Musicians and their cohorts nicknamed “Kid” in New Orleans & Louisiana

[Johnny] Kid or Kid Chocolate Alcindor, tap dancer
He performed dance steps of Bojangles Robinson in the Palace Theatre revue in 1937, with New Orleans’ contralto and soubrette Blanche Thompson and the comedy team of Lollypop and Cream Puff. 

[Joseph] Kid Avery (Oct. 3, 1892 – Dec. 9, 1955) trombone
Born in Waggeman, Louisiaa, he played with two bands from Crowley, Louisiana: The Black Eagles Band with Evan & Walter Thomas, Bunk Johnson, George Lewis, & Lawrence Duhe among others, and the Yelpin’ Hounds, which included Quintard Miller on violin. He played with the Young Tuxedo Brass Band in New Orleans until World War II. He recorded in a band with Kid Clayton and others in 1952 and for Southland Records in 1954.

Blaise, [Ed] Kid Totts (ca .1895 – ca. 1944) drums
Totts was active before World War I with bands led by Jack Laine, Frank Christian, and Bill Gallaty. Al Rose includes a 1915 photo of Christian’s Ragtime Band from 1915 that includes Kid Totts.

Kid Brown
A “famous parachuter” who owned a honky-tonk at the corner of Gravier & Franklin, with a piano and dance floor, near Louis Armstrong’s childhood home and where Armstrong first heard Sidney Bechet play clarinet.

[Joseph] Kid Twat Butler, bass
(Dec. 26, 1905 – June 19, 1982)
Born in Algiers and a childhood friend of  Henry “Red” Allen, he began playing professionally with Raymond Brown’s band in Grand Isle. He also worked with  Nolan “Shine” Williams,  Sam Morgan’s Jazz Band, A. J. Piron, Sidney Desvigne, and Papa Celestin. 

During the 1960s Butler was a regular performer at Preservation Hall with Kid Thomas, Sweet Emma Barrett, and others. 

He’s part of a group interview with the Pierce Band in 1963 that you can listen to online.

[Jimmy] Kid Clayton(1902 – Dec. 17. 1963) trumpet. 
Listen to him being interviewed, courtesy of Music Rising, Hogan Jazz Archives, Tulane University, New Orleans.
    Born in Jasper Co. Mississippi, Clayton & family relocated to New Orleeans in 1905, where he took lessons from Prof. Jim Humphrey. He played with the Humphrey Brothers band as early as 1917 and then with Jack Carey’s band. In 1922,he  traveled with Mack’s Merrymakers, and then, back in New Orleans, formed Kid Clayton & His Happy Pals, which played locally from 1925 into the early ’30s gig at the Humminbird Cabaret. During the Depression, he joined the WPA band, after which he played regular gigs at Mama Lou’s with His Happy Pals. Affter World War II, he  gigged with different different bands and in 1952 recorded in a band that included Joe “Kid” Avery on trombone and Sweet Emma Barrrett piano.

[George] Kid Sheik Colar (1908-1996), trumpet. 
Also known as Kid Cola. He learned trumpet from Wooden Joe Nicholas and began playing professionally in 1923. His first mouth piece was a kazoo. He also played in Kid Rena’s marching band and Eureka Brass Band. He continued to play in New Orleans bands through the 1980s, often at Preservation Hall.

 [Wesley] Kid Dimes
Had his own band; was killed in Baton Rouge, “a good trumpet player,” Harold Dejan said.

Kid Green
An ex-prize fighter who  ran a hotel at Rampart & Lafayette streets, Green was a friend of Louis Armstrong’s and would make available to him a room whenever he needed it for  entertaining. Armstrong recalled that he had “so much gold in his mouth they called him Klondike.”

Kid Harris (b. about 1906) trumpet
Trumpeter whose band was the first that Louis Nelson played with after moving to New Orleans about 1920. Nelson, who subsequently played trombone with Sidney Desvigne’s orchestra on the riverboats for several years, also played in bands led Kid Rena and Kid Thomas. About 1926, Kid Harris introduced Lee Collins to Mazie, who became one of Lee Collins’ New Orleans girl friends. Perhaps he is the “Kid Harrison” identified by Al Rose in a January 1935 photo of the New Orleans ERA band.

 [Avery] Kid Howard, trumpet
Cobojo in 1939 called him “the Louis Armstrong of the South.” Also played drums early on with Harold & Leo Dejan.

[Louis] Kid Shots Madison (Feb. 19, 1899 – Sept. 1948) trumpet
Al Rose notes that he was “a fellow inmatem with Louis Armstrong and Kid Rena, of the Waif’s Home in New Orleans.” William Ridgley said, “Shots is very good and sweet, and on ragtime he had a good touch. They always asked Shots to play the blues and ‘Careless Love.'” He also played with  the Eureka Brass Band, with WPA band, and Ridgley’s & Papa Celestin’s Tuxedo Jazz Bamds

[Ernest] Kid Punch Miller, trumpet
From Raceland, he quickly became popular in New Orleans after moving there in 1919, where he performed and was called Kid Punch by Kid Clayton although more generally known as Punch Miller. He moved to Chicago in 1927 and returned to New Orleans during the 1940s and performed regularly at Preservation Hall during the 1950s. He played with Jack Carey before World War I, during which he played bugle and after it trumpet with Jelly Roll Morton, Fate Marable, and George Lewis.

