The autobiography of one of the foremost jazz clarinetists, well known for his recordings with Kid Ory and the Louis Armstrong All Stars, this book follows Joe Darensbourg's career from circus and medicine shows to his work with a variety of bands on the West Coast. It goes on to cover his lengthy affiliation with Kid Ory, and the complicated sequence of personnel changes during the ten years he worked with Ory's band at such venues as the Jade Club and Club Hangover.

Darensbourg gives a graphic account of the life of an itinerant musician around 1920, and provides unprecedented information about the development of jazz in Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In his later years, with Armstrong and with the Legends of Jazz, he toured the world and became one of the elder statesmen of jazz, internationally known, and honoured by his home state of Louisiana.

PETER VACHER is a well-known critic and writer on jazz. Since 1960 he has contributed to a number of leading jazz journals.

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