Lu Watters And The Yerba Buena Jazz Band
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Biography
Lu Watters & the Yerba Buena Jazz Band is the name of an American traditional jazz revival band founded by Lu Watters in 1940. Yerba Buena was the original name of San Francisco, California. Notable members included singer and banjoist Clancy Hayes, clarinetist Bob Helm, trumpeter Bob Scobey, trombonist Turk Murphy, tubist/bassist Dick Lammi, and Watters himself.
In the late 1930s, cornetist Lu Watters was playing commercial dance gigs in the San Francisco area. He went on tour across America with the Carol Lofner big band. While in New Orleans, he became interested in traditional jazz. Back in California, he assembled jam sessions with Bill Dart, Clancy Hayes, Bob Helm, Dick Lammi, Turk Murphy, and Wally Rose to play traditional jazz. His rehearsal spot was the Big Bear Lodge on Redwood Road in the Oakland hills.
In 1938, he formed a band that included Hayes, Helm, Squire Gersh, Bob Scobey, and Russell Bennett. The band found steady work at Sweet's Ballroom in Oakland, slipping in pieces of traditional New Orleans jazz into the repertoire until Watters was fired.
In 1939, he established the Yerba Buena Jazz Band to revive the New Orleans jazz style of King Oliver, adding trombone player Turk Murphy. (Yerba Buena was the first name of San Francisco.) He brought in pianist Forrest Browne, who taught the band music by Jelly Roll Morton. Watters wrote music and arrangements to add to the traditional repertoire. The band performed at the Dawn Club in San Francisco, where it "began a phenomenally successful career as Americaâs first real revivalist band." It went on hiatus in 1942 when Watters entered the U.S. Navy but reunited at the Dawn Club after World War II.
After the Dawn closed in 1947, the band started the club Hambone Kelly's in El Cerrito, California. In 1949 the band performed with visiting musicians Kid Ory, James P. Johnson, and Mutt Carey. After Hambone Kelly's closed, the band broke up in 1950.
By 1959 the band had lost two key players, Bob Scobey and Turk Murphy, who had gone on their own. Watters ended the Yerba Vista Jazz Band. The Rough Guide concludes: â(they) had gone about as far as they could go: the revival had been launched worldwide and they had broadcast and recorded regularly for ten years.â
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Albums
Top Tracks
- Track Popularity
- Ory's Creole Trombone
- Yerba Buena Strut
- Riverside Blues
- Muskrat Ramble
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- Memphis Blues
- Chattanooga Stomp
- Cake Walking Babies From Home
- I'm Goin' Huntin'
- Triangle Jazz Blues
- Original Jelly Roll Blues
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- Emperor Norton's Hunch
- Beale Street Blues
- Get It Right
- Weary Blues
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- Oriental Strut
- Maple Leaf Rag
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- Annie Street Rock
- Pastime Rag No. 5
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