[Band members] Barney Bigard and Wellman Braud… [were both from New Orleans]… They would talk of Old Days, even before their time, calling names, very colorful names, like Buddy Bolden and King Oliver, and they would have a lot to say about the marching bands and the Second Line... Everything they talked about and played was the purest old jazz, and they were forever making comparisons between the New York cats and the jazz clan of New Orleans. It all sounded so good and so romantic that I was ready to catch the next train. Finally in the middle '30s we went to New Orleans, and it was very much like they had said, so we felt rather at home with the crayfish and gumbo… When Mr. Braud joined us in 1926, he was already a celebrated veteran of New Orleans jazz… He and Freddy Guy were the two Big Daddies. As a bass player, he believed in crowding the microphone, and when you got ready to blow a chorus Mr. Braud would already have established so compelling a beat that you could not miss. Barney Bigard joined us in 1927 when we augmented the band for the first engagement at the Cotton Club. I had heard him for the first time when he was playing for King Oliver in a battle of music with Fletcher Henderson at the Savoy. He is a very original and imaginative clarinet player, and he gave our band another of its distinctive sound identities. Like several of the best clarinet players from New Orleans, he was taught by Lorenzo Tio, Jr. He always played the Albert system, and he had that woody tone which I love on the instrument. He was invaluable for putting the filigree work into an arrangement, and sometimes it could remind you of all that delicate wrought iron you see in his hometown. << less