The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • 70

0 THE NEW ORLEANS RHYTHM KINGS, pictured above as they looked about 1921, were the most famous band in which Lou Black played. From left, they were George Grunis, trombone; Paul Mares, trumpet; Ben Pollack, drums; Leon Rappola, clarinet; Mel Stitzel, piano; Vollie DeFault, saxophone, Black, banjo, and Steve Brown, bass fiddle. Dixieland in the Quad-Cities Old Rhythm King Lou Black Beats the Dust Off His Banjo By Gene Raffensperger PHE MUSIC world, particularly that segment that reveres Dixieland, had given up Lou Black for dead. Indeed many of the famous contemporaries of his era were dead. Black, who was born and reared in Rock Island, 111., was and is one of the great banjo players.

In an era when the banjo was a solid rhythm instrument, Black was a star on a Mississippi River boat. He played in the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, top drawer in the music world of the Roaring 20's. Black was a friend of the immortal Leon "Bix" Bcidcrbccke, the cornet player from Davenport. He also played with Jelly Roll Morton, Leon Rappola and other greats of the jazz era. A fan once said of Lou Black, "He's got paws like a bear, but he picks th.it banjo with a feather." A music critic who heard Blck play many times wrote a Dixieland man first last and always.

It comes out no matter what he plays." But at age 30, in the prime of his career, Black put down his banjo. He was disgruntled with the turn of music. He watched the guitar and bass replace the banjo in bands. Sadly he saw his beloved cry. I can't help but think of all the fellows who can't be here to play again.

My fingers don't do what they used to, but my mind knows more." They still remember Lou Black in New York and Chicago, too. Thanks to urging by his friend and hunting companion, Vance Bourjaily, novelist and assistant English professor at the State University of Iowa, Black returned to New York. He made oral tapes for a jazz buff who is writing of the era. He sat in with the band at Bourbon Street, and played until 4 a.m. when the audience would not stop calling for more.

He would like to make a record or two, but he will not again make music his fulltime career. "Nothing is sadder than an old hasbeen trying to make a comeback," he feels. Then why did he come back as he has? "The banjo has been maligned for a long time and I want to prove it doesn't deserve that. A lot of years in my life went to waste. I don't suppose I could have kept the banjo alive, but I didn't help things by quitting.

When I first started to play the banjo I had an insatiable desire to be the best. I suppose now I'd just like to prove I can still do it." banjo laughed off the center stage to become in his words "a taxi driver's instrument." So Black carved out a new career as a salesman, and his banjo gathered dust in his home in Rock Island. A year ago the daughter of an old friend came to him and asked to learn the banjo. "I told her I didn't want to play," said Black, now 62. "I was done.

I hadn't played for 30 years. I had nothing to play for." But the young woman persisted. "I began to play a little more all the time," Black now recalls. "I realized that something had gone out of my life and now it was coming back." Black on banjo, and two friends, Lee Stoeteray on piano, Bert Kells on saxophone, were booked into the Holiday Inn in Moline, late last summer. They are still there, playing two nights a week.

Sitting on that stand some of the old magic returned to Black's fingers and gave life to the Dixieland beat in, "That's a Plenty," "Bill Bailey" and others. The applause washed over him again as it had done 30 years ago. They hadn't forgotten Lou Black at all, and a whole new generation had newly found him. 'Tm getting a tremendous kick out of this," says Black. "But sometimes it makes me want to PAGE 12 DES MOINES SUNDAY REGISTER JANUARY 12, 1964.