Kid Thomas – Living New Orleans Jazz 1973 – Smoky Mary Phonograph Company – 1973

Kid Thomas Valentine was a New Orleans trumpet player. He’s not to be confused with Louis Thomas Watts who was also known as Kid Thomas. Kid Thomas Valentine and his band were pretty cool. There’s a joyfull exhuberance to the music. I love Kid Thomas. On this record he’s also joined by gospel singers Sister Annie Pavageau and Sister Alma Anderson.

I really can’t remember when or where I found this record. One of the cool things about it is that the cover is signed by Kid Thomas himself and by six other people. Some of those other autographs I can’t decipher and the ones I can didn’t play on the record. I’m presuming that they were in a band with Mr Thomas and an audience member bought the record at a gig they were playing at so they all just signed it anyway. One of the signatures reads “Dr. Paul Polo Barnes – jazzologist”. Polo Barnes was a jazz saxophinist and clarinetist who played a lot in the 20s and 30s. He died in 1981. On the subject of death, Kid Thomas passed on in 1987. Not many people make music like this anymore. In many ways jazz has become too highbrow lately. It’s lost the joy and freedom that it used to have.

I know very Little about the Smoky Mary Phonograph Company but I have one other album that was on that label. I think it is one of the coolest names ever for a record label.

I’m glad that I own this. With the old time musicians playing old 1920s style jazz in the 1970s and with their autographs on the cover it feels like a nice slice of history.