic, floating public numbering in the hundreds of thousands.7
Streckfus surely wanted another great musical success in 1920 when he launched the most lavishly appointed steamer in his fleet, the brand-new steamer Capitol. The notion to combine the experience and energy of Evans and Catalano was probably his idea. But that was not enough to fulfill expectations, especially after Marable’s 1919 success. Streckfus enlisted Marable to find and rehearse New Orleans musicians for possible use on the Capitol. Ultimately, the Commodore issued train tickets to Davenport for two of those musicians. Their names were Emmett Hardy and Leon Roppolo.8
The Tony and Evans Palmetto Jazzerites, as they were often billed, existed only in the year 1920. They were contracted as a band of ten musicians. Band membership may have changed over the course of the season, but there is no such evidence. In fact, the evidence is that the Commodore paid all musicians their season-ending bonuses. Nine members of the band have been identified:
Tony Catalano, cornet (1882-1950)
Carlisle Evans,piano (1891-1943)
Emmett Hardy, cornet (1903-1925)
Tal Sexton, trombone (1898-1975)
Leon Roppolo, clarinet (1902-1943)
Myron Neal, saxophone (1900-1944)
Lou Black, banjo (1901-1965)
David Bleuer, bass (1868-1945)
Jack Willett, drums (1897-1979)
Each member of the Palmetto Jazzerites was a fine musician with a good story that deserves to be told. Yet three musicians stand out on the roster—Emmett Hardy, Leon Roppolo, and Lou Black. Hardy and Roppolo were the product of Marable’s talent scouting. Black joined the Evans Original Jazz Band in 1919.
In the following year Hardy, Roppolo and Black contributed mightily to a ground-breaking ensemble in Chicago—the Friar’s Society Orchestra, a band that recorded in 1922 and 1923 (without Hardy) as the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, one of the most influential jazzes bands of the decade. Hardy was never recorded but his sound became legendary, a storyline similar to that of Buddy Bolden. Leon Roppolo had the “first distinctive solo clarinet style to be captured on records.”9 Black’s superb banjo work supplied the Rhythm Kings with a powerful drive that carried the rhythm section on their first Gennett recordings.10
The Palmetto Jazzerites gained wide popularity beginning with the capacity crowd on the Capitol’s maiden voyage from Davenport on May 30, 1920.11 The ship was built in the Tri-Cities. The launch was the social event of the year. The people of the Tri-Cities were proud of the reputation the Jazzerites built from the Capitol stage.12 One newspaper proclaimed that the name “Palmetto Jazzerites” was “as famous even as the ship itself.”13 With the Palmetto Jazzerites on stage and a brand new polished maple dance floor as featured attractions, the steamer Capitol entertained 27,198 tourists in 1920 from Tri-Cities docks alone, far more than any of several competing steamers.14
After the maiden voyage the Capitol “tramped” the Mississippi—that is, the steamer gave tourist excursions up and down the river from town to town, rarely staying in one place longer than a day or two. In at least 125 days the Capitol visited ports in Wisconsin (La Crosse and Prairie du Chien), Minnesota (Wabasha, Winona, Stillwater, Red Wing and St. Paul), Missouri (Hannibal and Canton), Illinois (Galena, Quincy, Rock Island, and Alton). But most of the Capitol’s tramping was in Iowa: Lansing, McGregor, Guttenberg, Dubuque, Bellevue, Sabula, Clinton, Muscatine, Burlington, Fort Madison, Keokuk, and Davenport. The Capitol’s 1920 season ended where it started, in Davenport, on Columbus Day.
Often there were multiple excursions per day. With the Commodore’s mandatory rehearsals included, the band might play ten hours per day. By the season’s end, the Palmetto Jazzerites were a tightly knit group. Hardy, Roppolo, and Black were a formidable combination. The young men could read each others’ musical minds. They could finish each others’ musical sentences. They also built endurance, honed technique, and gained confidence in their musicianship.