[Ernest] Kid Milton (June 14, 1905? Rose: ca. 1895] trumpet, drums
Milton played trumpet in his New Orleans band that in 1920 included guitarist Ike Robinson; John Casimir, clarinet; Joe Casimir, drums; and either Willie Newton or Wooden Joe Nicholas on bass. He played drums in his 1932 Nw Orleans band that included Ike Robinson on trombone; Lawrence Tocca, trumpet; and Johnny Dave, banjo. 

[Ernest] Kid Moliere (b. ca. 1902) clarinet
Leo Dejan said he was “the son of old man Paul Moliere” and brother of drummer Paul Moliere, and had an act in which he took his clarinet apart piece by piece down to the mouthpiece while still playing it. He toured the Southwest with Nat Towles’ Creole Harmony Kings in the early 1920s.

[Edward] Kid Ory, trombone
Ory and his band, from LaPlace, “took New Orleans by storm” about 1907, said Welman Braud.
Louis Armstrong’s first good gig was with him before Armstrong went to Chicago in 1922. Alvin Alcorn said he “didn’t have great range but a big tone.” John Casimir recalled that he and Johnny Dodds would play all day long for funerals and parades. Danny Barker said he was the “acknowledged king of trombone, as accepted by serious New Orleans jazz lovers,” that he was “sharp-witted and clever.”

Music Rising at Tulane has an interview with Ory and Manuel “Fess” Manetta from 1958 that has with it a printed summary and a terrific sound recording you can easily listen to on line.

[Henry] Kid Rena (1898- 1949) trumpet, aka Little Turk
Harold Dejan said he was “the best,” and that he “always came out well” in musical battles; he was also  in waif’s home with Louis Armstrong,

[Thomas] Kid Reel
From Reserve, La., he played with a Dejan band.

 [Thomas] Kid Valentine (1896 – 1987) trumpet
The New York Times called him “the last of the rough house trumpet players.” Music Rising at Tulane has 7 interviews with Valentine that are easy to listen to online.

Kid Victor, trumpet
From Baton Rouge 

[Eddie] Kid Wallace, comedian
Formerly with the Bronze Manikins, he was “a fine comedian” who worked in the 1938 Palace Theatre Revue, with Lollypop and Cream Puff and the dance team of Boo & Zigaboo.

• • •

Sources
Alcorn, Alvin. Interview by Richard B. Allen & Marjorie T. Zander. New Orleans: Nov. 30, 1960 . Hogan Jazz Archives, Tulane University, New Orleans.

Alexander, Adolphe “Tats.” Interview by William Russell & Harold Dejan. New Orleans: Mar 8, 1961. Nov. 30, 1960 . Hogan Jazz Archives, Tulane University, New Orleans.

Armstrong, Louis. Statchmo: My Life in New Orleans. 1954. New York: Da Capo P, 1986.

Barker, Danny. A Life in Jazz. 1986. New Orleans: Historic New Orleans Collection. 2016.

Beaux, McNeal. Interview by Richard B. Allen & William Russell.  New Orleans: 24 Nov. 1958. Hogan Jazz Archives, Tulane University, New Orleans.

Braud, Wellman. Interview by William Russell et al. New Orleans: 31 Mar. 1958. Hogan Jazz Archives, Tulane University, New Orleans.

Casimir, John. Interview by William Russell. New Orleans: 17 Jan. 1959. Hogan Jazz Archives, Tulane University, New Orleans.

Charters, Samuel B. Jazz New Orleans: 1885-1963. 1958. New York: Oak, 1963.

Cobojo. “Out on the Limb.” Louisiana  Weekly 9 Dec. 1939: 6.

Collins, Lee, as told to Mary Collins. Oh, Didn’t He Ramble: The  Life Story of Lee Collins. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1989.

Davis, Uncle Dave. “Henry ‘Kid’ Rena.” Syncopated Times. June 2023. syncopatedtimes.org. 20 June 2023.

Dejan, Harold. Interview by William Russell. New Orleans: Oct 14 1960. Hogan Jazz Archives, Tulane University, New Orleans.

Hobbs, Holly, “Kid Clayton.” 64Parishes.org. 8 Oct. 2024.

Kennedy, Al. Chord Changes on the Chalkboard: How Public School Teachers Shaped Jazz and the Music of New Orleans. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2002.

“Kid Thomas Valentine, Jazz Band Trumpeter.” New York Times. 19 June 1987. nytimes.com. 7 July 2023.

Nelson, Louis. Interview by William Russell and Ralph Collins. New Orleans: 18 Apr. 1960. Hogan Jazz Archives, Tulane University, New Orleans.

Newhart, Sally. The Original Tuxedo Jazz Band: More than a Century of a New Orleans Icon. Charleston, SC. History P, 2013.

Ridgley, William. Interview by William Russell and Ralph Collins, New Orleans: June 2, 1959. Hogan Jazz Archives, Tulane University, New Orleans.

Rose, Al. New Orleans Jazz: A Family Album. 1967. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1978.

Sonnier, Jr. Austin. Second Linin’: Jazzmen of Southwest Louisiana, 1900-1950. Lafayette, LA: Center for Louisiana Studies, U of Southwestern Louisiana.

—. Willie Geary “Bunk” Johnson. NY: Crescendo, 1977.

November 23, 2024