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Allen Kimble, Jr.

I am old school, a product of the mid-20th Century when music was pure and unadulterated.

About Me

At this advanced age of sixty-three, I feel privileged to have been born during one of the most exciting periods in music. I can almost boast about being born simultaneously with the birth of modern Jazz.

With the end of World War 2, hundreds of thousands of American Servicemen returned home, thus the baby boomers was born. Almost at exactly the same time, America experienced incredible growth and development in all phases of life. None so more than in all forms of popular music.

With research and development freed up from making technologies of war, incredible advances were made in Hi Fidelity recording and other forms of portable listening devices. Almost overnight all kinds of high quality music could be heard all over the place with the advent of the portable radio.

It was in that environment that I was born and grew up. Consequently, I got to know , love and appreciate Jazz at a very early age.

My Jazz Story

My love for Jazz can be traced to my having been born in New Orleans where everything that moves seem to do so with a kind of rhythm. And then I married into to the family of The Late Captain Joseph and Manuella Duplessis Jones. Though historians tend to breeze by their names, their contribution to Jazz as we know it is immeasurable. It was Captain and his wife who took Louie into their the "Colored Weif Home" when Louie was a wayward youth. With the help of Mr. Peter Davis, another overlooked contributor, young Louis Armstrong almost assuredly would not have been introduced to music. I was also exposed to Jazz at an early age because my cousin Walter Kimble, aka Shane, who was a very talented and versatile musician who played with Fats Domino. During the mid 1950's in New Orleans, music was so much apart of the lives of our citizens that it literally drifted through the air like invisible smoke. There were also those spontaneous Second Lines which popped up without a moments notice. FAST FORWARD 50 Years: A few month prior to this post, I ran into Fats Domino who has a home in the Lower 9th Ward where I life. Fats still has a recording studio on Caffin Avenue, though it is not used anymore. The best free Jazz shows in town happens at the corners of Canal and Bourbon streets. My particular favorite is a Brass Band named "To Be Continued". The first jazz records I bought was by "Duke Ellington" and "COUNT BASIE". BE WARNED! Come to New Orleans and devour as much of her as you can because the Winds of Change have blown through my city and the Seeds of change have taken root. It is my belief that in as little a five years, the New Orleans that I know will no longer exist but will have been replaced by a "new" New Orleans. That being said,the current crop of seasoned musicians in the pipeline now are the last of the true New Orleans jazz musicians who have connections to music before the flood.