The Capitol arrived in Alton, Illinois on September 21, as did the St. Paul carrying Fate Marable’s Metropolitan Jaz-E-Saz Band. Marable had just completed the summer excursion season in St. Louis. The bands switched ships on that night after their moonlight cruises.15 This event conjures tantalizing images. Catalano and Marable, old friends, reunited. Likely there were brief encounters between young musicians of future fame: Emmett Hardy and Louis Armstrong, Leon Roppolo and Boyd Atkins, Lou Black and Johnny St. Cyr. What might a fly on the dock have seen and heard? In any event, the Jazzerites boarded the St. Paul and tramped back to Davenport where the steamer docked for the winter. Fate Marable’s band boarded the Capitol and tramped south to New Orleans where the Capitol cruised the harbor throughout the winter.16 As we’ll see, Hardy, Roppolo and Black soon traveled to New Orleans to play many of those winter excursions.
How might the Palmetto Jazzerites have sounded? There is no need to look further for first clues than the first recordings by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in August 1922. Roppolo and Black are there together. The cornetist is Paul Mares, an adoring fan of Hardy who expressed gratitude for having Hardy at his side every night for two months on the Friar’s Inn stage.17 Carlisle Evans was as schooled and disciplined a pianist, arranger and leader as Elmer Schoebel of the Rhythm Kings. Evans kept the Rhythm King’s first recorded tune, “Eccentric,” in his band’s book at least until 1925 when he broadcast the tune from Davenport (Lou Black was on the broadcast).18 The ties between the Jazzerites and the Rhythm Kings, large ensembles with similar instrumentation, appear thick.
As for Catalano and Hardy, a clue to their sound might be found in the music made later by King Oliver and Louis Armstrong. Oliver’s 1923 recordings have been studied for the effective use of a “lead player” (Oliver) whose strong proclamation of the melody is embellished with improvisation by a musician “playing second” (Armstrong).19 Catalano and Hardy may have used this trick. What more powerful “lead player” could one hope to find than Tony Catalano, whose cornet style was a product of New Orleans ragtime, built on a sound that turned heads in circus parades and show tents.
By contrast, Emmett Hardy’s style was more improvisational. It was suited to “playing second” according to those who recalled the sound. His friend Monk Hazel described Hardy’s playing as having a unique drive delivered in a “legato style,” rather than the staccato style expected of a brassy lead player. Bandleader Norman Brownlee said Hardy produced wah-wah effects with a plunger, another improvisational tool. New Orleans Rhythm Kings trombonist George Brunies recalled that Hardy “didn’t blast much . . . he just played little variations and stuff around [the melody].”20
Catalano and Hardy must have been remarkable to hear. Catalano delivered a strong melody. Hardy embellished creatively around the melody using a legato style with occasional vocalizing effects. Though Hardy never recorded, Bix Beiderbecke heard him often, admired him greatly, and spent considerable time talking to him about music in general and the cornet in particular. Beiderbecke adopted what he could use from Hardy’s model, and to great advantage.21 He, too, provides a glimpse into Hardy’s sound.
Are there other clues to the Jazzerites sound? Listen to Vic Sell’s cornet on the last chorus to “Apple Sauce” with the Original Capitol Orchestra.22 His muted and growling cornet winds its way ahead of the beat and then behind the beat, in the manner of the early New Orleans style Hardy mastered. Sell was from Donnellson, Iowa but he studied informally and intensely in New Orleans. He replaced Bix Beiderbecke on the steamer Capitol in 1921 when Beiderbecke couldn’t produce a union card. Another clue may be heard in the musicianship of Sharkey Bonano in another large ensemble led by Norman Brownlee. Brownlee hired Bonano to replace Hardy.23
Unfortunately, there is no aural evidence of the Palmetto Jazzerites despite a newspaper report of an offer from Gennett Records in December 1920.24
Hardy, Roppolo, Black and trombonist Tal Sexton headed from Davenport to New Orleans at some point after the end of the touring season. Once again aboard the Capitol, they played excursions on the New Orleans harbor under the leadership of Fate Marable.25 A very young Leon Prima was on board and may have filled Hardy’s shoes when Hardy and Roppolo left for Milwaukee to join Bee Palmer’s vaudeville show.26 The Capitol’s winter band also included Arnold Loyacano, a bass player and founding member of the Friar’s Society Orchestra.27
Meanwhile, Catalano and Evans capitalized on the Jazzerites’ popularity with a solid schedule of appearances in and around the Tri-Cities, billed as the Tony and Evans Capitol Jazz Band.
