Lu Watters

Lucius " Lu " Watters (* December 19, 1911 in Santa Cruz, † November 5, 1989 in Santa Rosa ) was an American jazz trumpeter of the New Orleans jazz revival in San Francisco, founder of the " Yerba Buena Jass band ".

Watters played trumpet from age 11, attended St. Joseph's Military Academy and the University of San Francisco with a music scholarship and had his first job on a cruise ship in the direction of China. He worked with Bob Crosby and then founded in 1939, the " Yerba Buena Jass Band" in Oakland, playing in the "Dawn Club" in San Francisco ( Annie Street). Their model was the Joe King Oliver's band with Louis Armstrong. With the very popular band he was a leader in the Dixieland revival of the 1940s on the west coast, interrupted by his time in the Navy during World War II from 1942. 's Band trombonist Turk Murphy ( 1915-1987 ), the banjo player Joe Mordecai played, the drummer Bill Dart, the tuba player Dick Lammi, trumpeter Bob Scobey, the second, the clarinetist Bob Helm, singer and banjo player Clancy Hayes and pianist Wally Rose ( Murphy and Scobey later founded his own bands ). The band also played their own compositions from Watters ( such as " Sage Hen Strut ", " Big Bear Stomp ", " Doin ' the Hambone " or " Antigua Blues", named after the ship on which he served in 1944 ). 1950 Watters gave up the band and ended his career in 1957 as a professional jazz musician to study geology, which he taught at Sonoma State University in California ( Rohnert Park ). His main area of ​​work was the earthquake research, and on the occasion of campaigns against the construction of nuclear power plants on the St. Andrew's column, he also played back with Turk Murphy on protest events ( 1963). In addition, he was a chef in a restaurant.