Jelly Roll Morton Poor Alfred Wilson
Poor Alfred Wil, Wilson smoked so much dope till he
died. Albert Carroll, he was known as the greatest show
player that ever was in existence, as I can remember. I
don’t know if Albert Carroll ever did smoke any dope,
but he was a great gambler and he’d stay up all night.
He was always fat and sound. He had very bad eyes, he
would always squinch ‘em all the time.
I can plainly say this for Tony Jackson. I don’t
remember at any time that anybody ever stated that Tony
used any dope. Er, for your information I will try to
play one of, er, Tony Jackson’s fast speed tunes like
he used to play years ago.
Naked Dance
Tony used to play these things for what, er, in the
sporting houses, for what they called the “naked
dances.” Of course, they were naked dances all right,
because they absolutely was stripped.
[inaudible comments]
They were stripped. Of course, a naked dance was
something that, er, was supposed to be real art in New
Orleans. And, er, that was one of the tunes I guess we
all played, but we always accredited Tony Jackson to be
the best player of this type of a tune.
Of course, there were many houses in New Orleans. The
District there was considered the second to France,
meaning the second greatest in the world, with
extensions for blocks and blocks, on one side of the
north side of Canal Street, which is supposed to be the
highest class — although the highest class district ran
from the lowest to the highest, meaning in price and
calibre alike.
We had a uptown side of the District, which was
considered very big, but the price was pretty much even
all the way round. And of course they turned out a many
different artists in that section, but never the first-
class artist, because the money wasn’t there.
Well, what were some of tunes they used to play down in
the lower-class district?
Well, they played, for an instant, around the honky
tonks like, er, like Kaiser’s honky tonk, and the Red
Onion and Spano’s. Those were honky tonks. I’ll tell
you the fact about it, I, I don’t think some of those
places were swept up in months. And they’d have a
gambling house in the back there. Of course, every
place had a gambling house in New Orleans because the
doors were taken off the saloons from one year to the
other.
Of course, I don’t know any time that the racetracks
ever closed down. They’d have a hundred days of races
at the City Park and the minute they’d close down, the
next day they would be at the Fair Grounds for a
hundred days.
So that would have a continuous . . . a continuous
racing season in New Orleans, which meants three
hundred and sixty-five days a year. So gambling was
always wide open.
These honky tonks had these dirty, filthy places where
they gambled, and they had a lot of rough people that
would fight and do anything else. It was really
dangerous to anybody that would go in there that didn’t
know what it was all about. And they always had an old
broke-down piano with some inferior pianist. And they
would play something like this.