Part 2: How do we know Hardy, Roppolo, and Black were with the Palmetto Jazzerites?
Jazz history scarcely notes the Palmetto Jazzerites for their five lively months of existence. But a century later, it is novel to assert that Emmett Hardy, Leon Roppolo and Lou Black played in the band. Can we be sure these now-celebrated musicians tramped the Mississippi together when they were unknown?
In short, we know that Hardy, Roppolo and Black played the 1920 excursion season on the Capitol with the Palmetto Jazzerites for two reasons. First, Lou Black told the world it was so. Second, Black’s testimony is corroborated with other testimony, documentary evidence, and solid circumstantial evidence.
The New Yorker magazine published Lou Black’s brief account of the Palmetto Jazzerites. In 1963, Black told the magazine: “. . . in 1919 I joined Carlisle Evans, a pianist and good solid orchestra man. Evans’ Original Jazz Band, his group was called. In 1920, we worked on the riverboat Capitol between St. Louis and St. Paul in the summer, and around New Orleans in the winter. Leon Rappolo, the clarinettist, was in the band, and so were Emmet Hardy, a marvelous cornettist who never recorded, and Leon Prima, Louie’s brother. I left Evans in 1921 and went over to the New Orleans Rhythm Kings . . . .”28
Unfortunately, Black’s report attracted little attention. This was no bother for Black who was retired from music and content to fish nearby streams and lakes with his friend and author, Vance Bourjailly. Bourjailly eventually persuaded Black to pick up the banjo after a long hiatus. In his final years Black entertained lounge audiences in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with his band, the Dixie Lads. The drummer’s bass drumhead sported a drawing of the steamer Capitol.
Black’s recollection of events is corroborated by Tal Sexton, trombonist with the Palmetto Jazzerites. Sexton was from Osawatomie, Kansas. Like Tony Catalano, a circus brought him to the Tri-Cities where he then played with the Evans Original Jazz Band for several years. In the early 1950s he returned to Osawatomie to tend to his ailing mother. In 1966, Philip R. Evans wrote to Sexton as he researched a Bix Beiderbecke bio-discography. The retired and now toothless former trombonist replied happily. Without prompting, Sexton volunteered that he played the Capitol with Hardy, Roppolo and Black. He confirmed Black’s memory of the winter excursions in New Orleans with Leon Prima. He supplied the added information that Arnold Loyacano played bass on the winter excursions. Sexton even sent Evans a picture of himself on the Capitol, taken in New Orleans.29
Duncan Schiedt, jazz scholar, photographer, and musician, corroborates Lou Black—and he does so twice. Schiedt wrote a book documenting the connections between jazz and the state of Indiana. Myron “Rookie” Neal, the saxophonist in the Palmetto Jazzerites, was an Indiana native. Schiedt notes that Neal was unavailable to join his brother and friends in a newly formed jazz band led by Curt Hitch because Neal was “working in fast jazz company” with Carlisle Evans, Emmett Hardy, Leon Roppolo and Lou Black.30
Fortunately for the Palmetto Jazzerites, Schiedt outperformed his own hand at jazz history with his dedication to jazz photography. He photographed musicians for decades. He collected other photographs of historical jazz significance. The Duncan P. Schiedt Photograph Collection resides at the Smithsonian Institute. Schiedt may not have known it, but he preserved a photo of the Palmetto Jazzerites.31The Smithsonian’s label for the photograph reads simply, “Carlisle Evans Band, 1920.” Tony Catalano and Carlisle Evans are easily identifiable, standing 2nd and 3rd from the right, respectively. The setting appears to be the bow of a boat. Evans and Catalano worked together on only one steamer: the Capitol in 1920. This photograph portrays the Tony and Evans Palmetto Jazzerites.
