Marable’s Capitol Review-Marable’s Waltz Review, 1920. The William Russell Jazz Collection at the Historic New Orleans Collection, acquisition made possible by the Clarisse Claiborne Grima Fund
Older New Orleanians may recall good times dancing aboard the old S.S. President riverboat docked at the foot of Canal Street from the 1940s to the 1980s. Before the President, however, there was the S.S. Capitol, the largest excursion boat in the Streckfus Steamboat line. For years, the Capitol, featuring some of the best-known New Orleans jazz musicians, delighted audiences in towns up and down the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.
Seen here aboard the Capitol in 1920 is Marable’s Capitol Review/Marable’s Waltz Review Orchestra with band leader Fate Marable on piano and, from left to right, bass-player Henry Kimball, Boyd Atkins on violin, Johnny St. Cyr and his banjo, saxophonists David Jones and Norman Mason, Louis Armstrong on cornet, trombonist George Brahear, and Warren “Baby” Dobbs, often described as the greatest jazz drummers of all time.
By 1920, the 19-year-old Armstrong, known around New Orleans as “Little Louis” by other musicians, had become one of the city’s most popular cornetist. In 1918 he replaced King Oliver in Kid Ory’s band when Oliver moved up to Chicago. Then in 1920 along came Fate Marable who lured Armstrong away from Kid Ory.
“When he (Marable) asked me to join his orchestra I jumped at the opportunity,” noted Armstrong in his 1954 autobiography “Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans.” “It meant a great advancement in my musical career because he had his own way of dealing with his musicians. If one of us made an error or played part of a piece wrong he would not say a thing about it until everyone thought it had been forgotten. When you came to work the next day with a bad hangover from the night before, he picked up the music you had failed with and because his musicians had to read music perfectly. Kid Ory’s men did not. Later on, I found Fate knew all this when he hired me, but he liked my tone and the way I could catch on…Within no time at all I was reading everything he put before me.”
Joining Marable meant Armstrong had to move to St. Louis, the base port for the S.S. Capitol and headquarters of the Streckfus line. Though nervous about leaving his hometown, Armstrong welcomed the opportunity to broaden his career.
In his autobiography, Armstrong reflected upon his first night in St. Louis. “I was amazed by Saint Louis and its tall buildings,” he recalled. “There was nothing like that in my home town, and I could not imagine what they were all for. I wanted to ask someone badly, but I was afraid I would be kidded for being so dumb.”
Armstrong also addressed a darker issue in his autobiography.
“Marable’s Band deserves credit for breaking down a few barriers on the Mississippi — barriers set up by Jim Crow,” he wrote. “We were the first colored band to play most of the towns at which we stopped, particularly the smaller ones. The ofays were not used to seeing colored boys blowing horns and making fine music for them to dance by. At first. we ran into some ugly experiences while we were on the bandstand, and we had to listen to plenty of nasty remarks. But most of us were from the South anyway. We were used to that kind of jive, and we would just keep on swinging as though nothing had happened. Before the evening was over, they loved us. We couldn’t turn for them singing our praises and begging us to hurry back.”
In 1922 Armstrong left Marable to join King Oliver’s band in Chicago. Satchmo was now on his way to becoming one of the most popular figures in American music and entertainment history. He died in 1971. As to the SS Capitol, once the queen riverboat in the Streckfus line, it made its last voyage in 1945 — to a salvage yard in St. Louis.
