54: The Autobiography of Pops Foster New Orleans Jazzman, as told to Tom Stoddard

Excellent.

It starts off a little slow, but picks up nicely. Many interesting observations on New Orleans jazz.

There are some interesting linguistic bits, like this explanation of the idiom "every tub" (page 14):

The food was mostly every tub; that means everybody takes what he wants and waits on himself.

Or this mention of "cracker" (used for a very light African-American, not a caucasian) in the 1920's (page 90):

Tom Turpin was a cracker—that's what we called a very light-colored person back then.

On page 94, this amusing idiom while talking about kazoo mutes that Oliver had invented and used:

Those babies sold like a house on fire all over the country, and Joe didn't get nothing for it.

And sometime between 1917 and 1919 (on page 119):

Captain Johnny Streckfus came up with a name for us—the Jazz Syncopators. That's the first time I heard the name jazz.

Apart from all the linguistic fun, there's, unsurprisingly, musical fun.

Several times, Foster mentions how black New Orleans bands used to play softly, in contrast to white bands and modern bands. On page 63:

The guys called Dixieland players today think the louder you play, the better you are. Most of them are just loud. Back in the early days we used to play soft and hot. Most of the time it was so quiet you could hear the people's feet shufflin' on the floor.

On page 90:

When the white boys started playing [jazz] they thought it had to be played fast and loud. Joe Oliver and Manuel Perez used to play together with the Magnolia Band in a little small room and didn't blast anybody out. Nowadays you've got to stand back from the band or get your ears blown out.

And on page 166, on Luis Russell's band in New York at the Roseland Ballroom in 1929:

The rhythm was playing great together, and the trumpet players were screaming soft so you could hear the people's feet scraping on the floor. You could stand right in front of the band and they weren't blasting you out.

On soli (page 91):

In the early days, when you had a solo, the other instruments were always doing something behind the solo. None of the guys took their horns down for a chorus to let another guy play a solo. When the band knocked off, the whole band romped on a tune from your left hand to your right corner. The music was written so you couldn't take down your horn. You could take your horn down to dry your lip, but you took it right up again. If any of the instruments would quite playing, the manager or whoever hired you would come right over and say, "What's the matter with that guy, is he tired?" or, "Your lip sore, man?" In those days we all sat on stools or chairs so we didn't get so tired of standing like you do today. About 1920 or '21 guys started taking down their horns after they'd blown a chorus. Now the rhythm guys are the only ones who work hard. They play all the way through, and the bass player stands up all the time.

And on the earliest snare drums in New Orleans (page 91):

The first snare drum I saw in the bands were the bodies of five string banjos. The guys would cut the neck of a banjo, lay it down on a chair, and beat it. They didn't have no stands.

On tuning (page 92):

When I start playing a number I don't tune up before a number, I wait till the number gets started then I play while I tune when I need.

On page 75 Foster explicitly mentions that he played the string bass in funeral parades. I am having trouble picturing how this would work. Did he carry it to a spot, play while standing still, pick it up again, etc.? Surely he couldn't play it while walking, could he? And this, to me startling, bit:

I think the Black and Tan Band made some records around L.A. before Ory did, and I think Curtis Mosby played drums on the records.

I can't find any mention of these presumed recordings online. Oh, grief.