The picture corroborates Lou Black’s memory that he was on the Capitol in 1920. There he stands, 4th from the right, directly under the waving flag on the ship’s bow. The two young men who corroborate Lou Black’s account are on the far left: Rookie Neal and Tal Sexton.
Standing directly beneath the flagpole must be Emmett Hardy, seventeen years old, future cornetist in the Friar’s Society Orchestra, and the most important influence on Bix Beiderbecke according to Bix Beiderbecke. This may be the best picture of Hardy yet published.
The obvious question is “Where is Roppolo?” There is no other candidate for the 18-year-old clarinetist in the picture. The Palmetto Jazzerites were a band of 10 musicians. Only nine appear in the frame. Sadly, Roppolo must be the person missing from this historic photograph.
Finally, interesting circumstantial evidence tells us that Hardy and Roppolo knew Evans and Catalano very well in 1920. Bix Beiderbecke’s biographers tell the well-rehearsed story of Bee Palmer, the Shimmy Queen, who brought her vaudeville show to Davenport, Iowa in early 1921. Hardy and Roppolo were in the band. The show played four nights at the Columbia Theater, ending March 2. Beiderbecke was in the audience every night. The show moved from Davenport to Peoria where it collapsed under the weight of bad reviews and money woes. Roppolo asked Evans if he needed help. Evans promised steady work at Davenport’s Coliseum Ballroom. Hardy and Roppolo joined Evans within 10 days of their departure from Davenport. They remained with Evans at the Coliseum for three months.32
Why did Hardy and Roppolo ask Evans, of all people, for immediate work on short notice? Was the request made on the basis of casual contact during the mere four days Palmer’s show passed through Davenport? That’s the implication left by Beiderbecke’s biographers. Or was the request made on the basis of a well-established musical and personal relationship built over the course of the 1920 excursion season on the Capitol? The latter inference is more reasonably drawn from the facts.
The Palmetto Jazzerites paid a dividend forward to the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. The band’s transfer of musical wealth is similar to the Metropolitan Jaz-E-Saz Band’s contribution to King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. Oliver enjoyed the benefit of smooth collaboration between Louis Armstrong, Lil Armstrong, and Baby Dodds, polished on the steamer St. Paul. History owes the Palmetto Jazzerites more attention than the band has gathered over the past 105 years.
© 2025 Allen Welsh
ENDNOTES
1. This was the second of three seasons (1919-1921) for the Metropolitan Jaz-E-Saz Band. The band played all three years on the steamer St. Paul, except for occasional stints on other boats in the spring and fall, and New Orleans winter excursions. Many historians, biographers and autobiographers have misreported the Jaz-E-Saz band: the band name, the personnel, the boats they played on, the dates they played, the ports they visited. For an excellent accounting of the Jaz-E-Saz band, see Stomp Off, Let’s Go by Ricky Riccardi, Oxford University Press (2025), pages 147-173.
2. “Days When Musicians Couldn’t Read A Note!” Down Beat, May, 1938, page 7.
3. “‘Ragtime Kings’ on the St. Paul,” Daily Times (Davenport, Iowa), May 13, 1913, page 14.
4. “Demon” sound – see “Stage Employes’ Ball is Success,” Daily Times (Davenport), November 25, 1914, page 7. “Best ragtime cornetist” – see “Girl Revue at Capitol,” Daily Times (Davenport), July 29, 1921, page 12.
