Red Man Blues
CD AZURE AZ-CD-13
Here’s another fine jazz recording to remember, enjoy, and celebrate because of its 100th birthday this March. Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra was well recorded in their hometown by Victor in 1925, with portable equipment.
The violin player Armand Piron came from a musical family, and as a band leader from 1910, he had several of the city’s great men in his ranks, such as Freddie Keppard and King Oliver on cornet. From about 1915, his lead trumpet player became Peter Bocage (except for a period when he played with Fate Marable and a short stint as the trombone player in the Piron orchestra).
They made successful trips to New York in the twenties, demonstrating their New Orleans sound, which was arranged music but different from the contemporary dance orchestras with more room for improvisation and a more rhythmic attitude in their ensemble playing.
Red Man Blues was, like many others of the orchestras recorded tunes, composed by Piron and Bocage in cooperation.