Biography
Alphonse Picou’s extensive involvement in jazz stretched back to its earliest days, yet he had reached only 82 at the time of his death. He began on guitar at age 14 and switched to clarinet the next year, already earning professional engagements by 1894 and thereby standing among the music’s originators. Equally comfortable in ensembles that relied on written arrangements and those built around spontaneous improvisation, Picou created the piccolo solo on “High Society,” first worked out during his time with the Tuxedo Brass Band and possibly influenced by an idea from George Baquet; that solo became the earliest well-known fixed chorus in jazz and remains in use whenever the piece is performed. In 1897 he organized the Independence Band, and over the following decades he appeared alongside virtually every major New Orleans jazz figure, among them Freddie Keppard, Bunk Johnson, and Manuel Perez. Picou spent the years 1914–18 in Chicago before settling once more in New Orleans for good. Throughout the Depression he held a daytime job as a tinsmith while restricting his music to evenings and weekends. His first recordings occurred in 1940 with Kid Rena, on whose technically limited sides Picou’s playing stood out; later in the decade he became a steady member of Oscar “Papa” Celestin’s ensemble. Although he never headed a recording session under his own name, Picou was captured at his strongest during Celestin’s performances, broadcasts, and studio dates, even while in his early seventies. Following Celestin’s death, Picou led his own band at New Orleans’ Paddock club and continued working steadily until shortly before his own passing, thereby serving as one of the final direct connections to Buddy Bolden’s era.