5. Advertisement, Daily Times (Davenport), March 29, 1917, page 5.
6. “St. Paul Will Sail in River Here in Sept.,” Muscatine News-Tribune, August 22, 1918, page 3.
7. Vernhettes, Dan, Jazz Puzzles Volume 2 – Riverboat Jazz, Jazz’Edit (France, 2015), pages 25- 26, 29-30.
8. It is novel to assert that Marable rehearsed Hardy and Roppolo to join the Palmetto Jazzerites in 1920. Richard Sudhalter authored the longstanding view that Marable rehearsed Hardy and Roppolo to join a vaudeville performer, Bee Palmer, the “Shimmy Queen,” in 1921 (Sudhalter, Richard M., Lost Chords, Oxford University Press (1999), page 53).
Sudhalter drew his conclusion from this passage in Down Beat magazine: “Fate Marable also rehearsed the Leon Rappolo-Emmet Hardy band down in New Orleans before they came north to the Tri-Cities (Rock Island, Davenport and Moline) and to Chicago, where they played at the Friars Inn in 1919. At the time the band was in New Orleans, they had with them Rappolo, clarinet; Hardy, cornet, Johnny Friscoe, drums, and Al Seigel, piano.”
(“When Musicians Couldn’t Read a Note!” Down Beat, June 1938, page 8. Fate Marable is the only name spelled correctly. Also, the Friar’s Inn engagement began in 1921, not 1919.)
Sudhalter assumed Catalano was saying that Marable rehearsed Hardy and Roppolo for the Palmer show because he believed Hardy never left Louisiana before he joined the show (Lost Chord, page 51). He knew nothing of the Palmetto Jazzerites and other key facts. He could not have considered an alternative interpretation of the Down Beat passage.
Sudhalter would have thought differently had he known that Palmer’s vaudeville show, Oh! Bee, opened in Hartford, Connecticut in November, 1920. Al Siegel was Palmer’s manager from the outset. She didn’t need Marable’s help. Hardy and Roppolo were not part of the original show. The act moved to St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans. Siegel sent for Hardy and Roppolo after the show left New Orleans. They left for Milwaukee (not Davenport) on December 18. Their departure was noted in the local newspaper (“Week’s Happenings in Local Community,” Herald (New Orleans), December 23, 1920, page 1). The article even notes their means of rail transportation: The Panama Limited.
These facts rule out the possibility that Marable rehearsed Hardy and Roppolo (and Siegel) to join Palmer in 1921, as Sudhalter believed. The reasonable interpretation of the Down Beat passage is that Marable rehearsed Hardy and Roppolo to join the Palmetto Jazzerites in 1920.
Finally, it only stands to reason that Marable rehearsed Hardy and Roppolo for the benefit of his employer Commodore Streckfus. It is implausible that Marable acted as a freelance talent scout for an upstart New York-based vaudeville act.
9. Sudhalter, Richard M., Lost Chords, Oxford University Press (1999), pages 34-35.
10. Fischer, Sue, Liner notes to New Orleans Rhythm Kings: Complete Recordings 1922-1925, Rivermont Records (2018), page 11.
11. “Capitol on Maiden Trip,” Daily Times (Davenport), May 31, 1920, page 6.
12. “Capitol Called Amusement Mecca of the Mississippi,” Rock Island Argus (Illinois), June 30, 1920, page 7.
13. “Hundreds Wait for the Capitol,” Fort Madison Evening Democrat (Iowa), August 3, 1920, page 2.
14. “Many Pleasure Seekers on Water from Tri-Cities,” The Daily Times (Davenport), September 18, 1920, page 18.
15. “D. of I. Excursion Largest of Season,” Alton Evening Telegraph (Illinois), September 22, 1920, page 1.
