Lu Watters

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Lucius "Lu" Watters (born December 19, 1911 in Santa Cruz , † November 5, 1989 in Santa Rosa ) was an American jazz trumpeter of the New Orleans Jazz Revival in San Francisco , founder of the "Yerba Buena Jass Tape".

Live and act

Watters played the trumpet from the age of 12, attended St. Josephs Military Academy and the University of San Francisco on a music scholarship and had his first job on a cruise ship bound for China. He worked for Bob Crosby and then founded the "Yerba Buena Jass Band" in Oakland in 1939 , which played in the "Dawn Club" in San Francisco (Annie Street). Their role model was the Joe King Oliver 's Band with Louis Armstrong . With the very popular band he was a leader in the Dixieland Revival of the 1940s on the west coast, interrupted by his time in the Navy in World War II from 1942. Trombonist Turk Murphy (1915–1987), banjo player Joe Mordechai, played in the band . the drummer Bill Dart, the tuba player Dick Lammi, the second trumpeter Bob Scobey , the clarinetist Bob Helm , the singer and banjo player Clancy Hayes and the pianist Wally Rose and at times Dick Oxtot (Murphy, Scobey and Oxtot later founded their own bands). The band also played their own compositions by Watters (such as "Sage Hen Strut", "Big Bear Stomp", "Doin the Hambone" or "Antigua Blues", named after the ship on which he served in 1944). In 1950 Watters gave up the band and ended his career as a professional jazz musician in 1957 to study geology , which he taught at Sonoma State University in California (Rohnert Park). His main field of work was earthquake research, and on the occasion of campaigns against the construction of nuclear power plants on the San Andreas Fault , he again played with Turk Murphy at protests (1963). He was also the head chef in his own restaurant.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Yerba Buena is an island in the Bay of San Francisco and the first name of the city.
  2. ↑ At first they also played swing and dance music, which Watters gave up because "playing soft" ruined his lips, Time Magazine from 1946 .
  3. ↑ from 1947 in "Hambone Kelly's" in El Cerrito
personal data
SURNAME Watters, Lu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Watters, Lucius (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz trumpeter
DATE OF BIRTH December 19, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Santa Cruz
DATE OF DEATH 5th November 1989
Place of death Santa Rosa