Eureka Brass Band

by Bruce EderThe Eureka Brass Band dates from 1920, when it was organized by clarinetist Willie Parker -- he reportedly chose the name under the inspiration of some acquaintances from the West Indies, who had a band they called the Eureka, as related by Richard Knowles in his 1996 history of New Orleans brass bands. The group's most famous leader was trumpet man Percy Humphrey, from 1946 onward. They recorded at various times for Pax, Alamac, Folkways, Jazzology, and Sounds of New Orleans, and it was under his leadership (with his brother Willie Humphrey on clarinet) that the group cut what were probably their most commercially successful sides, for Atlantic Records in 1962, which resulted in the Jazz at Preservation Hall, Vol. 1: The Eureka Brass Band of New Orleans. The members during that period also included Kid Sheik Colar and Pete Bocage on trumpets, Albert Warner and Oscar "Chicken" Henry on trombones, Emmanuel Paul on tenor sax, Wilbert "Bird" Tillman on sousaphone, Josiah "Cie" Frasier on the snare drum, and Robert "Son Fewclothes" Lewis on the bass drum.