Overview

Step backstage in this look at little-known and utterly fascinating aspects of Jazz Age Louisiana. New Orleans' early jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory and Buddy Bolden had fascinating careers, but Hidden History of Louisiana's Jazz Age is filled with tales of murder, lust and adventure. Clarinetist Joe Darensbourg of Baton Rouge ran away and joined the circus three times before the age of 20. The Martel Band of Opelousas witnessed a legal public hanging of a convicted serial murderer in 1923 Evangeline Parish. Trumpeter Evan Thomas of Crowley could have been a rival to Satchmo but was cut down on the bandstand in the Promised Land neighborhood of Rayne, La. Author Sam Irwin explores the odd and quirky in these fascinating stories of the Roaring Twenties.

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9781467153423

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Sam Irwin is the trumpet bandleader of the Florida Street Blowhards, a Baton Rouge-based traditional jazz band. A public relations professional and freelance journalist, Irwin has been writing about Louisiana for the last two decades. He grew up in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, the Crawfish Capital of the World, and wrote about that experience in Louisiana Crawfish: A Succulent History of the Cajun Crustacean in 2014. He followed that book up with It Happens in Louisiana: Peculiar Tales, Traditions and Recipes from the Bayou in 2015. He is a former music major at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

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