Miserere Lyrics

Of course, that was the type of number that, er, the
type of number that they used to play in the French
Opera House. And it was one of the tunes that, er, has
always lived in my mind as one of the great favourites
of the opera singers. I’ll tell you the truth, of
course. I transformed a lot of those numbers into jazz
time. And from time to time — for an instance, “Sextet”
from Lucia — of course there’s a little . . . different
little variations and ideas in it . . . no doubt would
have a, a tendency to detract, or to masquerade the
tunes.

As I mentioned before, that my name was Lamothe.
Lamothe was really my name. But father wanted me to be
a hard-working boy. He wanted me to, er, work in the
bricklayer trade. He wanted to pay me two dollars a day
as a foreman. I decided after I learned to play music
that I could make more money, which I interceded.

In my younger days I was brought in to the Tenderloin
District by friends — young friends, of course — even
before we were in long pants. We used to steal long
pants from around the fathers and brothers and uncles
and so forth and so on.

Could you go down there before you had long pants on?

No, why, the policemen would run you right in jail.
They’d run you ragged. I remember Fast Mail very well.
Fast Mail was his — known to be Fast Mail because he
had two legs and feet that couldn’t be beat. Of course,
we kids from time to time would climb those eight and
ten board, er, ten feet-high board fences. We’d really
climb ‘em and get away from these people, but they kept
us right out of the District. Take the straps on the end of the clubs and . . . and just make switches out
of ‘em — cut our legs into ribbons. I was very
frightened, I was very much frightened.

I happened to invade that section, one of the sections
of the District where the birth of jazz originated.

Where was this, and how old were you?

Er, at that time, er, that was the year of nineteen-
two. I was about seventeen years old. I happened to go
to Villere and Bienville, at that time one of the most
famous nightspots after everything was closed. No, only
a backroom, where all the greatest pianists frequented
after they got off from work. All the pianists got off
from work in the sporting houses at around four or
after, unless they had plenty of money involved. And
they would go to this Frenchman’s — that was the name
of the place — saloon. And there would be everything in
the line of hilarity there. They would have even
millionaires come to listen to the different great
pianists, what would no doubt be their favourites maybe
among ‘em.

Note: Jelly Roll’s recollection of The Frenchman’s was
accurate and its existence was confirmed by Sammy Davis
in the late 1940s, even before he had heard the very
limited release Circle Library of Congress recordings.
Nevertheless, the proprietor of the saloon remained a
mystery, recognized only by the nationality of his
birthplace. In early 2003, Lawrence Gushee’s search of
the 1910 census records for Bienville Street revealed
that John (Jean) Laban was indeed The Frenchman.

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