16. For unknown reasons, Streckfus billed Marable’s Metropolitan Jaz-E-Saz Band as the Palmetto Jazzerites during the time Marable and the Capitol tramped from Alton to New Orleans. At the same time, the Evans and Catalano band continued to play as the Palmetto Jazzerites on the St. Paul from Alton to Davenport. For two weeks, two bands played on two boats traveling in two directions under one name. This has caused considerable confusion among biographers and historians about who was on what boat and when. Some have presumed that Marable was on the Capitol with Armstrong for the entire 1920 season. An internet search of “Palmetto Jazzerites” places references to Louis Armstrong first in line. These errors have helped bury the true story of the Tony and Evans Palmetto Jazzerites.
To confuse matters further, the Evans and Catalano band was advertised as the Metropolitan Jaz-E-Saz Band when aboard the St. Paul on five excursions from St. Louis.
17. “Story of Emmet Hardy Told by New Orleans Musicians,” Down Beat, May 15, 1940, page 8.
18. “Evans’ Orchestra to Put 22 Number Program on Ether,” Daily Times (Davenport), January 14, 1925, page 18.
19. The technique is examined thoroughly by Bruce Vermazon in “A Floating Seminar: Louis Armstrong and Art Hickman’s Orchestra,” Vintage Jazz Mart, no. 180 (Spring 2018), pages 3-9.
20. The descriptions of Hardy’s style by Monk and Brownlee are from Sudhalter, Lost Chords, op. cit., page 55. The quotation from George Brunies is from an interview by William Russell on June 3, 1958, transcribed and held at the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, Tulane University.
21. Sudhalter, Richard M., Lost Chords, Oxford University Press (1999), page 53.
22. Vic Sell and the Original Capitol Orchestra are heard on Americans In Britain, 1920-1925, Retrieval (Eur) RTR79038 [CD].
23. Brownlee’s band is heard on The Complete Recordings Of Merritt Brunies Recorded In Chicago, 1924-1926, Jazz Oracle (Can) BDW8066 [CD].
24. “Capitol Jazz Band to Record Playing for the Phonograph,” Daily Times (Davenport), December 25, 1920, page 10.
25. Correspondence: Tal Sexton to Phil Evans. Phil and Linda Evans/Scott Black Collection and Elizabeth Beiderbecke Hart Collection from Bix Museum, Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center, Davenport Public Library, Davenport, Iowa.
26. “Week’s Happenings in Local Community,” Herald (New Orleans), December 23, 1920, page 1.
27. Correspondence: Tal Sexton to Phil Evans, op. cit.
28. “The Talk of the Town – A Burning Desire,” The New Yorker, November 2, 1963, page 38.
Leon Prima did not play with the Palmetto Jazzerites but he played the 1920-21 winter excursions on
the Capitol with four members of the Jazzerites.
29. Correspondence: Tal Sexton to Phil Evans, op. cit. Sexton mistakenly identified Louis Prima rather than Leon. Louis was Leon’s younger and eventually more famous brother.
30. Schiedt, Duncan, The Jazz State of Indiana, published in Pittsboro, Indiana (1977), page 72. Curt Hitch formed his jazz band no later than September of 1920. See “High School Pupils Planning a Dance,” Evansville Journal (Indiana), September 23, 1920, page 2.
31. National Museum of American History, Archives Center, Duncan P. Schiedt Photograph Collection, Series 2: Photographic Materials, Box 63, Item H -2590.
32. The story of Bee Palmer in Davenport appears in: Sudhalter, Richard M., and Evans, Philip R., Bix: Man and Legend, Arlington House (1974), pages 49, 344-345; Evans, Philip R., and Evans, Linda K., Bix: The Leon Bix Beiderbecke Story, Prelike Press (1998), page 57; Sudhalter, Richard M., Lost Chords, Oxford University Press (1999), pages 51-54; Lion, Jean-Pièrre, Bix: The Definitive Biography of a Jazz Legend, Continuum International Publishing (2005), page 23-24.
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.
