Paul Mares

Paul Mares ( born June 15, 1900 New Orleans, † August 18, 1949 in Chicago ) was an American jazz trumpeter (also cornet) and head of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings.

Mares came from a wealthy family of French descent. His father Joseph E. Mares had a fur trade and played cornet in the way of a military band. Paul Mares was a protégé of Papa Jack Laine and soon played with his childhood friends Abbie and George Brunies and Leon Roppolo, and in the band of Tom Brown. In 1919 he went to Chicago, where he played with George Brunies and " Tom Brown's Band from Dixieland ". After that he played with Brunies and Roppolo on paddle steamers on the Mississippi before 1921 assumed a commitment as a band in the " Friar's Inn " in Chicago. Under Mares as it were the famous New Orleans Rhythm Kings, who had great influence on the development of the Chicago jazz.

After the dissolution of the band in 1924 he returned to New Orleans back. Short term he formed the band with new Roppolo, but then got into the family business and only played jazz music on. The business prospered, and he could buy several houses. In his house was in 1929 a legendary jam session held between the musicians of Paul Whiteman's Orchestra with Bix Beiderbecke and New Orleanser jazz musicians. Mares also opened a restaurant "The New Orleans Bar -BQ " and the early 1930s, an offshoot Paul Mares New Orleans Barbeque in Chicago. The restaurant in New Orleans was a gathering of jazz musicians, which also jam sessions took place in which Mares occasionally starred. 1934/35 he took on again with newly launched Rhythm Kings (Paul Mares and his Friars Society Orchestra ) and with clarinetist Omer Simeon, Santo Pecora (trombone ) and the alto saxophonist Boyce Brown (who later became a monk ). During World War II he worked in a war plant. From 1945 he led a band again in the Chicago area. In 1949, he died of lung cancer.